Roggio

Late July - Mid August

We spent 3 weeks in Roggio, the village in the hills. After a long drive up to the north of Tuscany, we hook up with Alberto who was born in the house that he now leads us to. V splutters up the hills above the twin valleys while Alberto's Panda stops frequently to let us catch up and allow us to take in the scenery: Paramount Picture mountains and a forested valley dotted with peach bricked old villages. A gouged out lake with bulky hydroelectric dam adds some manmade wow factor to the natural beauty. The roads get smaller and steeper before levelling into open orchards and small-holdings, and we heave a sigh of relief as the church tower signals that we have made it to Roggio. The house is a modern refurbishment of an old village house, tough and roughcast, tall and narrow, built to stand the elements of the mountain's harder climate. The gold shuttered windows open out onto tiny balconies up and down, allowed us a view the village life going on below. The small lane, criss-crossed with washing lines that tether the telegraph poles, snakes down to the shop and up to the church. Bordering it are old barns and houses, with small gardens full of chickens, vines, tomatoes and zucchini. In the lower lands are the flashier new builds of the post-retirement returnees from the UK. Alberto himself has worked in the catering industry in London for 23 years, some of it in his own café in Leather Lane. Like many here he sold up and returned to enjoy his later years in the close community here. We have a drink with him in the bar next door. He is, by his own admission, a permanent fixture in the place, drinking from noon, playing cards. We meet Andrea, who runs the bar with his mother and father. He has built up a regular clientele through groups of Danish tourists who visit for walking holidays, staying in the nearby apartments he has developed. In the summer, the population swells from 170 to 500 with the tourists, which is pretty much what is was before everyone left for London. It is a great experience feeling part of the community here and a marked contrast from the artificial atmosphere of the campsite. We are able to cook up meals on a proper stoves. We enjoy washing up in a normal kitchen. We have a sofa each. We overhear many families, a mix of Italian-English of 3 or 4 generations as they sit down to eat, drink, talk with neighbours in and around our house. The lady at the back sits daily and weaves shawls, the dark material weighted down with heavy books to stretch it. There is no washing machine so we wash by hand, hanging it over the road on one of those pulley line systems. I've always wanted to use one of those.


We are able to clear the van, making it easier to get around. For the first time in ages, touring round, we feel like we are on holiday. We stop off in Castelnuovo di Garfanagna, which the website had described as a little industrial. We are imagining arriving as local curiosities in a remote town but it is a smart tourist-filled place with a pretty medieval centre, remanants of a wall and a lot of blonde bobs with small children. These are instantly recognizable as English Tourist Mums. CdiG becomes part of regular routine. There is a Conad supermarket and a DVD store that we join. Movies had been our one means of escape and we had devoured any that Christine had brought from home. We exhaust the supply of English speaking films in the shop, watching every second of film, even the special features. By the end of it we are even looking for the subtext of the Bee Movie. There is an internet café that lets us upload some pictures. We have haircuts. We dye our hair! Normal life resumes somehow. We are regulars in the bar. It is nice to be recognized and asked what you did that day. I hum the Cheers tune.

We go for one of those accidental-small-walks-that-turns-into-a-big-walk one day into a neighbouring valley. At Campocatino, a small cluster of pastoral huts with a visitors centre and caff gives us a bit of a rest and a fanta. We don't bother with food, should only be another hour or so…. Here the path turns into a mule track where some parts of the path are blocked by falling trees. Increasingly scrambling, hot and tired, and troubled by swarms of flies, we cut back out onto the main road which after about a 14 mile circular loop are lead back to the house where J, practically fainting from the exertion, devours several spoonfuls from a bag of sugar.

We later meet two of the Danes in the restaurant. They have walked in Tibet unassisted which means they are pretty serious hikers. They had also done our walk, beating us by only an hour, although I suspect they were a little more composed. Andrea's mother cooks and his father works in the bar. It is a small well preserved homely place with 1970s décor where there is no menu. We are given fabulous starters of aubergine, bruschetta with mushrooms and frittata. Then farro (barley) soup with the farro being added to your taste, along with garlic drenched crispy bread and a swigged over with olive oil. A selection of beef, turkey and chicken meat roasted with rosemary roast potatoes is the secondi. Wash this down with small coffees and large limoncellos. We are stuffed. We were expecting to return from our trip fit and lithe disappointedly we have put on a few pounds what with the large portions and all the drinking.

We visit the Grotto de Vente, the Wind Cave whose properties as refrigeration system hid the stalatic wonders within. These were not realised until a young girl was locked in by bullies in the late 1800s and revealed what she had seen. It is quite stunning and we wish we had done the longer tour. We also see Barga, a beautiful terraced town with small piazzas on each level and a panorama view of the surrounding countryside from the Duomo, a shimmering climb in dry heat. The town seems to have some Scots connection with John Bellany an artist having a gallery here and a few flags of St Andrews flying, a bagpipe celebration and a group of Scottish students moseying around.

Get the train from our nearest station (conveniently named Poggio) to Lucca, a lovely university town with perfectly preserved wall, an air of genteel and a reputation for the best olive oil in Tuscany. There is a lovely Antifeatro, a curved piazza, as well as a tower with, rather bafflingly, trees growing out top which we climb up to see. On Saturday the town is taken over by a flea market, great for a browse but it is a bit expensive. There is a doorknob for E150, something you'd pick up in Greenwich for a tenth of the price.

We've been talking about where to go next, the Cinque Terre, a crop of rocky towns on the NW coast in Liguria. Jon isn't fussed on seeing it and I get the feeling that he would happily stay in Roggio till Sept when we go to France for my birthday. Roggio is great but I feel claustrophobic in the atmosphere without any outside space save a balcony. It is also dark in the way that these village houses are - built to keep cool with small windows. I go out a couple of walks on my own but there is no communal space to read/sunbathe. One day I am sitting reading on a patch of grass near the church and by the look from one of the locals you would have thought I was in a bikini in the cemetery. Really you need to drive to get anywhere to get around here and I am cursing my dependence on J. Because I have not driven for 15 years, there never seemed to be the right moment to jump in the driver's seat of an old bus on the right hand side of the road. I have a go around the carpark but I am barely able to get the clutch fully down and the gearstick needs a lot of strength. I resolve to have a couple of driving lessons when I get back to build up some confidence and get back in the saddle.

Hear from the campsite at Cinque Terre only have spaces from 26th August so we plan our re-entry to the beach. Decide that we will go a meandering route that allows us to see Rome. On the 8th, with the Olympics starting imminently, J has a fiddle with the TV aerial to try and get the opening ceremony. He manages to make safe the dodgy wiring but it is DVDs-only for us. We catch snatches of Team-GB news in the day-old Guardians, easily come by in Tuscany.


Visit Pisa, splendidly kitsch, I liked it very much. We did the obligatory holding up the leaning tower photos. J has a haggle on the stalls, buying a porkpie hat and glasses. There is a long journey home, changing at Lucca. We read about Boris Johnson in the paper. He seems to be inexplicably popular with the people despite having no policies or appointed anyone to do anything.

We go to Florence on train where we see the Uffizi Gallery and Botticelli's Venus. There is a lack of reverence towards paintings here - you can walk right up to them unlike in the UK although I do get told off for taking photos. The train back whizzes past the stop and we are in Camporgiano, a good hike away in the dark. Call Alberto to see if he knows a cab number that will take us to Poggio. A man overhearing and leaning over a gate (also from London though born in the area) advises us we could walk a short way (which turns out to be along the railway line) but also asks us if would like a lift. We decline as Alberto is on his way. We feel a bit guilty. We'd been slagging him off for ages because he hadn't brought us fresh towels (we'd paid £17 a week for 'linens'). Now, giving us a lift he is happy. "s'what friends are for innit?" he says.

Go for a walk but are caught in the rain so take shelter. Watch the storm from the balcony. Frighteningly close and it strikes a mountain with smoke bouncing off so we retreat inside. Days are cooling and we have even put jumpers on before dark. We look forward to autumn as it means September is closer which equals Family, Friends, France and Forty!

Last day in Roggio and we pack van. J gets talking to a couple of people from Croydon who's sister works in the shop and who know Charlton. We have the last supper in Roggio. We will be sad to leave this beautiful place where we felt truly at home but we are ready to move on now.