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It's the outdated yellow-walled cliche decor style adopted by many-a-house-builder or the place where that fake-smile movie with Russel Crowe was filmed or the name on some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.