Some say this was the last summer day of the year. I’d say, we were lucky having it mid-October. Golden light, warmth, and off we went to the very north of the Chianti region, the village of Impruneta. Legend wants its famous terracotta stones to cover the roof of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Duomo of Florence. I doubt any of us noticed it. What we did notice was the St. Luca’s fair that spread all around the small village. The dominating feature was the smell of hog roast. Nobody could overcome that.
So even before starting our hike (which later proved to be just an afternoon walk, but that is a different story) we engaged in watching, smelling, tasting and finally just wolfing down this lovely pig that was roasted for the believers of St. Luca.
The hike was mainly rolling down a Tuscan hill, but with undeserved, spectacular views of the valley below. Our first target: La Certosa.
On the top of a hill (because monks always choose well, as spirituality and good views go hand in hand) we found the monastery of Galluzzo, named La certosa from the order of monks it serves. These carthusian monks, live in silence, and only train their unused voice cord once a week for a whole hour, gossiping with their fellow monks. The rest of the time they live in their small cells, the size of a one bedroom central London apartment, with food service. A plate of food appears once daily through a small window in their room, as a reward after a hard day of prayer. Being there with a bunch of economists, we debated about the waste of material and human resources in this spiritual business, concluding that, it would have been better if the monks wrote PhDs. (The priest blesses first his own beard, say the wise Greek folk)
The most impressive finding of this walk was the monk who gave us the tour of the certosa. Father Benedicto was very grumpy at the beginning of the tour, giving us “efficient” information (This painting, this year, by that painter, represents this, moving on… boom boom boom!). Slowly, he warmed up on us, especially to the ladies of a certain age in the front of our group, always complimenting him. In the end - what an audience we were - he did not want to let us go. Our tour, supposed to last an hour, was dangerously passing the one hour and a half threshold, and he was violating his weekly speech quota by thirty minutes! And on top of that, he was flirting with the ladies, whose age should inspire him to chant his funeral hymns. Maybe he could smell paradise close to them, who knows. Fatigued after our tour, he removed his hat, only to reveal a glorious head bump, benign tumour I was informed. But I could not help but thinking it was a horn being hatched in there…. A hybrid devil, identical to the one of Salman Rushdie’s imagination in the Satanic verses.
After these thoughts, and sure that the catholic church would had burned me in purifying fire, we continued our scroll to Florence. We arrived at piazzale Michelangelo exactly at the time the sun was setting. Florence below our feet and the sky in purples and pinks. All I could think about was my blisters… F**k the sunset. My feel are hurting!
