ARMCHAIR TRAVELS – VALUBERTI

These photos were taken on October 8, our last day this year at Valuberti, the borgo of eight stone houses from the 1800's, located in Tuscany between Cortona and Arezzo. This is where we lived for five years 11 (!!) years ago. Lots of sweet and bittersweet memories here, inspiring beauty, and welcome peace.

This is SP39, the provincial road I take for my late afternoon walks.

About 1 kilometer down SP39 is a dirt road turn-off to the left. It’s a logging road that leads through a woods to this brook. Since we’d had a big storm a few days earlier, the brook was rushing so loudly, I could hear it from the road.

These crocus-like flowers were blooming among the rocks along SP39. My husband had noticed them from the car earlier that morning on his way to his favorite cappuccino bar. I didn’t see another bunch like them in the three kilometers I walked. As I approached to take this shot, a large blue-black bee stopped to gather some pollen.

On my way back to Valuberti, these pink berried bushes caught my eye. All the blackberries I had enjoyed on my in September walks were now gone. Why is it that forbidden fruit is always the sweetest?

This roadside shrine to Padre Pio, patron saint of long-haul truck drivers (really), has been here for a few years. Someone recently added the rosary beads.

On the way up the unpaved road to Valuberti, just below a bend that accommodates a big mulberry tree, is this 200+-year-old communal wash basin. Two years ago, our British neighbors had the stones repaired and a faucet installed as a gift to our little community. (No, we don't bring the washing down here. We all have washing machines.) But I like to imagine the gossiping of the women who chapped their hands red in this cold spring water.

These lemons grow in a large terracotta pot along lichen-covered steps and an old stone wall that separates our property from our neighbors’.

Their pomegranate tree grows nearby. Their fig is in the background.

Here is where Gaston Le Petit Oisseau (d. 2004) rests, under an ancient pear tree in our orchard.

Aldo Kitty So Cute So Sweet (d. 2007) lies next to Gaston, here.

This is the Mademoiselle Cécile Brünner rose we planted two years ago on the front of the house after our iceberg climber died—probably from a severe cold snap. She’s really taken off!

And this is the rose we transplanted from San Francisco to Valuberti 16 years ago.

Our trailing rosemary hadn’t been properly pruned since we moved to Berlin, so we cut it waaaaay back in August. It’s responded beautifully and was flowering in appreciation when we returned last week to prune the fruit trees.

I usually plant annuals in this window box, but it’s sheltered by an overhang and gets no rain, so I’m trying succulents. I don’t think they’ll survive a hard winter, but even if ephemeral, they’re a joy to look at.

The last bunch of fragolino. This year we had more grapes than foliage. It took me two full days to cut all the clusters down. A shame, I know, but they would have ended up on the stone terrace beneath their pergola and that means stubborn stains and a big mess.