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Published: October 30th 2007
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After a 14 hour train ride Morgan and i arrived in Cècina in Tuscany on the west coast of Italy. Ursula, our German hostess, met us at the train station and drove us to the farm nestled in the hills between Cecina and Riparbella. On the way to the farm there were banners and flags and balloons all along the way because apparently the Hadelich farm is next door to an Italian bicyclist who had just won a worldclass race. The farm, Podere Vallari, has vinyards and olive groves with a view of the sea in the distance. Along with the main farmhouse, where we stayed, there are two other guest houses and a small cabin for workers when the guest quarters are all rented out. We met Sigismund, Ursula's husband, and were led to our spacious apartment with a large bedroom, adjoining bathroom, and a living space complete with a kitchenette, sofa, and fireplace. Ursula was in control of the house. She did the cooking and cleaning and shopping and setup wwoofers and handled customers and paperwork. Sigismund ran the farm. Ursula is an energetic German woman fond of structure, punctuality, cleanliness, and propriety. she is part of a trekking
Thorns
thorns and brambles. ouch group that hikes on sundays and she likes to sing. Sigismund is more reserved. he always brings a conversation to politics, or to an abstract, tongue-in-cheek joke. The Hadelichs were very fond of reading. they had a large collection of books, many in english, and several african art pieces. When they were younger they spent time in africa. There were also paintings all over the walls of every room from when their 3 sons were children. Their youngest, Augustine Hadelich, is a worldclass Violinist currently touring the best concert halls of america after winning a competition in Indianapolis.
We settled in the first day but started working the next day. ursula's rule was that we could only work 4 hours a day and was always upset when we came late for lunch at 1pm. so naturally our work hours were 9am to 1pm six days a week with sunday off. This gave morgan and i plenty of freetime. so our routiine became:
breakfast(muesli, coffee, yogurt, banana, apple) at 8am. start working at 9am. eat lunch at 1pm. read for hours. run through the steep hills. shower. dinner at 7pm. talk, play music, drink wine(picked and bottled there at the
Josh Feeding Fire
Smoke burns the eyes. Thorns cut the flesh. But the beard grows on. farm), roast chestnuts, etc. then read until sleep.
we spent time with the guests. we ate some meals with a retired american couple. we ate and listened to music played by two swiss classical guitarists mountain biking in the area. we spent one work day hiking with a vacationing german family, the Hadelichs, and Stefan, one of the swiss guitarists, to a beach where the wind was told to pass through the rocks making the sound of a violin. we had a picnic on the beach with a beautiful view of elba but heard no violin.
We spent most of our freetime reading. it reminded me of how i visualized prison. they had many classics in english but also some recent works. i read alice in wonderland, Brave new world, Beowulf, the life of pi, animal dreams, the poisonwood bible, 1984, some thomas hardy, and some richard dawkins. morgan read alot but she also journaled and ran more than i did.
our first sunday we spent on the beach in Cecina. we walked 20 min through unfamiliar woods to a bus stop on the highway. we walked through the city where morgan realized that her shoes were rubbing
Main Door to Farmhouse
Sign showing Podere Vallari is an organic farm. This old weathered door greeted us every day. blisters on her heels. we stopped into a store for some flipflops, freshly baked bread, gorgonzola cheese, and an italian beer for morgan. after some time sunning ourselves on a secluded beach we had a picnic on some rocks with a view of elba and corsica across the water. we made our way back to the bus station and rode into the darkness. this was a problem because we didnt know the area at all. we didnt recognize anything along the road and since it was dark it was even more difficult. we guessed at where to have the bus stop. absolutely nothing was familiar having only passed through once earlier in the week. we walked one way for 20 minutes then walked the other. no roadsigns no lights no idea where we were going in the wooded hills. we happened upon the right road and eventually made it to the farms after an hour and a half walk in darkness.
our second sunday we went to Volterra, a city of 13,000, atop a hill 500m in elevation. Voterra was an Etruschen city. the ancient fort is now used as a prison. the cobbled, narrow streets lead past small
Beach in Cecina
Morgan enjoys an Italian beer at our picnic at a beach in Cecina. shops specializing in alabaster. we explored the city for awhile. we visited a museum exhibiting etruschen burial excavations. we visited duomo and the octagonal baptistery. we found a roman bathing pool near the thick fortified ancient city wall. we came upon ancient ruins for a roman theater just outside the walls. we ate pizza and panna cotta with strong italian coffee at a rustic pizzeria where we struck up an interesting conversation with a retired australian couple with indian and burmese backgrounds about travel, volunteer work, life in general, and the seminary where they were staying for only 40 euros a night. we left the city at sunset and were glad to find ursula had come to pick us up at the bus stop.
the work was thorns and brambles. we slashed and burned thorns and brambles preparing for the olive harvest. we cleared out an overgrown ditch and along the vinyards and olive groves. we were stabbed and gouged and scraped and cut by the sharp thorns. we used pitchforks to roll the brambles into 2 meter balls and then rolled them off the edge of the hill or we carried piles to a fire. after 2 weeks
Morgan Reading
Morgan reading in a shelter where we often ate lunch just outside the main farmhouse of this we were told that after inspection there weren't enough olives to even bother with a harvest. there was a warm winter, early fly attack and a dry summer. when we were there it didnt rain for 2 months then in the last few days it rained 140mm in 5 hours flooding the streets of cecina. so no olive harvest and we were told that two more wwoofers were on their way so since there was little work and even more workers coming, morgan and i felt that we should move on. so we left last sunday morning and decided to stay in florence for a day and a night before going to the next farm in umbria, which will be in the next blog.
if you want to stay on the west coast of Italy with easy access to Pisa, Livorno, Elba, Florence, Volterra, and Rome stay with the Hadelichs on their farm. They speak perfect english. go to
www.hadelich.de
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Lorna
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crayyyyzee
ya'll is crazy - 'nuf said.