We love the serendipitous pleasures of simply existing in Italia

The events of today are a great reminder of why we like coming to Italy. In the past, we’ve seen plenty of churches, paintings, sculptures and amazing architecture. Now we just like to be, to experience the slow life and to meet people, whether it be Italians or stranieri like ourselves.

Our charming waitress Carme.

We started out planning to eat lunch and take a passeggiata in Monte a Pescia, a little settlement we had seen from afar many times and had never visited. but the restaurant was closed for the proprietors’ vacation. It was already 1 p.m. and we were too hungry to take our walk without food, so we cruised down the hill and drove in the direction of Collodi. There we saw a sign for a trattoria that was five miles north, into the foothills of the rugged Alpi Apuane. Driving into Villa Basilica, we stopped instead at a little ristorante called Vesuvio that was almost hidden from view and is not listed on either Google maps or Tripadvisor.

It had no printed menu, but Carme, our personable and lively waitress listed all the possibilities, which included a good variety of first and second courses and pizza. Lucy opted for pizza, which she found to be ottimo, and I had penne pasta with a perfect pesto sauce—all for a reasonable price. As is often the case, small restaurants known mainly to locals are usually delicious and affordable. They also allow one to experience authentic everyday Italian culture up close. We chatted with Carme after the meal, and she said she lives next to the trattoria and used to work there, but changed jobs so she could have more free time. The trattoria is just another half kilometer up the road.

A warm fall day, a wooded trail and a
bella donna bionda in Tuscany.
What more could I ask for?

From Carme’s colleague, we learned that from the parking lot we could access a nice hiking trail that led us across a stream and along a hillside trail, and we took a half-hour stroll in the woods. We rarely see wildlife on our hikes, other than birds, lizards and insects, and this time was no exception. However, it is hunting season for cingiali—we often awake to early morning rifle blasts in the hills around Montecarlo—so we keep our eyes open whenever we enter a forest. At an

opening in the trees, we found a couple dozen loaves of day-old bread scattered on the ground. Most certainly they were left there to lure the wild boars out of hiding, and we imagined hunters setting up watch-posts in the predawn hours, hoping for a harvest of ham.

A typical piazza in Pariano di Villa Basilica.

We had accomplished our goals for the outing—lunch and a short hike—but we decided to go a little farther up the valley to visit the trattoria for future reference. And then we found that the bar attached to the trattoria had gelato, so we extended our outing for another 15 minutes. As we were about to leave for the return trip home, we noticed a sign pointing up the hillside for Pariana. Surely there would be an ancient village with a great valley view awaiting us at the top of this road, and so we continued our journey another three miles up a steep, winding road.

As expected, we found a town with mixed stone and brick homes, a maze of uneven streets of varying widths, with a great variety of flowers and shrubs flourishing in pots and protruding from walls, with a nice view of the valley and far hillside. In other words, a typical remote and quiet village, and as always, breathtaking and evocative. A few of the residents, mostly elderly women, were sitting on porches and patios, enjoying the solitude or chatting with friends.

Lucy remembered that she needed to buy a bag of sugar to make some cookies, and she asked one of the passing residents, a smiling lady probably in her 70s, if the town had an alimentari where one could buy sugar. Si, si, she said, but it’s closed now. “But don’t worry,” she added. “Come with me and I’ll fetch you a bag.”

We tried to refuse, but she was insistent, ushering us into her home and inviting us to sit on her couch. We spent a pleasant 20 minutes learning about her family, which had come from Romania to Italy 15 years earlier. A widow, Didina lives with her grown son Vasi. She also has a sister who lives in Florida. There were more family details, but we couldn’t absorb them all. Besides the sugar, Didina also gave us a sack of chestnuts that she and Vasi had gathered, along with instructions about how to prepare them. Hill towns here have a long history of dependence on chestnut trees for survival, so a gift of chestnuts has special significance.

The most meaningful part of the day involved our interaction with Vasi, a simple man with huge smiles and frequent outbursts of infectious and genuine laughter. Everything we said and did made him outrageously happy. He roared with pleasure when Lucy took his picture with Didina and showed him the results on her phone screen. He hugged us, kissed Lucy’s hand and spoke with animation and enthusiasm about hunting for chestnuts and mushrooms, though between his speech impediment and our incomplete grasp of Italian, we understood only a few words. We promised to send them some photos and return in a week with some of Lucy’s chocolate chip cookies. Perhaps Vasi is often lonely, but as we walked away to return to our car and Montecarlo, we agreed that during our short visit, Vasi was perhaps the happiest man on earth—and no doubt that happiness rubbed off on us. It is a feeling that no classic painting, sculpture or building in Italy can match.