So you want to hear some more about Italy?

Awhhh…it’s so nice to sit down and rest the legs. I think I’ve done almost 3hrs of walking today just going to work and getting various other tasks done. But now its time to crack those knuckles and crank out a blog.So you want to hear some more about Italy huh? Well Cherith and our photos do a good job, but let me try another way to describe the Chianti region in Tuscany.Let me start with the landscape. I’ll describe it like a recipe but it will still take some creative thinking so bear with me.First get a picture in your head of Northwest Arkansas, a good picture like the landscape you see when you drive to Ft. Smith on I-540. Do you see all the hills, the forests, an occasional creek, the roads, the towns, etc? Ok good. Now the next step is to remove anything manmade so all you have left is a picture of the undeveloped landscape. Got it? Next add 30% more hills, now not necessarily bigger hills just more hills. In fact many of them can be smaller then what there is in NWA. Once you’ve done that take away 60% of the forest. (Don’t have a heart attack those of you from Fayetteville) Then again don’t take away the forest like it has been clear cut. Imagine farmers slowly moving into the region and randomly clearing room to cultivate their crops. How are you doing so far? Can you see NWA slowly being transformed into something else? I hope so. Next those farmers have to plant something don’t they? Well the soil has a little topsoil and is full of clay just like NWA, but it also is slightly sandy and has a lot of small pebble like rocks throughout. So let’s plant grapes. Plant the grapes in those cleared areas in your landscape. Plant them in long never ending rows. Plant them thick. Plant red ones, plant white ones, plant whatever you’d like. Make some nice old terraces on your really steep slopes. I mean after all you’ve got to make room for the grapes in the harder to reach areas. And in fact let’s throw in some olive trees. Make a couple orchards areas for your olive trees. Don’t worry, you don’t have to know what an olive tree looks like. Just imagine a couple orchard like areas there on your hill sides. Afterward add wild blackberries, wild grapes, and wild flowers to every ounce of land that isn’t being immediately farmed. Now double the amount of wild berries and flowers you just added. Seriously, you will not be able to overdo it now matter how many of them you imagine. Pretty picture so far, huh? Well we’re not done, we’ve got to add in some development. Don’t fret, there will be not any strip malls, McDonald’s, or Walmarts going here. We do need to add some old farm houses. You can add these Italian style villas where ever you want but they all mainly reside on hill tops or on a ridge line. That way the farmers can have a better view of the incredible valley. Next you need to add a handful, and I mean only a handful, of small towns. Put these towns on the hill tops of some of your bigger hills. Ok…so you could maybe put one town down there at the bottom of the valley. Either way, from a single hill top you should be able to see a couple of towns and maybe several more if you look hard in the distance. And yes, make sure each town has a small Romanesque church. These churches all ring their bells a good while to signal the start of lunch. Several of them will also ring on the half hour. Oh and by the way these towns are very small. They are say Jasper, Huntsville, Hindsville size towns at most. And yes we have to connect these towns with roads. Add in some very very curvy and small roads. Don’t make the roads to much like the pigtrail though, these roads shouldn’t double back on themselves very much. Rather these roads should be much more snakey as they windthemselves up and down and around the hills going from town to town. Imagine the roads to be pretty narrow. These streets should only qualify as a one way street in the United States. However, with the tiny Italian cars there won’t be much of a problem. Last but not least add in Cypress trees all along the roads and around your towns & villas. Cypress trees look like pointed skinny corndogs, but instead they’re trees. I admit that’s a horrible description of a Cypress tree. Maybe you should look up what they look like. Anyway there you have it, your very own picture of the Chianti landscape. For those of you who are a bit more creative inept just refer to our photos. As for everyone else ‘prego’!!