Day 32 Villa Floridianna
It was a BIG drive from Polignano to Anagni, an hour’s drive
from Rome. It was mostly autostrada, but it still took about four and a half hours, with two services stops along
the way. In the journey to Anagni we saw all weathers. We began in cheerful
sunshine and along the way the skies greyed until we were caught up in a storm
of thunder and lightning. Then just as quickly as it started, it rained out and
there were fluffy white clouds against a Mediterranean blue sky.
We were glad that we were not driving straight to the
airport for the 20 hour flight back to Melb. Instead, in the early afternoon,
we pulled into Villa Floridianna for a rest, and a restaurant meal. From the
car park we sensed some of the grandeur of the place that must have been a distinguished
home or hunting lodge, set in its own sculpted gardens. The hills just behind
the villa soared up darkly and the low clouds looked like a skein of pale wool
tumbling down the lap of an ancient, dark clothed grandmother.
We dragged our suitcases over the crunching gravel, over a
terrace and through a colonnade of clipped trees that must provide the most
wonderful shade in the summer months. The desk clerk looked a little startled
to see us as the empty car park suggested we were the only guests in this large
hotel. Our suite was up on the third floor and gratefully there was a lift.
Huge oak beams criss-crossed the ceiling and our elevated position afforded us
the most wonderful views across the valley to the village on the opposite hill.
The afternoon sun caught the sides of the buildings making even the most simple
of buildings a thing of beauty.
Rather than waste our time loafing about our rooms, we took
our books down to the garden. We took a turn around the garden enjoying the
formal layout. I couldn’t stop myself when I found a flourishing weed and
yanked it out. I could just imagine a hot summer’s night and a wedding party
moving through the lighted terrace with drinks in hand and tinkling laughter.
We settled into some very comfortable garden chairs for an
hour or so. I was reading A Garden in Lucca by Paul Gervais. He chronicled his
challenges and triumphs in shaping a
vision for the house and gardens, his struggles with materials and colour
schemes. And here I was sitting in the garden
of a home that at least externally looked so similar to his. There were
the massive pots, just like the ones he sourced to plant his lemon trees in.
There was the new stone fountain that he wanted to seem as if it had been there
for decades, if not centuries. There was the formal planting and the thoughtful
selection of complementary colours. I could not imagine a better place to read
this book.
A feature of this holiday has been restlessness. Each day,
as soon as we had rested a little we wondered what there was to see and
launched off again. Today was no different and even though it had been
repeatedly nominated as a restful day, we were soon wondering about the village
across the valley and what sights we were missing.
Off we went in the Citroen, planning only to really go as
far as the church, reputed to be something special. The road we took climbed us
to the village, but apart from some dusty and weather-beaten homes, there was
little to see. We took a chance and followed the road up beyond the village and
high into the mountains. There were many large houses, each set in large lots,
planted out with the inevitable olive trees. When these gave out, nature took
over and closed in on the narrow roads with a chaos of trees, shrubs and
grasses. We followed the twisting and turning road ever upwards, pulling over a
couple of times to let past local busses going in the opposite direction. The
hills were enormous and glorious, and even more so against a turbulence of
white and grey clouds that hovered around them.
In the end, we has to resort to Maps to find us the way home.
Being of independent mind, Johnny decided to ignore one important instruction
that would have sent us off on a narrow track through the fields. He thought
the main road, (which in all truth was not much wider than the track) would get
us there more directly. Wrong! It must have been knock off time as there was a
traffic jam in both directions. As we were in no particular hurry, this was not
a problem and the slow ride home gave us more time to appreciate the
countryside.
This will be the last blog of our 2025 trip. Tonight we will have dinner in the hotel restaurant and early next morning we will set off for Rome airport for the flight to Abu Dhabi and then the final leg home. Kalo taxithi. Adeus e boa viagem. Arriverderci.
