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In the Media
The Australian - Tuscan dream
A historic estate in Italy provides a place to stay amid splendid gardens, reports Lenore Nicklin | February 14, 2009 Article from: The Australian
"One of our most surprising discoveries is John Bird, an urbane 63 Australian who lives in a two-bedroom apartment in Castelluccio. He was once a hairdresser and tended the tresses of New York princesses and real ones in Paris. After visiting Tuscany for more than 20 years and staying for long periods, he decided to make it his base. "Friends suggested I use my talents and local knowledge to assist guests who were staying in the villas," he says. So I started a little company called Tuscan Events but it's only me." Australian travellers pass his name around as if giving you a special gift. You want to be picked up at your Rome hotel and be driven to Tuscany? Bird is your man and he will know just the trattoria in which to have lunch along the way, and which wine to order.
You want to arrange a wedding for 100 guests in one of the larger and more luxurious villas in the area? (There is such a wedding while we are at La Foce.) Bird knows who should make the wedding cake (there's a wonderful cake shop in Orvieto), who should cater, who should provide the marquees, where to buy the wine. "I put it together," he explains. He is driver and guide (though not an official one) and cook.
The day we have nine people to lunch, including the venerable artist Jeffrey Smart, Bird prepares the meal for us. There's antipasti, roast pork on a bed of prunes and leeks, potatoes roasted with the rosemary growing everywhere in the garden, local wines and cheeses and a crostata, an openfaced pie filled with fruit and custard. The nun's thighs are not in season.
In our hired sevenseater we take off most days to explore the surrounding hilltop towns, many of which date back to Etruscan times. Often a single cypress tree will crown a hilltop, while others run along dusty country roads with geometrical precision. We inspect faded frescoes in ancient churches and dine in flowerfilled piazzas. Strict building laws mean that this part of Tuscany looks much as it did hundreds of years ago. When foreigners (mostly English) buy abandoned farmhouses, they must restore them to their original appearance. Even the same bricks must be used.
"We wait until a deserted farmhouse has totally collapsed and then go and pinch the bricks, which we can then use," says a resident Englishwoman. "Tuscany is now very overpriced," says Bird.
One day we drive to Orvieto in Umbria to visit one of Italy's greatest cathedrals. It dates from the 13th century and the brilliant frescoes in the chapels are generally acknowledged to be the inspiration for Michelangelo's Last Judgment. We put coins in the box to illuminate the awesome Resurrection of the Dead. Hundreds of figures appear to be struggling to get out of hell. "Facilis descensus Averno," says the retired judge standing beside me. The descent to hell is easy; coming back is a hard task. It is a perfect moment to be quoting Virgil.
Some days we book Bird to do the driving and he takes us to some of his favourite and lesser-known places. (Even he is beginning to complain about the number of tourists who flock to Pienza and Montepulciano.) One of his surprises for us is Civita di Bagnoregio: it's best we see it before more of it falls away. It is perched on top of a hill 438m above sea level and can be reached only by a long and very steep walkway. Over the years, entire sections of the village have been swallowed up as they dropped off in landslides and now only the central and most ancient part is left.
Besides natural disasters such as earthquakes, there have been manmade ones. In 1944, German troops blew up the masonry bridge that was the only connection between Civita and the rest of the world. The bridge was rebuilt in 1964; without it the main way of getting there was by donkey. But before the bridge could be inaugurated, another landslide caused it to collapse. Archeologists and engineers are still trying to shore up the dying town. The climb up the walkway is worthwhile and there is a bar at the point of arrival for those who are puffed."
SIX of us arrive at Montauto, our villa on the La Foce estate in Tuscany.
"Welcome to La Foce," says the leaflet on the dining table. "Our maid will be welcoming you and will show you some practical things. She doesn't speak English." Oh well, we have come armed with our Italian phrasebooks and have progressed beyond buon giorno and arrivederci. But asking Valentina which of the 200 (mostly Arabic) television channels will give us the BBC World Service will prove to be a challenge.
We have also come with our Iris Origo books, War in Val d'Orcia and Images and Shadows, which, since they were first published half a century ago, have made La Foce the destination for thousands of tourists and gardenlovers. And there is no point in complaining about the number of people visiting Tuscany: Henry James was doing that in 1901.
La Foce lies in the Val d'Orcia, a wide open valley near the lovely medieval hill towns of Montepulciano and Pienza; Florence is 90 minutes away by car and Rome is two hours.
La Foce was bought by Antonio Origo and his AngloAmerican wife Iris in the 1920s and is now run by their daughters Benedetta and Donata. The estate, once an area of 3000ha with 57 farms, is now onethird that size and consists of the main villa, the medieval castle Castelluccio, a large farm building and 15 other farmhouses scattered through the property. Half a dozen of these have been restored and refurbished to a high, but not luxurious, standard and are available for holiday rental.
On arriving at La Foce and meeting Benedetta, we could not believe a woman in her 60s could look so young. It is weeks before we discover that the Benedetta at the reception desk of the castle is not Benedetta Origo. Thank heavens we didn't call herMarchesa.
When the Origos bought La Foce in 1924 and began their ambitious plan to restore the land, they commissioned the English architect and family friend Cecil Ross Pinsent to restructure the main buildings and create a large garden. Pinsent had previously worked on Bernard Berenson's Villa I Tatti in Florence. The original Origo villa had been built in 1498 as an inn for pilgrims on their way to Rome and was in a thoroughly dilapidated state.
Iris, who had grown up in great luxury in Florence, wanted a garden in which to read and think. Pinsent would create for her a green oasis in a lunar landscape of crete senes (clay hills), a very Italian garden divided into geometrical spaces by box hedges, lemon trees in terracotta pots and with passageways covered in wisteria and climbing roses. Paths lead into an informal Mediterranean garden with pines, cypresses, broom, thyme and lavender.
When World War II broke out, Pinsent returned to England, but with peace declared he came back to La Foce to complete the job. Today it is one of the most visited gardens in Italy and open to the public every Wednesday afternoon. The real Benedetta is often the tour guide. Her son Antonio Lysy is a professional cellist who runs a chamber music festival at Castelluccio every July. Musicians of all nationalities come and live in the restored farmhouses
Our party shrinks to four and our next abode on La Foce is Fontalgozzo, a handsome villa 5km away, which stands on its
own, surrounded by olive groves, wheat fields, cypresses and plum trees that produce a fruit locally called coscia di monaca, or nun's thighs. The villa looks out over the cypress road that zigzags up the opposite hill; it is one of the most photographed roads in Tuscany and was built by Antonio Origo and designed to resemble the medieval landscapes pictured in Sienese frescoes.
There is nothing medieval about Fontalgozzo: it boasts all mod cons, a pool house that was once a chicken coop and a beautiful swimming pool set in a bright green lawn.
The nearest town to La Foce is Chianciano Terme 10km away; we are told its thermal spring attracts people with liver ailments. It is entirely forgettable but for an excellent supermercato and a coffee bar that appears to be occupied by characters straight out of Underbelly.
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