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February 27, 2014

Mountains and Sea

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , — Darren & Malcolm @ 7:20 pm
Serra Pistoiese

Serra Pistoiese

 

There are many beautiful walks up around the mountains near to Vellano.  Some of these we have chartered before in this blog, but we love to share them with you anyway.  The walk we completed a few weeks ago was from Panicagliora to Serra Pistoiese.  It is a walk that meanders delightfully down through a wooded valley past lovely streams, full from winter rains.  From the valley pathway you can look up to snow covered alps in the distance.  The peaks are still covered with snow at this time of the year, an undisturbed frosting even though the winter has been milder than of late.  In Vellano barely a flake has fallen in these last months, with some sadness on our part as it is a winter wonderland after snow.  Many of the pathways are ancient by-ways and important historical trading routes through the countryside. On this walk there is a little ruined chapel abandoned in the woods on the track between the two mountain villages, a lost remnant from the times of monasteries and pilgrim’s ways over the Apennines.  The early signs of spring are here in abundance; early bright blue crocuses, yellow mimosa blossoms on tall shrubs; lots of fresh green grass among the well-tended Accacia woods.

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December 29, 2013

Casa Verde: Artist’s Impressions

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , — Darren & Malcolm @ 2:59 pm

Casa Verde Tuscany Italy

Above is an artist’s portrait of Casa Verde.  It has been painted by a Anne-Flore, a German artist who has lived in Vellano for many years.  She has actually completed three paintings of the house  but this one is the image that captures most the specific setting of the house, among the trees of the hill-side in it’s prominent position.  The colours she has used reflect perfectly the predominant green shades that are memorable to any view of the house, and which give the house it’s name.

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December 1, 2013

Pisa ‘Chartreuse’ Charterhouse

Filed under: Uncategorized — Darren & Malcolm @ 6:06 pm
A Baroque Masterpiece

A Baroque Masterpiece

 

Pisa Charterhouse, also known as Calci Charterhouse is a former Carthusian monastery, or charterhouse, currently part of which is the home of the Natural History Museum, some 10 km outside of Pisa. I visited it this week and found a gem of a place full of beauty and a bygone atmosphere.

The Monastery is noted for the fresco of the Last Supper, by Bernardino Poccetti (1597), in the Refectory, which is interesting for its eye level view of the feet of Jesus and the Disciples just above the abbots dining chair. I am not sure I have seen the feet before in other depictions of the Last Supper.

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September 30, 2013

Italy Meets France

Filed under: Uncategorized — Darren & Malcolm @ 3:06 pm

Hanbury Gardens

So Casa Verde goes on holiday!  This time a trip to France via the Italian Riviera….only 400 kilometres to the border at Ventimiglia, following the Via Aurelia.  The Via Aurelia was one of several Roman roads constructed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC.  This road originally built by Aurelius Cotta in 241 BC linked Rome and Pisa, at that time, the Roman’s most North Westerly port.  It was extended a 100 years later into Gaul or southern France.   The line of the current SS1 road follows this route still and can be travelled all the way (but slowly) up the Tuscan and Ligurian coast to Nice.  We stopped off (between the tunnels and high bridges of the Motorway A12/A10) at Santa Margherita, Portofino and enjoyed a lovely local and very pretty resort called Finale Ligure….see below!

ItalyFrance2 010

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July 7, 2013

Cinque Terre in July – Try Vertigo!

Cinque Terre 021

So on the final Sunday of June we drove to the Italian Naval port of La Spezia, with its lovely esplanade gardens and pretty harbour.  From here we parked in the underground station car park (1 euro per hour) and took the train to Vernazza.  This was a gorgeous summer Sunday and the very frequent trains were full of people going to the beach, however, the journey is short and for the first 5 minutes are underground from the town before emerging transformatively into the coastal town of Riomaggio with the azure blue sea fermenting and foaming refreshingly below the train’s windows.

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June 10, 2013

A Pauper No More – Baccala Alla Livornese

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — Darren & Malcolm @ 7:40 pm

A Pauper No More

Baccala Livornese Casa Verde www.tuscanyholidays-casaverde.com 1

 

 Baccala www.tuscanyholidays-casaverde.com 2

BACCALÀ ALLA LIVORNESE (serves 4)

Ingredients

– 600 / 800g baccalà fillets, still salted and dried

– flour as needed

– 400g peeled tomatoes

– parsley

– spring of rosemary

– extra-virgin olive oil

– 2 cloves of garlic, peeled

– peperoncino (dried chili)

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May 9, 2013

Bella Bologna!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , — Darren & Malcolm @ 2:07 pm

Bologna 013

It is spring so a visit to Bologna was on the cards.  Bologna is not in Tuscany it is over the Appenines in the Emilia-Romagna region.  However, it is only 70 miles from Casa Verde and well worth the trip.  Florence may be the star attraction and must-see hereabouts and, of course, we must all go and see the art and sights of that great city.  For me Bologna is a more beautiful city overall and bustling, not with thousands of tourists, but with local Bolognese and thousands of students…it is the Oxford of Italy.

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February 3, 2013

The Forgotten Village

Florence & Walk 042

Here in the Valleriana, it is late winter and it especially quiet during a season that has been wetter than normal.  Many people are away in other parts of the world, there are some happy visitors, but we are ready for the Spring and the new season.  This is the time of the year to climb up the hills and mountains (see previous post) and recently we visited the abandoned village of Lignana, high up the mountain of the same name.  Monte Lignana is visible from the west side of Vellano, a sharp wooded peak that from a distance does not show it’s secret past, it’s ruined mountain village hidden in the trees.  In the 14th century, during wars between Florence, Lucca and Pisa, so the fable goes, the women of the village fed-up with being left with all the work to do, poverty and being left alone by the men going to war, decided to leave the village and burnt it to the ground and moved down the hill to the village of Sorana.  The area of the village they moved to was named ‘Paradiso’ by the locals because of the beauty of the women of Lignana.

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December 18, 2012

Christmas: A most ‘wander-full’ time of the year.

Vellano Snow 2012 www.tuscanyholidays-casaverde.com - Holidays Accommodation & B&B Vellano near Pisa, Lucca & FlorenceWe wish you a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year from Casa Verde, especially all our visiting guests and friends this year to our house in the hills above Pescia in Tuscany.  We have had our first snow a few weeks ago, as pictured here.  Hopefully, we are now set for some dry, crisp and brilliantly sunny winter days.  These are the days to venture out on one of our favorite activities….walking around these spectacular mountains and valleys.  OK we may not be as adventurous as some of our guests, who really tramped around for miles in the heat of the summer (Yes! I mean you Peter, Yoshiko and your family).  For us it is in the winter when the days still linger long past 5 o’clock in the afternoon and the clarity of the air means that from any vantage point you can see so far, and every line and crevice in the mountains and in the valley bottom is sharply defined.  A day out with a tasty picnic and a hot drink, a camera and a bar of chocolate is the perfect way to spend a day here.  Then to return back to Casa Verde, light the wood-burning  ‘stufa’ and settle down by the fire. (Yes we are open for business in the Winter and there is now a new wood-burner & new double glazing in the apartment!!)

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October 15, 2012

Cycling Mania In Tuscany

The UCI World Cycling Championships 2013 in Tuscany!

These run from September 22nd to September 29th 2013, with race starts in Lucca and Montecatini Terme

Here is the happy Canadian Fred McGuire, who stayed at Casa Verde this summer.  (Fred is that a bottle of Chianti on the bike frame?) He is happy for us to report about his cycling adventures here in the hillside and mountains that are a training ground for the world’s best cyclists.  Mark Cavendish is a local resident in the Pistoia area!  Every weekend there are hundreds of aspiring Bradley Wiggins in their multi-coloured tight-fitting lycra ascending the steep hills and bends up and around the Valeriana.

Fred hired his bicycle from ChronoBikes (www.chronobikes.com…….an excellent web-site by the way) in Lucca at what he described as a very reasonable rate (25 Euros per day) in the peak of the summer weather….brave guy.  I would probably manage about 100 metres up these mountain roads but to healthy enthusiasts these hills are perfect for a Tuscany cycling holiday.

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