Stone upon stone: an Italian sojourn: Delights of the Crete Senesi

Just outside San Giovanni d'Asso is a whimsical garden in the middle of a wood created in recent decades by an American who lives in the town, Il Bosco della Ragnaia. It is open to the public and open to any interpretation. I thought it silly when I first started walking through it: a box hedge, parterre-type garden with hideous concrete block edges and over large pots. Who would even think that would be appropriate in this leaf strewn underlay of woods? I like organic things: things that grow naturally out of their environment. This doesn't. It seems to fight it, if anything.

The only thing I initially liked about any of it was the moss, thickly covering all the raw rough installed edges of everything, softening it. Soothing it. Merging it. Then I noticed myself asking questions: should I go this way? Or this? Is this installation meant to be an Oriental influence? Or, is this effect to symbolise the black and white stripes of many local church constructions? Why is there a pig snouting truffles when dogs do the truffle searching here?

Questions. The garden almost requires you to ask questions.

And, that, I think, is the point of it. It is not about the hedge or the concrete block edges at all. It is a little journey: one of reflection and self awareness.

I cannot remember when a garden, anywhere in the world, has ever had that very visceral effect on me before, so I left, intrigued.

Most days, in lieu of living in a village where we might find a Tabacchi open, we have to stop for coffee enroute to wherever we are heading. Oftentimes, in the last couple of weeks we have stopped just a few kilometres along the road above the Abbey in a small hamlet called Chiusure, where a lady has a massive terraced Osteria overlooking the Abbey and the Crete Senesi, the amazing clay terrain that we are surrounded by.

What drew us initially to turn into the hamlet was the small domed brick structure at the side of the road, like a welcome, that looks like a communal bread oven. It may be. We have never found anyone with enough English in the hamlet to tell us if that is so.

We have, despite, the lack of English, befriended the lady who runs the Osteria. She is not a local, but is from Sardinia. She waves a Sardinian flag out front and we are unsure if that puts her in the locals good books or not. She makes the most delicious dolce, and I think, over the last couple of weeks, we have tried them all. She has given us, because we loved it, a copy of her well used, hand-scrawled recipe for Radicchio and Carrot tart, which is sweet and delicious, made by throwing everything in one cake tin, including breadcrumbs and grated vegetables, then having it separate out while cooking, into layers: as though there was a light crust on top and a lighter pastry on the bottom: when there is neither. We are taking our treasured copy home to experiment.

Not once when we have been there for coffee has she ever had other guests. We have always been the only ones served. Despite that, dozens of tables are always immaculately set, fresh bread seems to be delivered daily, and the glass cabinet is always groaning with home made tarts and cakes ready for slicing. We always slice one or two. She gives us extra large servings.

We let her know that we would call one day for lunch. Knowing our sweet tooth she told us that when we did she would make us dolce. Spoiling us. Today, our last day in the Crete Senesi, we called in. We arrived about noon, and, again, were the only ones in the place. And again, we wondered how anyone could make any sort of a living in this tiny hamlet of barely a dozen people, and yet always be prepared for so many guests in this remote location.

By one o'clock, though, we were open-mouthed with surprise and delight.

Well over twenty, maybe even thirty, folk stopped by in just that last half hour for lunch: couples, working men, families, travellers. Where they have all come from remains a mystery -- as does so very much in Italy -- but we no longer feel sorry for her. She has a clientele. And she looks after them well.

We left our menu choices to her pleasure today, and she served us simple fat noodle pasta with a delicious thick pomodoro reduction, then a sensational platter of charred smokey meats, a grigliata mista -- making us more determined than ever to master this on our barbecue at home, as we cannot replicate this on a hob -- then a choice of her delicious dolce.

The view from her open terrace overlooking the Abbey must be sensational on a summer night, with the lights twinkling from the Abbey ground, and beyond that to Siena, where tiny lights prick the skyline along the rims of the purple dark hills surrounding it.

That eroding clay holding up all that remains of the thin spine of road leading to the Abbey, though, is so fragile looking. I fear for it. I cannot see it lasting another seven or eight hundred years.

The silver-grey leaves of the olive trees at this time of year are irresistible. We cannot get enough of the sun shining on them.

Coming across a perfect Roman Mosaic tiled floor in one of the back streets of Asciano one day was a surprise and a delight. We saw it only because a few workmen happened to be there doing a job of work, and we peeked, as we wandered the village. Ever after that, when we had our camera with us, the door was always locked. I managed to get a photograph through the barred shutters with a pinhole camera on my phone that avoided the bars.

We left our visit to Cortona late. Too late as it turned out. Halfway there, the other day, we called into this icy village on top of a windswept rocky hill for coffee, but the sky started pelting sharp pellets of icy snow at us. Our only photograph of the place was the cold front of the Porta San Giusto which saw us hightailing it for home and our wood fire.