TravelPainting

Olive Wood Fire

The village is small, tidy, hilly, multi-leveled—a great way to build up one’s appetite and work off meals. The “storico” part of the town, centers around the square or piazza as all medieval hilltop towns do. There are a few local shops there from which to buy bread, cheese, meats, milk, etc. Alessandra and Francesco have taken us to a trattoria style restaurant (their favorite for the locally made pasta “pici” in a small hill-town to our west.

Foschia

I learned a new word today: foschia, meaning haze, but most closely linked to our fog. It set in sometime in the night and hasn’t let go at end of the day. I’m hoping for clear weather tomorrow, our last day here. It rained all day yesterday, or nearly, and we hunkered down with our books by the fireplace. As the skies cleared, I quickly went to the third floor where I keep my pastels and painted a version of what was happening out over the hillside to our east, toward Citta delle Pieve.

Citta delle Pieve with Changing Sky

We headed into the foggy hillside to Montepulciano today. This is a particularly vertical town, lovely, a mecca for tourists, but not many here today. For the first time in our travels, we met and ate next to Americans at a recommended Osteria in the town. It was a fun diversion and we returned to find Francesco harvesting his olives in his small terraced grove near our casa. Warren is out there helping him with the harvest as I write this final account of our stay.

Stasera, or, this evening, we will have a meal with our landlords and their young neighbor/friend Marinella, a graphic artist with spiky orange hair. She’s sweet and doesn’t speak English, so we will all do our best.

Waking in Cetona

We may not return here,  to Cetona, but we both feel that it is a place we would love to come back to.

From the valletto per l’artista (artist’s valet)

I am thinking of heading back to the states soon. Two days ago mia artista (boss) complained that the coffee I made was not as thick as Paolo made it in the cafe. She has me take her to vistas that require probably 80 tight turns to negotiate up and down the Tuscan hills, each way. I am going to count tomorrow. This afternoon she lent me out to harvest olives along the town terraces in time for the oil press tomorrow. Well, we get a homemade Tuscan dinner in exchange, so it was probably worth it.

In the garret. But, oh what a garret!

Cetona

Harvested & Ploughed

The Road Out

Francesco and Warren harvesting olives for tomorrow's press

Just getting the hang of it

October 24

From our Terrace, Morning Light in Cetona

Leaving Villa de San Faustina…Arriving in Cetona

On our last full day in Villa de San Faustina, we headed for a day trip to Montefalco, yet another lovely small hilltop village in a region known for its vineyards and quality wine; the last night, we dined with our Roman friends in a local castle, complete with high arches and a warming, open fire to my back. The food… outstanding.

Saturday, October 22 was Warren’s birthday and our day in transit to Cetona. We enjoyed another marathon, 3 hour meal with same friends: Manuela, Alessandro, Renata and Alessandro (Manuela’s brother)in a town outside Perugia. The meal was their treat, a gift for Warren’s birthday. Farewell to our new-found friends and on to the next adventure! Who knew what Cetona was to bring for us?

I think it’s fair to say we were both stunned by our next location. Approaching this next medieval village perched high on a hillside, we recognized our place from photos on the website: right on the edge of the eastern outer wall, towered the ancient stone tower of 3 stories, to be our home for the week. We parked in the lot below and climbed the steep hill to find our place. Our landlords, Alessandra and Francesco soon appeared and warmly greeted us. Francesco drove our car up to the door to unload our bags, as it takes a familiar and practiced hand on the steep, narrow street.  Fortunately we arrived just before dark set in, so we could see our views from each room, most especially important, from the terrace. This was to become my territory for painting! The interior reeks with atmosphere, tastefully remodeled in keeping with a style appropriate to the period. It is perfetto! Owing largely to the imagination and talents of Francesco who had the vision to transform this place from a gaping cave formerly used to store animals, to a beautiful living space, utilizing old church cabinets, doors, found stone sinks, you name it. We will show you the interior later.

Francesco is a retired foreign press journalist and now has time to satisfy some of his passions of design and photography. Alessandra is still a working journalist and speaks English masterfully. We have already spent evenings and lunch time with them, they are so generous of their time and willingness to help. Appreciative of my wish to paint in the region, they suggest and show us places to go.

I could paint all week from this terrace alone! The view is spectacular and changes with the light from dawn until dusk. Below is another view done in the afternoon.

Also from the Terrace, afternoon light, facing south

I’m including some photos of our last day in Umbria at Montefalco and Villa San Faustino. Other photos posted here show outer shots of our casa in Cetona.

Ploughed Umbrian Fields

Montefalco Street

Fields of Villa di San Faustino

First Light, View from Our Terrace, Cetona

Our terrace, first morning, Cetona. Lined with rosemary, lavender and roses.

My painting location. Not bad.

This shows our casa as well. The upper balcony is our third floor.

Francesco's cat "Nuvola" strolling in center of the street. The back side of our place is on the left, the most distant building. This is a very kitty friendly village...

Leaving Carsulae, study

As the morning brought rain this Wednesday, which was to continue through Thursday, with some breaks, we worked in our fortress tower until early afternoon. I did a small study from one of my photos, Leaving Carsulae, seen above.

That afternoon, we drove to Todi, a beautiful, small hillside village with lots of nooks and crannies to explore. Most of the photos in this post will be of Todi.

Thursday, it rained, poured really, the entire day. Apparently Rome flooded to an extreme point, bringing travel within the city to a standstill. We hunkered down in our cozy apartment and Warren worked on his classes and I did more paintings out the window from our cucina (kitchen).

Changing Light

And later, a second small study…

Tree in Rain

Warren and I are both explorers. We walked and walked throughout Todi the day before and just adored it. I hope you enjoy the scenes of the town.

Looking towards western outer part of Todi

Exploring levels of Todi

Looking from the Eastern side of Todi

A Tromp L'oeil of painted tiles

An Escher-like interior

Communal cook & wash area

More village interior

Andiamo a Italia!

I have read only two blogs so far, one from my brother-in-law in China. It’s fascinating, he writes well and posts wonderful images of exotic cultural scenes.

The other is a website called “gwarlingo”. The word is Welsh for the rushing sound a grandfather clock makes before it chimes–-the movement before the moment. I love this concept and I love the word. It also happens to be a lovely “blog” of artistic merit, exploring many forms of art. Uncluttered, simple and elegant. My cup of tea. Less is more.

So, I intend to offer less text, more in image content in this travel/journal. Probably this is how many sites such as this begin—friends  suggest we  keep them informed of our adventures via a blog. Also, in my case, there is interest in seeing what I manage to paint en plein air. So, with any luck we shall be posting images of some of my studies in pastel, photos of our surroundings and hopefully I can convince my “paint boy” to add a word or two in between his wine tasting.