MAPPING TUSCANY

There are a lot of olives to be picked in 2015 - and they are all in excellent shape. The Italian olive harvest 2015 is the exact opposite of the utterly miserable harvest that took place in 2014.  This October and November plenty of olives are being turned into some of the best Tuscan and Italian extra virgin olive oils of the last decade or two.  The extremely hot summer may have been hard to deal with for humans, but the high temperatures were ideal for Italy's olive trees, since the heat stopped the  reproduction of the crazy pests  that run havoc in the groves the year before (the male of the olive fly goes sterile once temperature hits 32 degrees).   THE OLIVE HARVEST 2015 in NUMBERS Our fifty plus trees produced 815 kg of olives with a yield of 90 kg of extra virgin olive oil  - during the 2014 harvest we picked a mere 90 kg of olives which produced 8 kg of EVOO. For more info on our average yields read my detailed post about the disastrou...

Italy hasn’t gotten much of a good rep recently with its economic and political stagnation and the brain drain of the country’s talented youth. But not just Matteo Renzi is out there to change this. In rough times like these it's encouraging to hear that an unexpectedly high number of Italian cities joined the European Capital of Culture competition last year. The ECoC title is awarded each year to two cities from two different European countries – Umea in Sweden and Riga in Latvia are the European Capital of Cultures 2014. Italy’s turn is up again in 2019 and a fierce competition is going on right now between the participating Italian cities to secure the title. Past European capitals have proved that ECoC cities with a thought-through program receive major investments, speed up local development, and secure a long-lasting influx of culturally interested travelers - the welcome species of tourists, who prefer quality of experience to number of sights seen in a day.  Les...

If my Tuscan native is going to leave me one day, you'll know why. Nobody could for ever put up with my never-ending ideas for a change in interior design. Or rather exterior design.  We must have about five tables around our house. One for every time of the day and amount of sunshine. I would have been happy to move them around according to the season, but my brother-in-law preferred to cement them into the ground for eternity. Hence, my need for another one. To enjoy the winter view from our olive grove.  A trial meditation last December with the table I normally use on our terrace (the only movable one left) It was just before Christmas that I realized that I couldn't possibly get through another winter without a table in the midst of our olive trees. Not just for  picking breaks , but for quiet contemplation and morning meditation. Which, no need to say, is all about coffee in Italy. 

On top of a green hill Campagnatico seen from the South - East When approaching Campagnatico during stormy weather, one isn't surprised that the Tuscan village got a mention in the book of books: Dante's Divine Comedy . 700 years later, Campagnatico doesn't look too different from what Dante must have imagined - but probably never saw in person - as the ideal backdrop for a scene in the purgatory: a Maremma nobleman's repentance over the errors he committed during his life (too much haughtiness was already an issue in Dante's time!).  Campagnatico seen from Villa Bellaria Picture perfect (probably more so now than in the Middle Ages), the hill town in the Maremma has a lay-back atmosphere. Cats and the elderly sit on benches and the town's only bar tender is busy making Cappuccino, preparing Campari or selling newspapers. Population is low, but still high enough to allow for the survival of two  alimentari (small food stores), a post office, a p...

Where to start with that haircut? With Tuscany's extra virgin olive oil being famous world over, it may come as a surprise that the region's olive tree pruning is notorious for its rather cruel approach: Tuscan farmers used to prune only once every two years (and often still do). Pruning is very time consuming, and cutting the tree a Mohawk hairstyle means you can skip a winter before having to get up the ladder again with shears and saw in hand.  I'm no expert on the matter of pruning, but from looking after our very own Tuscan olive grove I've discovered two crucial points for pruning success, which are not always mentioned in olive grove manuals.   In my experience the best preparation to pruning is by doing the olive harvest in the very same grove the year before. The chosen pruning style depends on the technique used during olive picking (i.e. harvest by hand or with a particular type of machine). Once you've been driven mad by unreachable olives du...

No news from the boot. We're still in the midst of an economic crisis and the political tohubohu is as reckless as ever. Thank god not only the bad things stay the same. The good stuff doesn't change either. Like Italian coffee. Every time I stop in one of the bars of a Tuscan off-the-beaten-path town, I know that even though pensions are higher in Sweden, child-care better in France and public toilets cleaner in Switzerland - I couldn't live anywhere else. Because... a good old Italian sign is just so endlessly more attractive than all the neon in the world red fly curtains make me smile the winter sun never fails to put me in a good mood (and she just isn't around too much further up north) washinglines (so simple and so ecological) will always remain one of my must have items life at the bar is yes, about good coffee, but above all about having a common ground and meeting place for young and old alike I like to ditch the crowd. And you can in...

The aftermath of the flood  in Southern Tuscany  Town center of Albinia, near Orbetello Exactly a week ago I turned around in bed whilst my Tuscan native said "why don't you keep the kids at home? It's still raining. This could easily turn into another flood". These Italians, I thought. A few drops of rain and the whole country goes to pieces. Haven't we prayed for rain for months? And back I went to sleep.  An hour later I was woken with a homemade Cappuccino by the same man who had left for work early that morning. The road to Grosseto was off limits, as the bridge over the Ombrone river had been flooded. The only way to reach  their building site in town would have been by  trying out another access road to Grosseto. Looking at the overflown river bed and the incessant rain, they decided to call it a day.  It took a shot of caffeine and a look outside the window to make me remember the damage and deaths the 2011 floods had brought to...

Wondering what kind of place my Tuscan village is? The best time to find out is during the Festa dell'Uva, the wine harvest festival, which takes place every year on the first October weekend. Thinking of a wine festival you're probably expecting to find a bunch of people discussing tannins and barrel aging time. Forget it. You'll be seeing this.

"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. " Orson Welles in The Third Man Orson Welles' quote is a classic. Even if it's not entirely true. For starters I'm relieved to say that the cuckoo clock was not invented in my home country - the blame goes to Germany. But never mind the lack in accuracy, the great actor and director managed to put an incredibly intricate matter into a nutshell.  How to 'produce' art and where to find genius?   It's a complex issue art historians, gourmet cooks and music lovers keep wondering about. And so do  acting coaches, wine producers and fashion designers. Is creativity innate or can it be taught and learned? And what are the conditions that  fos...

Montalcino Jazz & Wine 2012 Kurt Elling, Derrek Phillips and Charlie Hunter It's a nightmare. Montalcino Jazz & Wine and Southern Tuscany's several summer festivals are passing over me like a road train. Living the life of a countryside bum in the Tuscan hinterland I'm used to ten months of the year during which nothing happens (and I mean nothing). And then, out of that cultural desert, here we are in mid July, when a whole bunch of world-class musicians are thrown at you in one single week.

In the summer of 2084 my son will turn 80 and my daughter 78. Quite probably they will still own the Tuscan olive grove that has been in the family for centuries. A lot will have changed by then - but not  the beautiful olive trees in that grove . On my son’s birthday in August the family will gather and after a Tuscan lunch far too heavy for such a hot day, one of my great-granddaughters will quickly skip through the countless family photos on a worn-out digital storage device. Quickly until she gets to the pictures of the winter 2012. “Grandpa, what’s this?” Igloo building in Tuscany

Spring is knocking at the door.   And that's a good thing. Not just for our olive trees and my father-in-law's vegetable garden. But also for the relationship between me and my Tuscan native. It's a good relationship, but the endless snow of this winter got it close to breaking point.  With a winter like this one, it all comes down to genes and cultural background. All that frozen water  provided material for epic misunderstandings.  Like when I said: "Why don't you go outside and play with the kids in the snow. You'll see it's plenty of fun!" I really thought the man would enjoy himself. Remember the fun of all those snowball battles and the endless hours spent building lovely snowmen? Looking out of the window, w hat I saw instead was this:  Basketball in a snowstorm, Tuscany winter 2012

Tuscany's famous group of cypress trees near San Quirico d'Orcia In 1997 I left Switzerland to spend a few months working at a theater in a coastal city in Northern Germany. Wilhelmshaven was ugly, bombed out as nearly every German city during the second world war. No surprise that hardly anybody came to visit. A pity. The marvelous East Frisian Islands nearby make for a stunning tourist attraction.  Two years later I moved to Tuscany and became Switzerland's most popular citizen. Everybody put an elbow in to get my address or at least a phone number. When I moved to a spacious house near Montalcino, from Easter to October every single mattress would be taken.

I never thought I'd have to this one day - but here we go, I'm in for a rain dance. Whilst friends and family from abroad keep asking us whether we are okay (having heard of the terrible floods in Northern Tuscany and in other parts of Italy), we seriously haven't seen a drop of rain in months in our area of Southern Tuscany.

A couple of weeks ago I sat over Cappuccino in the local bar when  overhearing the village plumber talking about antibiotics. No, I didn't eavesdrop. That would be an impossible thing to do in a Tuscan bar where people generally shout as if everybody present was wearing a hearing aid. Therefore anybody, whether closest in kin or total stranger is invited to join the conversation. Not that you have to. You're free to keep your head buried in the local newspaper. And that's exactly what I did that particular morning. Not for long though. As a homeopath I'm obviously as concerned about the over- and misuse of antibiotics as the man who installed our shower box.  Every inhabitant of a Tuscan village has a nickname. Behind his back the plumber is being called Il Professore - the professor. Now I know why. Who else could be bothered to publicly address the growing nightmare of antibiotic resistance  first thing over coffee on a Monday morning?

WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU...

No Jack-O'-Lanterns in sight: Gustatus Festival, Orbetello My Tuscan native is no narrow minded person (as long as you don't count his tendency to some exagerated Tuscan Campanilismo ...). Neither is he a xenophobic - remember he lives with one of Italy's many Extracomunitari (a foreigner who comes from a country not belonging to the European Union, e.g. a Swiss like me). He even went as far as having two kids with me. But all this open-mindedness comes to a sudden halt when he hears of Halloween. The problem not being Halloween in itself, but Halloween in connection with Tuscany. Why here? Of all places! He has a point. Celtic traditions haven't had a stronghold in Italy since... the invention of television? In case you belong to the many people who didn't book a holiday in Italy to celebrate Halloween, here are some alternatives to a weekend full of Tuscan Jack-O'-Lanterns:  Food stall at Orbetello's Gustatus - Not just fish  ...

Cinigiano - Festa dell'Uva Harvest festival 2011 No better time to become infatuated with my beloved Tuscan village than this weekend. Most of the 500 inhabitants are in some way or another involved in the Festa dell'uva, the annual wine harvest festival. 

September is my favorite month in Tuscany. Stunning weather, perfect for long days at the beach or series of Cappuccinos or Prosecchi on medieval Piazzas. And all of it with much fewer tourists than in overcrowded August. The only downside is that you'll have to sip your aperitivo on your own. At least if most of your friends turn out to be Tuscan winemakers...

Ferragosto (15th of August) is one of the main Italian holidays and together with the summer heat the perfect reason for nearly everybody to close down business. If you belong to the unfortunate ones who chose to holiday in Italy when 80% of Italians are on holiday too... prepare for the heat, the crowd and don't wonder why everything seems madly expensive. The fact that the Italian economy really sucks right now, doesn't mean that you'll be paying less for your sunbed at the beach - at least not yet...