La Bandita

Map in hand, sun on face, wind through hair...we turned left off the A1 Autostrada into a narrow winding Tuscan road surrounded by cypress trees, vast yellow hills and the odd dry barrel of hay. Entering a maize of driveways: curved, lazy tarmac snakes confusing us as they bend and twist after every turn passed, deviously protecting the treasure that two eager bandits are hunting for.

La Bandita, a large farm-house and hip B&B owned and run by ex-New-Yorker Music-Agent turned Italian family man/ wine-lover/ compulsive traveller, John Voigtman. We found him and his genius stylish abode at the top of a steep, bumpy, white-dirt road on a mountain overlooking what feels like all of Tuscany and beyond.

It takes two minutes to feel right at home here. During the first two minutes you're holding your breath as you marvel at the awesomeness around you: The massive glass front door of the house opens up into a spacious, white, welcoming room with a large, L-shaped white couch as its main feature. One of the walls is a bookshelf, dense with irresistible binders from floor to ceiling and in front of the couch, a simple low table with the latest wallpaper magazine, an ipad and a few fresh-cut flower stalks in a glass vase. Around the corner, an open kitchen and the smell of rosemary in the oven. Outside, the heat hangs relaxed and low over the endless hills in their shades of mustard and mould. Above a few happy clean clouds are suspended in clear blue. But inside on my own white cloud, I drift into a semi-sleep as some song from the i-dock floods the room and compliments everything.

And so began day 1 of 3 at La Bandita.

Tuscany

It's the outdated yellow-walled cliche decor style adopted by many-a-house-builder or the place where that fake-smile movie with Russel Crowe was filmed or the name on some extra-virgin-olive-oil bottles. "Tuscany" is an over-used and under-stood household name. For me it was an image of rolling hills covered in olive trees with an old senora grandma selling bright red tomatoes under a terracotta rooftop.

Close, but no cigar, bella. I now see that my image was printed in black&white. A faded organic ketchup advert. In the now, I am seated in a train sliding away from this famous place Toscana. My suitcase beside me is heavy with memories, images, emotions, exhaled breath, white dust and 2 bottles of pesto - an untidy mixed-bag of that which now is "Tuscany": a place where nature is first & foremost. It surrounds you and astounds you. Simplistic is everything. Less is more because things are good enough to begin with. Food, for example,...is the best example. The bright-red tomato in my initial image was really crispier and sweeter than I could ever have imagined. And I consider myself rather imaginative.

After day one of the holiday I was already drenched in inspiration. You could wring it from my scarf and sell it in bottles. With every new exciting encounter or image, my inspiration and relaxation deepened: Meeting Giovanna (our first Italian host who spoke three words of English) as she worked in her beautiful garden overlooking Florence; exploring the big antique-furnished villa and drinking Italian coffee from a beautiful tiny cup on a heavy-oak table flooded in sunlight from a large window...then the next morning lying in a big brass-framed bed and hearing a rooster howl (in Italian) outside somewhere in the purple crispy dusk. It felt like being on a farm where you once grew up - if you did.

But it all really started after that, on our first full day, when we left Florence on the Autostrada A1. Two smiles on four wheels. Destination La Bandita, in the heart of Tuscany.

For next time. I've now squeezed all the adjectives I know onto this page. They're bumping heads and fighting over the window seats.