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| Anghiari by night |
Anghiari, a jewel in the Tiber Valley
Anghiari is a breathtakingly beautiful ancient fortified hilltop town which lies roughly 13 miles south of the Chestnut Barn. At night the town takes on an air of magic and you briefly feel like a time-traveler in a medieval time-warp.
It's a town of stone buildings, terracotta tiles, rounded
Romanesque and square medieval towers and round
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| Anghiari by day |
Coned and pyramid shaped roofs with intricately forged weather-vanes stretch towards the sky and you expect too see a damsel in distress and long thin, brightly coloured silken flags curling in the breeze.
We had no idea that we were walking in the footsteps of one of the first Archbishops of Canterbury, the famous Saint, Thomas Becket who had been here in 1164.
Anghiari has much to offer with many museums and churches full of history and art. The narrow flagstone back streets have a charm all of their own and the views across the Tiber plain are stunning. There is a wide choice of restaurants to suit all budgets and there is a weekly market held on Wednesday morning.
To learn more about the beautiful town of Anghiari and its history read A Chestnut Barn in Tuscany or Back to Tuscany and the Barn or better still enjoy it first hand and come and stay at the Chestnut Barn and follow in my footsteps...for more info check out www.achestnutbarnintuscany.com
Let me congratulate and compliment you on your book A Chestnut Barn. I learned of your book after I accidently came upon and read your blog entry on Anghiari. As will become clear, so much of what you wrote resonated deeply with myself and my wife.
ReplyDeleteWe bought, as one family member described it, “a 15th century fixer-upper” in Anghiari in November 2010. In fact, Ricardo and Marta were our realtors (fantastic people!). During the first half of 2011 we had our “townhouse” in centro historico gutted and redone.
With that background, I think you can see why we understood and appreciated much of what you wrote in A Chestnut Barn. Like you, we desired to be part of, as you write, “the real Italy.” We thus decided not to purchase in a “compound” where the other five units were owned by Canadians, Americans, and Germans. We also thought you expressed so well the “rose/thorn” nature of living in Italy, from pinching yourself and asking “do we really live here?” to the other extreme of “what have we done?” The same is true of your success in capturing the difficulty of mastering Italian (we still have a ways to go there!) and of completing the simple daily tasks. You provide heartfelt insight into how you and Nick dealt with it all.
Compliments as well on the way you weave together daily life and the area’s history and culture in A Chestnut Barn. I learned quite a bit about the area I had not known before. I also gained insight into the practical daily challenges we will face, from receiving health care to getting the car serviced, when we retire and are in able to stay in Anghiari for extended periods. For the past four years we have been spending only four to six weeks there, with a short visit in March and then most of July and some of August. While you and Nick are 1200 miles from the Chestnut Barn, we live across the pond outside Washington, D.C.
Again, our compliments on the super job you did with A Chestnut Barn. We hope that we might meet you and Nick for an espresso at Bar Baldaccio at some future date to share some more “war stories” about living in Toscana!
Jim & Debbie Marchio
jmsmrch1@msn.com
Dear Jim and Debbie,
ReplyDeleteThank you both for your kind words...it makes it all worthwhile when you hear that your writing has given enjoyment to others. We would love to meet up next time you are here. You can follow all the goings on at the Barn on Facebook at 'A Chestnut Barn in Tuscany' as well as in the sequel 'Back to Tuscany and the Barn' which is available now in paperback and ebook format. Thanks again for taking the time to post a comment it is much appreciated.
Ciao Catherine x