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Posts tagged ‘Tuscany’

Apr 20

A walk one early Tuscan morning: Vineyards and poppies

Florence, Siena, Pisa, Lucca, Arezzo, Grosseto… Tuscany plays host to more stunning cities than you can even begin to list, let alone visit on a single trip to the region. Full of art history’s jewels, quaint little streets and magical churches, these are the cities which inspired a golden age of travel. Yet the cities are only one facet of Tuscany’s charm. All along the length of the region, there are beaches so sandy that they can rival the very best of Spain’s costas. In its restaurants, the Tuscan people will tell you that the very best food of Italy is served up, from wild boar to Sopa Della Pescaia. But above all things, Tuscany is characterised by its iconic landscapes. Who hasn’t salivated over the picture postcard views of undulating hills truncated by a cypress-lined winding road? And it is this landscape, punctuated by vines and olive trees and pine-perfumed air that I like to enjoy above all things.

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I’m lucky. I have family living in the region. And that means proximity. When we visit them my favourite thing to do is to get up early, as the sun is just starting to make its ascent, and walk. Walk in whatever direction my feet take me. For all roads in Tuscany lead to a lovely landscape, as countryside paths take the earnest visitor through those perfectly ordered vineyards, across freshly ploughed fields and amongst wild flowers.

These photos are from one such morning walk when the hour was perfectly peaceful and the light a creamy tone of reflected gold. But despite the sun’s fast ascent, there was a tangible sleepiness to the air, as poppy heads drooped delicately along grassy verges, snails curled up in snoozing groups on deserted street posts, and the birds, slowly awakening, heralded the start of a sunny new day. Pure. Bliss.

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© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. 

Apr 18

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Tuscan Towns #1 – Monteriggioni

There is nothing like a period drama to stir the soul, not least when an exotic location enables escapism, both historical and geographical. Such is the enduring magnetism of a film like A Room With a View. Starting a young Helena Bonham-Carter and the endlessly successful partnership of Judy Dench and Maggie Smith, it is the very essence of period delicacy, all set against a stunning Tuscan backdrop. Having become hooked on the film last year, it has gained a near gospel status in our household, and when a trip to see relatives in Tuscany beckoned this Easter, the film was omnipresent in our preparations. As we looked at the map and planned towns and cities to visit, the voice of Judy Dench as Eleanor Lavish pervaded. Recommending Monteriggioni to her fellow diners as a must-do destination, we felt persuaded to follow suit. Many years have past since the novel (on which the film is based) was written, but Tuscany is a richly historical land, steeped in the past, and we were sure it’s charm would not have disappeared with the period.

Charming Monteriggioni

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Charm we found in buckets when eventually we made it to this idyllic Tuscan village, whose miniature scale is tightly contained within the impressive and historically unbreachable castle walls that encircle it. Located within the gently undulating hilly green landscape which has put Tuscany on the tourist map for centuries, the castle town is practically untouched by the passage of time, with a historical core which has escaped the sullying of modern expansion.

The Great Walls of Monteriggioni

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Based around a tidy little Square whose central stone fountain is partnered by a rustic stone church, everything in Monteriggioni is rendered in miniature albeit with a distinctive flavour of power reflected by the imposing walls which encircle it. A walk around those walls was a clear highlight of the visit, not least for the Tuscan views punctuated by cypress trees and sun dappled hillsides.

No wonder Monteriggioni was on the wish list of visitors making their way to Tuscany in the late 19th century. Happily for we romantics of the 21st, very little has changed, enabling a level of escapism which only a carefully staged period drama might otherwise provide.

The rolling Tuscan landscape surrounding Monteriggioni

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© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. 

Oct 30

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Daily Norm Photo of the Week: Layered Landscape, Felantix

I’m not sure whether these photos look more like the rolling hills of Tuscany, or somewhere in the North of England. They are in fact taken from a roadside near Felantix in Mallorca. I had been driving along one of the long straight roads which characterise the Eastern side of the island when I noted the beauty of a nearby hillside toped with a series of ancient castle towers and windmills. In the foreground, the soft light glowing gently around the edges of the local sheep enchanted me, and the mix of pastoral idealism and the industrial scene shown at mid level in the landscape meant a must-have shot. So, much to my partner’s horror, I stopped the car mid road, jumped out, and quickly took these few shots. Not to be recommended, but well worth the effort.

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All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2015 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Dec 31

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2014: My year in photos

It has become something of a tradition on The Daily Norm to spend the last day of the year looking back at photos capturing the 364 days before it, reflecting on all of the splendid and captivating sights which have made up the year. And perhaps more than any other that has gone before, 2014 has been a year which the camera has loved. For when I look back at my photos of the last 12 months, I am met with an overwhelming body of diverse and beautiful shots which encapsulate a year overflowing with incredible sights and experiences.

I count myself very lucky to have seen and experienced all that has passed in a single year. From the quaint dark streets of Barcelona in February, my travels took me to the incredibly unique medieval citadel of Dubrovnik, the jaw-droppingly beautiful Amalfi Coast (including Positano, Ravello and Capri), the inspiringly-vertiginous mountain town of Ronda in Southern Spain, the vine-rich planes of coastal Tuscany, the floral festival of Pilar in Zaragoza, and the much applauded Czechoslovakian beauty that is Prague. And travels asides, it was the year when I held my first solo art exhibition in 6 years – a huge amount of work which dominated the first half of the year, but a wonderfully satisfying artistic and commercial success which will mark out this year as a creatively significant one.

The famous clock of Capri's main piazza

The ultimate ripples, Palma de Mallorca

Paradise on earth - Capri

Floral walkway, Positano

Colour profile, Marbella

Grape harvest in Castagneto Carducci

Beach umbrellas, Positano

However, appearances can be misleading, and when I look back on these photos, in particular those taken while travelling around Europe, I remember those holidays as escapes into unreality, moments of happiness snatched and nourished in between a stark reality which was becoming more and more difficult to endure. Once my exhibition was over, I found myself faced with a career which failed to inspire me, a city which made life a daily grind, and my partner feeling increasingly depressed for the same reasons. And it was this realisation, and a very unique opportunity that came from it, which triggered perhaps the most significant of all experiences that 2014 brought: our move to Mallorca. A life changer on so many levels; a bundle of new experiences which have only just begun.

And so it is sitting here in sunny Mallorca that I make this review, delightedly gathering up my memories of the year full of the positivity which has accompanied our move to a new life in Spain. Fast forward 365 days, and I look forward to telling you all about it.

Happy New Year to you all!

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2014 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Nov 1

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Two Weekends: Thinking about Cappuccino

It only takes a mere moment for your life to change forever. December 2012 taught me that much – a life obliterated – or May 2008 – when another’s mistake had irreversible consequences for the rest of my days. Yet if those moments of change taught me anything, it was that life is too short to stay where you are comfortable but unhappy, where monotony sets in and where you feel as though your train is trundling steadily up the wrong path. 

Earlier this autumn the chance to change paths and find happiness in change occurred to me very suddenly. It only took an email to set the new track in motion, and only two weekends for a decision to be made. For it was in those two weekends that I both attended an interview that would take me on a new path, and in which I made the ultimate decision, standing at the crossroads, that this new path was right for me. 

Two weekends: Thinking of Cappuccino is my newest oil painting, and it tells the story of how my life is all about to change: how I have accepted the offer to become Artistic Director of a global company bearing the name of Cappuccino and stationed within the sunny shores of Mallorca in Spain, and how in taking that offer it will mean moving from London, to Palma. 

Two Weekends: Thinking about Cappuccino (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, oil on canvas)

Two Weekends: Thinking about Cappuccino (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, oil on canvas)

But the painting came to me in Italy, sitting by the seaside in Donoratico in Tuscany, home of my partner’s family. Sitting at a cafe by a sea so still it might have been a photo, with our own breakfast of cappuccino and crostata (jam tart) on the table, all we could think about was a move to Mallorca, despite breathing the pine tree perfumed air of Tuscany, and drinking in the beauty of that Tuscan beach before us. 

The obvious symbols came to mind: the lifeguard’s hut was the new sanctuary that a home within the medieval streets of Palma de Mallorca would offer us; through the window we looked onto the famous skyline of Palma seen behind the green shutters that are famous in both Tuscany and Mallorca. The lifeguard’s ring has given salvation to the artist within me, represented by the manakin sitting on the sand: it is not so comfortable a position as the crostata tart sitting securely on a blanket, but this tart is the law, and within the confines of its pastry lattice, the blood of my life and career development is congealed and imprisoned, like a soul left out of the fridge too long. 

And of course at the heart of it all is the Cappuccino. No longer just froth and espresso…

I think it was in that moment, and in that second weekend of two, that we finally made up our minds to go, to take the leap of faith, to have an adventure and to change our lives. Now the move is in full swing, and by the end of this month we should be reinstalled in Mallorca. Which just goes to show that life can change in a moment. 

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Sep 29

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Interpretation No. 11 – Castagneto Carducci

Last week’s Daily Norm was a glorious panoply of Tuscan views, scenes and sensations and it’s not quite over yet. For hot on the heels of my Tuscan weekend comes my 11th interpretative landscape – part of my Interpretations collection which I began some three months ago after being inspired by the sumptuous landscapes and cubic shapes of Italy’s Amalfi Coast. 

Back in Italy this September, and one glimpse up through the vine-packed fields of Donoratico to the emerging landscape of Castagneto Carducci made me realise that this pretty hill top town was an obvious contender for an interpretative overhaul. For with its tightly packed cluster of pastel coloured houses all set up on a Tuscan hill, Castagneto offers a wonderful synthesis between petit-urban development set amidst a stunning landscape, which is exactly what the Interpretations series sets out to emulate. And I think this 11th Interpretation is probably one of my favourites of them all.   

Interpretation No. 11 - Castagneto Carducci (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Interpretation No. 11 – Castagneto Carducci (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Sep 26

Sunset on Tuscany

Just as this week of Tuscany posts began with an essay on a sensational sunny morning, when the sun was slowly rising over the calmest of seas, so now it ends with the most sumptuous of sunsets, as that round ball of fire on which we are all so inherently reliant made its 180 degree course through our northern hemisphere before dropping gracefully beyond the reach of the equator to pursue a further path on the other side of the world. 

As the Tuscan coastline universally faces west, wherever you are on that beautiful stretch of pine tree lined coast, you are guaranteed to be treated to the most stunning of sunsets, whatever the time of the year. Over just a short weekend in Tuscany, we witnessed three incredible shows, and with each the panoply of colours striding through the sky seemed to increase. From a lemon yellow deepening through to mango, when the sun eventually plunged beneath the horizon, the sky was shot with the most exquisite shades of rose and raspberry ripple so that, by the time night descended, the sky had danced its way through a cabaret of colours, inspiring fruit filled cocktails and artists aplenty in its wake. 

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But just as the sun had to set, a little earlier each day, so too did the time have to set on our little trip to Tuscany. For the nature of a weekend is the inevitable onset of work the following Monday, and with this damned thought in mind, we made our long way back, besides a fading purple sky, along the dark winding road to Pisa. 

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2014 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Sep 25

Tuscan Town Triple: Numero Tre – Monteverdi and the Vineyards of Donoratico

Monteverdi Marittimo is, on the map at least, mere kilometres from the little Tuscan Town of Castagneto where we journeyed on yesterday’s Daily Norm. But as the name suggests, Monteverdi rests atop a very green mountain, and the map does little to betray the extensively meandering length of road which takes a good half an hour to wind round and round the ascent of that mountain to reach the town on the top. As you do so, it is interesting how the air becomes yet clearer still, and the surroundings greener and more forested than ever – this is after all the terrain of the wild boar and the various huntsmen who annually go in their pursuit. 

Upon our eventual arrival in this tiny town, the spirit and feel of the hunt was very much in the air. The town has an altogether more “gamey” feel to it. Take away the sun and you might have been in Scotland, its old stone cottages and streets looking somewhat hardened by the elements. In fact I half expected to find stags heads and hunting rifles at every turn. Instead I found a atypical Tuscan town metamorphosed into an altogether more robust version of its normal romanticised cliche.

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Here the green shutters of the lower towns had been painted a muddy shade of brown; from here the views of the surrounding Tuscan countryside were so much lower down in altitude that they had become misty with distance. But despite the very beautiful results of old town against winning views, the town lacked soul. It’s streets were empty – we didn’t see a soul – almost as though the whole population had heard of an oncoming disaster, something of which we remained blissfully unaware, that is at least until we had lunch at the Trattoria del Pettirosso whereupon a disaster really did unfold – a gastronomic catastrophe of chewy badly cut ill cooked steak tagliata and a vino rosso so foully fizzy that the thousands of local wine growers around the town must have had a moments reflex of stomach-churned disgust. 

Still, there was no denying the abundance of verdant countryside between Monteverdi and the sea, and as we descended back to ground level, we had the opportunity to wander amongst olive groves and vineyards full of the plumpest sweet grapes, taking the opportunity to sneakily taste one or two – for any day now these will be picked and harvested to make their way into a hopefully far superior wine than the horror which had ensued at lunch. 

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All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2014 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Sep 24

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Tuscan Town Triple: Numero Due – Castagneto Carducci

Castagneto Carducci has a grand ring to it, like an aristocratic stronghold or a line of infamous popes. It is in fact quite the opposite of grand – a tiny hill top town clustered in the heart of wine-producing Italy so small that cars are band from its centre, and it comprises only a handful of small winding streets. Happily for me, this delightful little town is but minutes from my partner’s family home, a more than pleasant drive meandering through vineyards and fields packed with ripely fruited olive trees. 

Up in Castagneto it’s like another world. Car-free, worry-free, the visitor to this little Tuscan gem can wander uninhibited in and out of little shops selling the best local produce, wines, oils, herbs and soaps before stopping in one of the charming little cafes for an aperol spritz or a morning prosecco. Having had a heavy night sampling only the best of the local Bolgheri vino rosso, we opted for coffees before indulging in the photography which this little charismatic enclave begs for, taking in the little side streets populated by sun-loving cats and chatting locals all set against a backdrop of sunny pastel houses and more of those iconic Mediterranean window shutters. The results of those amblings are the harvest festival of photos shown on today’s Daily Norm.

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But for those left salivating at this dip into the Elysium of Tuscany’s fields, your wait for the next picture-perfect treat will be brief: return to The Daily Norm tomorrow for numero tre in the Tuscan Town Triple. In the meantime here’s a gallery of what Castagneto does best.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2014 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Sep 23

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Tuscan Town Triple: Numero Uno – Campiglia Marittima

One mention of Tuscany brings to mind meandering cypress-fringed roads winding their way through fields of sunflowers and olive trees; it is synonymous with old shuttered farm houses and vineyards carefully tendered in perfectly straight rows; and it recalls the typical Tuscan village, all built from crumbling beige stone, with a cosy central piazza and at least one church and campanile ringing out the hour. And these visions of a bucolic paradise are not merely the things of dreams. On my recent weekend in Tuscany, I was lucky enough to ride along the meandering cypress-lined roads, walk amongst vineyards and visit not one, not two, but three stunning little Tuscan towns, all three of which demand a photo essay all of their own. 

In this first, I introduce you to Campiglia Marittima, a hill top citadel just inland from San Vincenzo on the Tuscan coast, benefitting with views not just of wide Tuscan planes, but also of the coast towards Piombino and beyond the island of Elba. 

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This was my first trip to the town, and in it I found the very typique of a Tuscan settlement. Little squares on whose benches the elderly locals lingered chatting in the shadows; consistently charming houses, all built with stone and with windows shuttered in either green or blue, small little cafes creating a bustle in the central square, gently undulating cobbled streets and stairways leading up and down the steep hillsides on which the town is clustered. For photography the town was a gem of a model. Each street offered a multiple overlap of charming features – a distant hillside, an iron street lamp in front; either side quaint window shutters and in the foreground plants and multicoloured flowers grown in every shape and size of pan, can or pot. 

Campiglia Marittima is the very epitome of Tuscan charm, but in the great chocolate box of Tuscany’s multiple offerings, this was a sweet caramel delight in a box of plenty. Come back tomorrow for another of Tuscany’s idylls. 

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2014 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

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