BOX 226: The Maremma.

Anne and I are standing outside the town of Pitigliano, in the Maremma (maritime) district of Tuscany, though some miles inland. It's a fantastic town that seems to grow right out of the volcanic rock on which it stands. Our visit was thanks to my architect friend, Heinz, who had met us in Orvieto and suggested we stop in Pitigliano on our way to a rental villa on the coast. All this was near the beginning of our 2001 visit to Italy (see previous BOX for the first days).

The highway from Orvieto took us around the northern rim of Lake Bolsena, the largest volcanic lake in Europe:

When we reached Pitigliano I couldn't resist taking photos of the incredible town as we drove around it toward the entrance:

Heinz posed with Anne and me in one pic, taken by Jim or Jean Tobin, who were with us on our drive:

And later Jim posed with Anne:

We spent a good deal of time walking through the town and having lunch. Here are a couple of street views--well, alleys and stairs:

The town was known for its Jewish community dating back to the late Middle Ages and for its hiding Jews during WWII. A synagogue remains open to the public:

We encountered some groups of women tying together branches of an herb, to be strewn on the streets during a certain saint's day. Heinz, fluent in Italian, was able to chat with them:

In mid-afternoon we continued our drive toward Ansedonia, where we were meeting our good friends Mary Beth and Jack, plus two other couples from Milwaukee, our housemates for our week's stay. The Villa Lidia was perched on a rocky slope above a beach in the small community of Ansedonia. Here's a photo I took the next morning of the beach from the terrace:

And here, somewhat in shadow, is the house seen from the beach:

Next you see the house from closer to the cliff:

The villa was surprisingly affordable--no more than a budget hotel would have cost each couple or individual per night. The challenge was finding it online, getting enough people to sign up and working out the financial details--which Mary Beth brilliantly accomplished. I'm glad to say we were all perfectly compatible, and our first meal together, all 11 of us, at a restaurant called Il Pescatore (still operating) was memorable, as was another dinner at nearby Il Vicinio with its cliffside view of the sea. I have no photos of those occasions, but I did take some of an evening when we all contributed to making dinner at the villa. Here's the table out on the terrace set with our first courses--I see a plate of melon slices, a tomato salad, some olive oil with rosemary sprigs, no doubt picked from the bushes growing next to the villa entrance, and a bottle of Pitigliano wine:

In the next photo Heinz is arranging some chairs, with Karen standing next to him, her husband, another Jim, in the white t-shirt, plus plus Tom and Jack at the far left and right.

And here we all are at table, except for me taking the photo: clockwise, Anne, Jim Tobin, Jean, Tom, Kathy, other Jim, Karen, Jack, Mary Beth and Heinz:

On another day Jim and Jean posed on the terrace:

The whole group didn't always hang out together--there was much to see within a few miles' drive of Ansedonia, and various parties made various excursions. We also spent a fair amount of time at the beach, though I didn't go into the water much since I had picked up a sinus infection and felt under the weather for most of the week. I still took pictures, however, including another view of the coast from either the terrace or our bedroom window:

Looking closely, you can see surfers in the water:

Here are two morning views from our bedroom window: one of Anne looking in and one of the sun burning through morning mist:

To get down to the beach we passed near what was called the Etruscan Cut, though this waterway is now thought to have been built by the Romans to regulate seawater flowing in and out of fishponds:

Here are two more shots of the peninsula on which the villa was built, as I walked farther away from it. In the second, the Monte Argentario stands in the distance:

Of the excursions we took during that week, I confess I have no memory whatever of visiting this castle and bridge in Montalto di Castro:

And I couldn't tell you where I took this photo of birds nesting on top of some implement or decoration inside an alcove:

But I do remember having lunch in the town of Ortobello, near Monte Argentario. Here's the Governor's Palace in that town:

South of Ansedonia along the coast the land is flat; marshy in places:

There are ancient watchtowers along the coast, some positioned between a lagoon and the sea:

In the opposite direction the land quickly becomes hilly. The next photo might have been taken from the hill town of Capalbio:

Here you see Anne and me posing against the same or a similar landscape:

We spent some time with Heinz and the Tobins in Capalbio, an ancient town which had been spruced up for tourism:

There were beautiful gardens and terraces:

Afterwards, Heinz took us to a nearby 'surprise' destination:

The artist Niki de Saint Phalle had created a fantastic garden of monumental sculptures on several acres of land. Called the Tarot Garden, it was a couple of decades in the making, and opened to the public in 1998.

This dragon stood out among the other fantastic creatures:

And here, Heinz and I sit on what seems to be an oversized mirror-mosaic couch:

At the end of our week at the Villa Livia Heinz, the Tobins and Anne and I parted with the others and headed northwestward in our two cars toward Siena, but I'll report on that stage of the trip in my next post.