The perfect
day in the perfect place. I love
Tuscany!
We could not have asked for a happier, more pleasing
day. After breakfast alone in the large
refectory – our voices echo in the vaulted chamber, and I made Ian hum notes
while I hummed a third above – we walked to the Abbazia di Monte Oliveto
Maggiore. We stayed right at the Abbey
when we were here in 2007, but I lost every picture, and I was anxious to see
if the beautiful place was still unchanged, and still magical.
We walked the kilometer or so to the Abbazia, passing first
through the small town of Chiusure, and then taking a footpath that led to the
road near the Abbey. We had done this
walk in reverse, years ago, in the August sun, but although we loved the
experience then, today was even better.
It was cool enough to make us contemplate our jackets, but once we were
walking under overcast skies, we were happy in just our light sweaters. It is a beautiful walk. Little in Tuscany is flat, but the sharp
outcroppings of white clay that give this area its name, “La Creta”, the large
square farm houses, set one by one on surrounding hills, the avenues of cypress
that seem to march along the hilltops, the spring flowers – in short, the
spectacular and unique beauty of this land distract one from the aching in
one’s knees and feet.
 |
| The crete on the way to the Abazzia. |
We were happy to see the life of Saint Benedict done by
Sodoma on the walls of the cloister.
These are what draw the tourist, and it is easy to see why. These do show the life of S. Benedict, but
they work as a graphic novel. Each panel
includes not only the main event, but often a scene in the immediate future or
past. There is always something in the
background to draw the viewers’ interest:
a cat and dog fighting, people in boats or riding horses, a beautiful
landscape. In one picture, Sodoma
includes his own portrait, and in another, he includes people he knows,
including Leonardo
da Vinci and Raphael.
This was sabbato, of Saturday, so we were lucky enough to
see some of the areas of the monastery that are not open to the public except
on weekends. When we saw the refectory,
we attracted the attention of one of the brothers, who invited us in and
chatted with us in English about the history of the place (the refectory had
been in use for more than 1300 years,
for example) why the library is usually closed now (some precious manuscripts
had been stolen), and his views on various countries (he liked Canada, because
no one ever hears about them. The
refectory had beautiful frescoes, inspiored by the Sistine Chapel, but I
enjoyed seeing the tables all laid for lunch.
We next saw the library.
For many years, the Abbazia supported itself for by repairing antique
and precious books, but the workshop closed (temporarily?) last year as they
needed to train new monks. According to
the monk we spoke to, many of these come from Central America. I always love libraries, and feel the same
connection to them that Ian does to coins:
someone handled these books, and used them, and learned from them, and
is gone, but the books remain. Just
reading the titles on the faded spines gave me goose bumps!
The museum had some excellent exhibits, many of them created
by brothers from centuries past, and a fresco that was the literal masterpiece of
a student of Sodoma. I particularly
enjoyed some Eighteenth century watercolours of the Abbazia, especially the
water cistern looking much the same as it had half an hour before when we
walked by.
When we walked back to the library we noticed an amazing
inlaid cabinet. Ian has promised to make
me one.
At the top of a flight of stairs was a pharmacy with the
original jars used for centuries. The
monks still sell ointments and lotions that are made in the monastery – but not
in this room.
We went to the church itself, where we had heard the monks
sing Vespers in Gregorian chants last time, and it is still a beautiful
place. It was redone in the Eighteenth
Century but the choir stalls from the Fifteenth Century are still there. There is a beautiful inlaid lectern in the
robing room, which includes a beautiful little cat!
We spent some times reacquainting ourselves with the grounds
of the Abbazia, and had lunch at the Torre Ristorante just over the drawbridge
from the Abbey. We pointed out the room
that we stayed in last time in what used to be the stables.
As we walked back to Chiusure, where we are staying, we
decided to take a trail ofter we noticed a man and his dog running on the white
clay below us. The path had been hidden
from us by a tour bus on the way to the Abbazia. We began to suspect that our “trail” was a
sheep trail when we noticed that there were only sheep prints in the soft clay,
but kept on going to the bottom of the ravine, when the trail suddenly died at
a fallen tree. I had slipped and slid al
the way down, and was terrified to head back up, but it was actually easier
than going down, and the amazingly tough grass gave us something to ahng on
to. We staggered back up to the road,
and then took the trail back to town. I
told Ian that if I were on a treadmill I would have quit by now, but if you
quit in the middle of a lonely path, you can ony quit temporarily, so you don’t.
After a moment to change shirts, we headed off in the car to
see some neighbouring towns. The first
stop was a little town called San Gagagno, where we visited a Castello – closed
for Saturday – and saw the Museum of the Museo di Tartuffo (Truffle Museum),
which is exactly what is sounds like.
The drive to and from each town was the best part. It was like being inside a painting of
Tuscany. Poor Ian did all of the driving
so perhaps he wasn’t quite as thrilled.
Our next stop was Buonconvenuto, a walled town at the
junction of two rivers. Although the
museum of farming was closed – unexpectedly – it was a lovely town. We ended up parking in the newer part (the
part destroyed in WWII, and were wondering why we had come, until we walked
through the gates in the city walls, and we both said, “Picturesque enough for
you?” which is such a random thing to
say at the same time that it broke us up.
We went to another small town that had gates and an old
church, and then enjoyed an incredible drive back to Chiusure. We had planned to go to a very nice
restaurant for dinner, and walked around the town of Chiusure, just as
beautiful as any of the towns we visited today.
Unfortuantely, when we arrieved at the restaurant, it was “chiuso per malattia”. We went to a pizzeria instead, and had a
wonderful meal there instead.
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