I was recently invited to spend an afternoon at a house in the country side with a group of artists and artisans. So, I took 2 of my friends from Sweden and we got on the train and went to a town called Rignarno. It was only about 30 Kilometers away from Florence.
It was completely different than the loud busy streets of Florence. And our hosts for the day were the kind of people who make the most of what they have, rather than trying to get more of what they don't have. I walked away with a new found sense of respect for people living in the country.
The picture above is what we saw when the train dropped us off at the train station in Rignarno. That is the arno river, the same river that flows through Florence.
Our host Laura picked us up in her car and 15 minutes later we were in a very old looking villa.
This is one of the houses in the villa. The outside has a very unfinished look, with all the
bare brick of different sizes peeping through the worn stucco.
This is the backyard of our host's house. Helena (Sweden) peeps out from under a vine covered
stand.
Our host Laura is an avid "loomer". She purchased this large loom and custom designs and makes
clothes for her friends, family and other people interested in hand made clothing.
Laura (Italian) and Erica & Helena (Sweden), in front of Laura's loom. The girls are holding
up hand colored balls of wool yarn that Laura made.
Here we can see a basket full of wool yarn that Laura has hand colored. She gets the wool
from local farmers and herdsmen. She then goes into the forest and harvests plants and cuts off
the branches and other parts of the plants known to contain coloring agents.
She boils the plants and in the end, she
is able to use the concentrated pigment to dye the wool.
After a tour of the loom and the rest of the country house, we cooked a giant pot of pasta.
Somebody came into the house with a hand of herbs they picked from outside and threw it into
the pot. We stuffed ourselves with fresh pasta and sauce and drank lots of wine.
From left to right; Helena & Erica (Sweden), Lance (American), Laura (Italian), Arno (an
Italian guy who models at my art school sometimes, ) and
Coho (Ireland).
After pranza (lunch) we went for a walk. About a half a kilometer away, we came upon a castello (castle).
The duke (rich person) who owns the castle, also owns much of the land in this local area.
This castle also doubles as a place for weddings and it is an active olive oil processing facility.
Just after we passed the castle, we saw some fig trees on the side of the road. Helena, Erica,
Laura and Coho reach for some fresh figs.
After about a kilometer of walking, we turned around and started to head back to the country house.
On the way back, we met some of Laura's neighbors and their scruffy looking dog. They are
out for an afternoon of gathering nuts, figs and anything else edible. They will put their
"harvest" into those baskets.
As we stood in a circle and talked in the fresh air, a small deer came up to the fence line and then quickly darted back to safety into the bosco (woods).
This is the kind of day that many of us foreigners had wanted to experience during our stay in Italy. I was fortunate to come into contact with Laura and her crew country dwellers. It just goes to prove that people are people everywhere and when it comes down to it, a simple quality life prevails over the everyday rat race that many of us get stuck in.