20 Dec Autumn in Montepisano
Our journey started on 16th November, in the afternoon, when the Finnish group met at Savonlinna airport: our group was composed by 14 seniors and one tutor, of which six men and eight women. Most of us had met at a previous meeting, but there were also new faces, so we had a sort of social gathering at the airport to know each other and also fill in some questionnaires before leaving Finland.
The travel was quite long: it started with a flight from Savonlinna to Helsinki (less than 1 hour) and then from Helsinki to Rome (3,5 hours). It was already evening and dark when we left Rome, directed to Montepisano with 2 minivans, and the road trip took almost 4 hours. When we finally reached our destination, Airone Pisa Park Hotel at San Giuliano Terme, it was late at night.
The next day, in the morning, it was exciting to wake up and to see where were. The Hotel had 3 different buildings and our rooms were in two of them: everyone had a private room and independent entrance. Behind the hotel buildings we could see the Montepisano mountains.
After the breakfast buffet we had the first scheduled activity, “Bones for life”: it is a particular exercise and training program which improves bones strength and body posture. Mrs Daniela Gallo was our teacher. Our group participated actively and had good fun. Some of us also decided to continue this activity when returning home, and we received some instructions to take home with us.
Montepisano DMC presented the program and activities for the 5 days of our visit. It included lots of historical visits and cities, and most of us appreciated it, being very interested in history, art and famous Italian towns. The variety of the landscape impressed us: olive and wine groves, hills, forest, medieval fortresses and villages, historic villas and old churches.
The first tour, on 17th November, was to the historical town of Lucca: its center is surrounded by high walls, more than 4 km long. It was beautiful city full of old churches and interesting history.
Another well known city, Pisa, was in our program for the 19th. We all knew the Pisa Leaning Tower and now we had the chance to see it. We had a walking tour and learnt what Pisa used to be and what it is now. It impressed us with all its University buildings and it amazed us that in the city there are more than 45.000 university students.
On Sunday, the 20th November, we visited the medieval city of Vicopisano: it is another small city between river Arno and Montepisano. We visited the fortress up in the hill and had nice view over the area: river, pine woods, oak trees and rocks.
In our group we had some farmers and forest owners, so agricultural and farmhouse visits were of high interest. When we visited the farm Al Palazzaccio, which is and extra virgin olive oil producer, we also had lunch at their restaurant, with traditional Tuscany bread soup and Tiramisu, really great!
Another farm visit was in Vicopisano at Antico Frantoio. We had lunch and olive oil tasting in this organic farm, and also a tour in the garden with wine and olive groves, as well as a not so well-known kiwi plantation. Many of us did some shopping for nice gifts to take home with us when we left the farm.
Tuscany is well known for its wines and of course our meals included tasting of regional wines during the whole program.
The most memorable visit was to the Calci Charterhouse, on 18th November, which was inhabited by Carthusian monks until the second half of last century. Our guide told us interesting stories, describing the life of the monks inside the charterhouse. Nowadays the Charterhouse hosts the Natural History Museum of Pisa Univeristy: in it there are paleontological, mineralogical and zoological collections, as well as one of the largest collections of cetaceans skeletons in Europe. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to visit all of this.
Our program included other special activities, in addition to the aforementioned “Bones for Life” exercise in the mornings: for example we experienced art&craft activities on the banks of Serchio River. We split our group in two and some of us tried the watercolor painting workshop and introduction to the art-therapy by Sylviane Zurly: the results were very nice and interesting paintings.
The other half of the group tried instead a workshop on traditional willow basket weaving in Casa Gentili. In this case the results were lovely homemade baskets and objects that we could bring home. Both were new experiences for many of us, and hopefully somebody will continue to do some of these manual activities also when back at home.
In our group there were three persons who have sung in chorus: for them, but also for the rest of us, the activity we had in the Romanic parish curch of S. Iacopo in Lupeta was something special. In the old, beautiful church Maestro Marco Mustaro was waiting for us: he guided us in a chorus experience using the voice functional method. We learn to sang ‘bel canto’ type of music, and the acoustics was really good! It surely would be nice to attend real concerts in this church sometimes.
On the whole, this tour of Montepisano gave us so many new experiences! Naturally, it takes some time to process and understand everything you have seen. In the end everyone of us was really grateful for the opportunity of taking part in this kind of tourism test.