Encounters

If there is one thing you can be sure of when you take a walk or a bike ride along the country roads of the Val d’Orcia, especially in the period from March to October, and then in December and January, it is that you meet people from all corners of the earth and from all walks of life.

Australians, Americans, Germans, Swiss, French, Romans, more Germans, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, and then Milanese, Neapolitans, Sicilians, Apulians, Brazilians, Germans again, Salernitans, Florentines, Turks and so on. But Germans really love the Val d’Orcia, and rightly so, if I may say so myself.

Clerks and engineers, teachers and footballers, cooks and actors (and actresses!), business consultants and singers, nurses and CERN researchers: on those dusty roads, in the sun, lashed by the wind or soaked by the rain, tired and sweaty but happy and excited by all that nature around us, we are all the same. The fatigue is the same for everyone, and so is the enthusiasm and the desire to see ‘something more’. Away from a POS or a credit card reader, we are all more equal and sociable.

There are a lot of people out and about, walking or cycling. Alone or in pairs, or in groups. They turn their head left and right non-stop, to admire as many of the breathtaking views as possible.

They come from all over Italy and the world, attracted by the enchanting tales of those who have already visited these places, the images of the rolling hills, and the aromas of sublime dishes and wines.

They come to walk a stretch of the Via Francigena, or to venture along the white roads of the Eroica (the legendary bicycle race), to take memorable photos, or to spend a day or a month in the enchantment of the Sienese nature.

They come to experience first-hand the beauty they have heard about, and then leave again, preparing to become in turn witnesses and disseminators of the wonders they have admired and enjoyed.

I often chat with wayfarers and cyclists I meet on my walks, partly because I am curious to find out where they come from, more often because they ask me for directions on which route to take or where to stop for food. Sometimes we share a stretch together, we talk about life in the Valdorcian countryside and life back home.

To put it in a nutshell, life here is quiet and the air is good, there is no traffic and there is little stress. More than once I have heard from tourists both foreign and Italians that they cannot get to sleep because it is too quiet. Or that they are not used to travelling distances of eight or ten kilometres between one village and another, eight or ten kilometres of urban desert: no houses, warehouses or shopping centres, just fields, meadows, hills and a few farms.

A question of viewpoints. People live quite differently in the city than in the countryside, and there is no such thing as a universal place, perfect for all of us. It depends on what you are looking for, and what you are willing not to have on your doorstep.

Personally, living in a small village has given me a lot of time to spend as I like. The hours I don’t spend in traffic or looking for parking, just to give an example. I think I have also gained in health, but of this, I will never have the counter-evidence.

Whether I have spoken to a tourist for two minutes or half an hour, when the time comes to say goodbye to those I have had the good fortune to meet, I feel a little richer inside, because I have had the opportunity to look at these lands with the curious and admiring gaze of someone who does not live them every day, to hear them recounted with the enthusiasm of someone discovering them for the first time.

It is a good feeling, a joy that is renewed.