Did you ever hold a special secret so close to your heart, but you yearned to tell someone, anyone, before you woke up and it disappeared? That’s how I feel about this slice of heaven in Tuscany’s Val d’Orcia. Oh, but you’ll have to keep reading for at least another five minutes for the great reveal.
This adventure was another in a long line of me leaving on a jet plane destination Italy, with no planned itinerary. Just a New York woman and her carry-on. Yes, girls…and boys…Italy can be done with a carry-on. But I digress.
I truly wanted to bypass Florence. I hate it! Truly hate it. Great art can be found in museums all across the globe, not just Florence. Sadly, in the post-COVID apocalypse we now find ourselves in, passing through Florence is sometimes necessary to pick up a decent rental car in a convenient location.
I refuse to pay €58 for a plate of mediocre cacio e pepe which this ragazza can easily make for $2-3 at home. So, having put in a short sentence in the city built by the Medici, I tried to escape as quickly as possible which is unrealistic in most Italian cities. It was a torturous one-hour drive to flee into the Tuscan countryside.
Once out of the urban hell, the proverbial knot in my C5 began to unwind. I wasn’t going to let that tension define this journey. I began to see signs for Siena and Val d’Orcia, a UNESCO World Heritage site with good reason. It’s a treasure worth protecting.
The rolling hills, verdant in summer, had turned the color of desert sand and it was hotter than Dante’s Inferno. I pressed on and said a thankful prayer to Willis Carrier, a name no Syracuse alum ever forgets!
I had reached the SS2, otherwise known as the Via Cassia, which connects Siena to Rome in somewhat of a straight line. It’s now a bit craggy in places. Speed cameras have replaced cute Carabinieri sitting by the side of the road. A girl notices these silly changes in her amorous daydreams.
I passed through Montalcino and I discovered Abbazia di San Galgano in Chiusdino (Strada Comunale di S. Galgano, 53012 Chiusdino, SI, Italy) truly worth a long pit stop on my higgledy piggledy journey. I escaped the ruins of the Abbey as a bussed in mob of wedding guests descended about to ruin my archaeological escape.
Weary, exhausted and falling asleep at the wheel, only the mysterious voice on the map app woke me with “your destination is on the right.” Oz and the Emerald City was off in the distance. I spied my treasure, but it would not be an easy get. I turned down a graveled path, unmarked except for a five-inch square sign. Lo and behold, I arrived at the secured iron gates. A push of the button announcing my arrival and they mysteriously opened, allowing access to the Princess in need of a little magic. The sorceress had granted entry to paradise, where the friendly, almost albino white, Kira greeted me. Part shepherd part golden retriever, Kira guards the villa on the hill, but don’t be fooled. She welcomes guests but outsiders be damned!
Kira’s Mamma was equally as welcoming as I pulled into the underground garage. Exhausted from the journey, I barely noticed the luminescent Laura standing behind my car. She and her ex, and we all have them, even in paradise, did an outstanding job tearing down an abandoned farmhouse, saving the bricks, and rebuilding an eco-sustainable home for the future in the middle of a region where preserving the past is paramount. This is the well-designed Casa 21, now known as Relais Val d’Orcia. It’s the type of secret place travel journalists are reticent to reveal for fear of ugly tourists taking over and destroying it.
Yet, that will never happen under Laura’s loving watch. Her sparkling eyes and pleasant manner keep it all under control, impeccably spotless, exceedingly tranquil. She is at once your long-lost best friend welcoming your return, baking the perfect peach torte and suggesting spots to visit, off-the-beaten path. Such a trip to nearby Vignoni Alta a medieval village with only eight inhabitants gives new meaning to getting to know your neighbors but it’s a trek not for the faint hearted or anyone thinking their expensive sports car could make the near vertical climb up the stone and dirt, gutted, single lane road. Even expensive sports cars aren’t meant to scale vertical mountains which look and ride like the cratered surface of the moon!
Yet, there’s no need to scale mountains here. The only soundtrack to your day is the mellow jazz music piped in everywhere, from the breathtaking pool to the breakfast room. You can lie by the pool for hours and hear your life say thank you or grazie tante.
And if Relais Val d’Orcia wasn’t gift enough, sharing dinner with my new bestie was even better. Once the sun set on the torrid Tuscan autumn and the tourists retreated into their clumsy buses, Laura and I climbed the mountain top to visit Monticchiello, where time stands still except for the innovative menu to be discovered at Ristorante Daria (Via S. Luigi, 3, 53026 Monticchiello SI, Italy), full of culinary delights and an amazing wine cellar.
I’m sitting here now with Tuscan crickets, sounding very much like a symphony of tingling tambourines, plotting Detective Flynn’s next mystery. Ooh, I see a pool with a dead ex floating in it and not a Carabinieri to be found. Hey, it’s my party and I’ll plot if I want to.
Take a deep breath. Tranquility is just around the corner. You have arrived at your destination!
Lisa Fantino is the author of the Detective Flynn Mystery series. Her best-selling travel memoir, Amalfi Blue – Lost & Found in the South of Italy, about life, love and la dolce vita went to number one in five countries, including Italy!