Diary museum/Pieve Santo Stefano, Tuscan villa outside Caprese Michelangelo – southern Tuscany

Wow! This is the lesser known Tuscany we didn’t see much of the last time we were in this area, in 1989. It’s almost backwoods Tuscany. No major tourist towns in the immediate vicinity. biggest name one is Arezzo. Instead, there are small unassuming villages (lama, fragaiolo) at the edge of isolated narrow roads winding up and up a steep hillside and then down and around a valley. Stunning and a little scary to navigate in a car but dirck did very well, stick shift and all.

A first stop Pieve Santo Stefano, Italy’s improbable and impressive “city of the Diary,” with a fantastic, evocative, high-tech immersive “little diary museum” in a 16th century building, a diary archive busting at the seams with donations of unpublished diaries, memoirs and correspondence by ordinary people across Italy, and beyond. And an annual diary festival, which is what drew me here. Remarkable really what they’ve done hin this badly bombed town during WW2. They’ve rebuilt it as a place of memory, honoring the people who were here and elsewhere in Italy’s destroyed or surviving hamlets. more festival to come.

Meanwhile we are staying in this Tuscan paradise, Bio Agritourismo Il Vigno overlooking a wooded green valley where the mist is shrouding the treetops this morning. It’s a small cluster of beautifully restored but still rustic umber-colored stone buildings turned into a b&b run by an arty, engaging couple. Cyrus trees, succulents, olive trees, apple trees, lavender, and hearty red and pink roses. I smell rosemary too but don’t see it. A bunch of Germans are in one of the stone buildings but they leave soon and we will be the only and last guests for the season. We were kindly upgraded to a huge suite with old armoires, giant rough wooden beams across the ceiling, cool red tile floors, white stucco walls, thick wood shutters atop windows that have stunning views. (There’s a pool on the hillside too and a ceramics studio.) this couldn’t be more different than bustling Roma. The thrifty car rental guy at the Rome airport also upgraded us (do we look in need of any upgrade?) so we’re driving a wonderfully roomy fiat 500 sedan that takes the narrow bumpy roads well so far.

Dinner tonight was excellent at Le Cerra in the lovely village of Caprese Michelangelo where the famous artist was born (and soon moved to Firenze.) Spinach and ricotta ravioli in ragu sauce. Delicious. Dirck is marveling at the 7 euro bottle of local red wine we had last night. Our meal was 85 euro. Way cheaper than Rome.