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As I had hoped, yesterday’s sleepy “Italian City of the Diary” was today full of diary fans attending the 39th annual diary/autobiography festival in the small town of Pieve Santo Stefano. A big tent filled the small central piazza and maybe 200-250 people sat in plastic chairs listening to people on stage talk in animated Italian about, we presume, diaries and related autobiographical writing. Sadly we understood none of it.

There were two African-looking people on the stage and two others, possibly Hispanic. They were the winners of the “migrant prize” which interestingly is a relatively new prize designed to add more diversity and the migrant experience. I wish I understood their entries, which were read by actors on stage. Interesting idea.

We met Italians from all over who came to volunteer and/or attend the festival. Milan, Rome, Firenze, Puglia (a one day trip, the young volunteer told me). One volunteer from Milan told me she’s been volunteering during the festival for 20 years, after donating an ancestor’s diary. The Puglia woman got hooked after using the archive to research her thesis, using diaries written by uneducated people, as she put it. Two teachers we ate dinner with said they were attending because they’d like to have their students write diaries and were particularly interested in the migrants’ writings.

Another man, a retired professor, at our table from Sienna said he’d previously been one of the “expert judges” for the big prize for best new submission that comes at the festival’s end. His wife said, oh no, when I asked if one of the the criteria was the writing quality. No, the writing is all very humble, she said. Originality was more the criteria. This being Italy, a dinner at a local restaurant, Il Portico, was offered to attendees and many partook, eating family style. It was a fun way to meet people, language notwithstanding.

In the morning we explored the gorgeous hilltop walled medieval city of anghiari, wandering through winding narrow passageways, peeking into beautiful gated gardens, looking out across the valley from on high over the 12th century wall as dark clouds moved in and but we’re followed by sun. Did a little shopping at a famous local 19th century fabric maker Bussati. And learned the hard way that we must eat lunch out by 2:30, otherwise the restaurants are closed. Problem is we had a huge breakfast at our Airbnb (such problems) so weren’t hungry until 2:30.

We ended up going to a grocery store, getting cheese, prosciutto and bread and picnicking in the car when showers moved through briefly. In Rome people didn’t seem to eat lunch until 2. We were told the further south you go in Italy, the later people eat. We returned to the town a day later for Saturday night dinner at the very atmospheric Il Feudo del Vicario. We parked at the bottom of the huge wall surrounding the town and to our surprise we walked through a lit corridor to an elevator that plopped us on the upper outer ramparts of this ancient city. Didn’t expect that.

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.