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Villa la Foce, parte 2
Because one post is not enough to reveal la bellezza!
You may not know this about me, but…
I have always been afraid to drive in Italy!! Not because, as is generally known, Italians ignore rules and regulations; not because the signs measure kilometers and not miles; not because I don’t the directions to where I’m going….but because I have never been sure I could find my way out of and then back in to the city! Whether the city be Roma or Firenze or wherever.
I could always picture myself going around and around some round-about, not being able to get off; or, driving wrong way both up and down one way streets in the historic center.
So, it is not with a little pride that I share with you that I not only rented a car myself last weekend, an adorable Fiat Cinquecento, as seen below:
But I successfully drove it out of Florence, through Tuscany, to the area around Val d’Orcia in the south of the region, then back through Tuscany and into Florence!! Woo hoo! I got the car back to the rental agency in the center of Florence, with nary a scratch or bump! I am a very proud driver!
I think you can see my pride above. Ad below.
And, not for nothing, this winding road, the most iconic in Italy, is one of the places I drove on Saturday!
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I will happily share with you that part of my confidence came from the fact that I had an Italian friend with me. My friend made sure I made it out of and back in to Florence in one piece. Next time, I’ll do it myself! Face your fears, people!
Balenciaga
Dopolavoro, a restaurant
The perfect spot at which to end your day of visiting Val d’Orcia and Iris Origo’s Villa La Foce is at the restaurant owned by the descendants of Origo.
If you look hard at the picture below you will see the words: Dopolavora Rurale – La Foce. That’s the name of this great dining spot and its menu and dining garden will delight you.
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I enjoyed the steak and rustic potatoes.
The al fresco dining area is the stuff dreams are made of.
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The Dopolavoro La Foce was built in 1939 as a meeting place for the workers on the La Foce estate. Country dances and plays featuring the farmers’ children were held on the little stage, movies and news of the war were screened and people came from miles around to share a glass of wine and play a game of bocce (bowls) in the shade of the lime trees.
Along with the kindergarten, the school and the clinic, the Dopolavoro is part of a series of buildings built by the Origos in the 1920s and 1930s, when they carried out a vast plan of land reclamation and social innovation.
When Antonio and Iris Origo bought the vast estate of La Foce in 1924 the Val d’Orcia, for all its spectacular scenery, was a poor and uninhabited region, a land of low clay hillocks and stony, unfarmed soil. Not only did the Origos dream of reclaiming the barren fields and turning them into fertile countryside, they also aimed to improve the living conditions of workers on the estate.
Today the Dopolavoro once more belongs to the Origo family and reopens as a restaurant in which traditional Tuscan dishes are flavoured with the delicious La Foce extra-virgin olive oil and created with the best seasonal local produce. The restaurant boasts its own vegetable garden across the road, guaranteeing a genuine farm-to plate process. A path connects the vegetable garden to the famous La Foce gardens, which can be visited on request.
Firenze
WWII footage, the liberation of Florence
The most iconic roadway in Italy; the Strada di Valoresi
The Strada di Valoresi from Villa La Foce.
And the surrounding area.
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Villa La Foce; a magnificent garden in Tuscany
I’ve been a few places. I’ve seen a few gardens. So you can trust me when I tell you that Villa La Foce, the villa and farm created by Iris Origo and her husband, Antonio Origo, is truly magnificent.
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The villa is located in the crete sense (clay hills of Sienna) overlooking the beautiful Val d’orcia in souther Tuscany. La Foce is located near the site of an Etruscan settlement and burial-place that were in use from the 7th C. BC to the 2nd C. AD.
La Foce has been continuously inhabited for many centuries, partly because of its location on the Via Francigena (“the road that comes from France,” this ancient highway was a pilgrim route running from France [some say Canterbury, England] to Rome. In medieval times it was an important road and pilgrimage route for those wishing to visit the Holy See and the tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul).
The Origos dedicated their lives to bringing prosperity and cultural and social changes to this formerly poverty-stricken area of the Val d’Orcia. Years of work were devoted to preparing the difficult terrain for modern agriculture.
The gardens and estate of La Foce are among the most important and best kept early 20th-century gardens in Italy. Amid 3,500 acres of farmland in the countryside near Pienza, with sweeping views of the Tuscan landscape, La Foce was the dream garden of Iris Origo.
Passionate about the order and symmetry of Florentine gardens, she and Antonio employed the talented English architect and family friend Cecil Pinsent, who had designed the gardens at Villa Medici, to enhance the natural beauty of the site. Pinsent designed the structure of simple, elegant, box-edged beds and green enclosures that give shape to the Origos’ shrubs, perennials and vines, and created a garden of soaring cypress walks, native cyclamen, lawns and wildflower meadows.
Today the estate is run by the Origo daughters, Benedetta and Donata, and is open to the public one day a week.
The property was purchased in 1924 by Antonio Origo and his Anglo-American wife, Iris. Iris was the daughter of Lady Sybil Cutting who owned the Villa Medici at Fiesole, where Iris spent much of her childhood.
The Villa itself was built in the late 15 C as a hospice for pilgrims and merchants traveling on the via Francigena.
The garden is divided into three distinct sections on different levels, and was created between 1927 and 1939 in several stages, all parts composed to follow the lay of the land.
Grafitti in situ.
The real deal.
get back, lauretta! 
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