The other day we travelled to the little town of Vinci. The town is quite close to Casa Verde, in the line of hills that runs south of Montecatini and Pistioa. It is a very pretty place and a surprisingly modern place by Tuscany standards. However, there are plenty of people around looking at the birthplace of the great master of Italian art, invention and anatomy. At the top of the town there is a handsome church; this lovely square with the sculpture depicting one of Leonardo’s great symbols and a castle that contains a museum to his imaginative genious. Do not expect to find a Mona Lisa here or any of his important paintings, they are elsewhere, however what you will see here, from the town walls, and the landscapes that inspired his work.
Talking of landscapes here is a picture of one of the many fields of sunflowers that surround the lowland areas in the valley around Montecatini and Fucheccio.
They are beautiful too! To me they always look as if each flower head in the field is trying to raise it’s neck upwards to get a better view than each of it’s neighbours; rather like faces in a packed crowd at a sporting event.
Here at Casa Verde, the summer is now in full swing. Everything hot and sultry. Fresh fruit and vegetable all ripe but drooping (like the rest of us) in the searing afternoon sun. The perfect time to lay down indoors, or in a shady spot with a book, or just bob up and down in a pool or in the sea. There is not the weather now to do much else but be still and wait for the lovely evenings to get out and about.