Organization of the Simple Life: Tuscany Example

My family and I just got back from spending two weeks in Cortona, Tuscany, Italy. Yes, the setting for the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun." The movie is actually a decent, albeit shallow depiction of the area. Oh, and I even met the writer of the book/film, Frances Mayes, who actually does look like the un-stylized, un-hollywooded Diane Lane who plays her in the movie. This is not my first trip to Italy, nor to Europe, as I have lived and traveled to many European locations. But it is still a huge culture shock to my body and mind. I live on the west coast USA, in Oregon, and I enjoy it. But it is so different, so totally different.

What shocks me first about Tuscany is the layout of the area. There are no "housing developments." I guess my eye has gotten used to the idea of the instant, mcHouses that have gone up all over my state and the rest of the country. In Tuscany, there are villages with stores, businesses, apartments, smaller houses, restaurants, etc. Between these villages, there are farms. There are no sprawling housing developments that go on for miles. There are no strip malls, or there are very few, and they are strategically placed in industrial areas. The best shopping is in the center of each village. Of course, some of these villages date back to at least medieval times and most are Etruscan, as in before Rome. They are constructed from stone and many are walled, and the buildings and churches are beautifully restored. Every village has a pedestrian area (or there is very little traffic allowed) where one can stroll for hours before or after your meal or in the mornings or evenings to encounter your friends and family for a chat. There is very little new construction allowed in this area. And, what surprised me the most, is how wild Tuscany is between the villages. My mother has a small farm with 3 hectares of olive trees in a small village outside of Cortona. Above her house, which is one of the highest on the hill, there are "fire roads" which are not drivable unless you have a jeep or some kind of four-wheeler. But they are super for hiking, mountain biking, horses, or trail running. There is literally nothing up there, but some deer, foxes, and cinghale, or wild boar. My husband, who hiked up there with me for the first time, remarked that these hills in the United States would be covered with housing developments. Why not in Italy?

1. They do not allow new building in that area. You have to buy an old, ruined building and restore it. The restorations are lovely. The farmhouse my mother and stepfather bought looked ruined beyond repair, but was loving restored, fairly quickly, to a modern yet simple and livable home while keeping the integrity of what it once was. The old wooden beams in the ceiling, the old fireplace, and the cellar were all repaired and improved. There is a large pool of restoration and construction experts in the area that will do this for you for a much more reasonable price than in the United States.

2. The population of Italy is actually decreasing. There is a large number of married couples with no children in Italy, and most have only one child. So the demand for housing is not there.

3. Berlusconi has kicked out all of the illegal immigrants from Italy. And although I do not believe this is the answer for the United States, allow me to make a few points about this: although there are many workers available from the EU countries to work in agricultural positions, they must be paid a living wage according to EU standards. For most people with small farms like my mother and stepfather's, this is not financially feasible. So ,they themselves farm their olives. They are both 70 years old and are out in their orchards on a regular basis pruning and caring for their 3 hectares of olive trees which yields about 1000 liter bottles of olive oil/year. It is not uncommon in Italy to see 80 and possibly 90 year old people out in the olive orchards! In fact, when they need help, they pay the 80 year old couple from down the road to come help them!

4. So people who don't plan on farming don't buy farms. They buy small apartments or houses in the cities and have another career. There may be some farms with overgrown orchards that are no longer used, but the majority are farmed by someone. Olive oil is such a staple in the Italian diet, that everyone either has an orchard or knows someone that has an orchard. Additionally the olive oil in the stores comes from right from the area and is extremely cheap. We even have some friends that live in a house on the outskirts of Rome and have 5 olive trees and they collect and farm their own olive oil from the few trees they have in their yard.

We can take some hints from Italy. I know our country doesn't have the 500 year old houses dotting the hills to choose to restore, or the general infrastructure to draw from, but we can think ahead, can't we? Why can't we restore what we have in the center of our towns instead of building housing developments and strip malls around the edges? Instead of the wealthy buying tracts of land to put a giant McMansion in the middle, why not buy the land to use the land?

There is nothing more rewarding then going to town everyday and going to the vegetable stand to buy your fresh vegetables for the evening, the bakery to choose some bread, grabbing a cappucino, chatting with some friends in the square, and walking back home. And to me there is nothing less rewarding than going to a Super-Wallmart to sort through some hard, waxy, vegetables with 1000 other scouring, fat, ugly people that have nothing to say to you but "get out of my way."

There is more to life than work, work, work, bigger, bigger, more, more. I can take the hint. And here I am preaching to the choir. But how do we get this across to others? Even if they do go to Tuscany, or Provence, or souther Spain, etc, how do we get them out of their tour bus (of life) to actually experience and understand?