Stone farmhouses stand amid vineyards on a Tuscan hillside. Photograph © Carol Havens/CORBIS

Tuscany
By Robert Hellenga

During an academic year in Florence, I often walked from the old Etruscan settlement of Fiesole, perched on a hill overlooking the city, to the little village of Settignano, perched on another hill, about five miles distant. I took this walk in all kinds of weather, following little trails or mule paths, and, though these sentieri and mulattiere were all marked on my enormous military map, I frequently got lost and would have to ask directions at a farmhouse. On these walks I was often rewarded with glimpses of the great city below, but most of the time the gift was the countryside itself, the typical Tuscan landscape. It would be easy to make a list of landscapes that are more spectacular, but it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find one that is more satisfying. I saw olive trees and terraced vineyards and meadows—the field full of flowers in which the lovers kiss in A Room with a View lies between Fiesole and Settignano; I saw earth-toned farmhouses and churches flanked with cypress trees. But I also saw that it is possible for nature and culture to meet on amicable terms. Actually, amicable is not strong enough. Human beings have been shaping this land since the time of the Etruscans, and not only have they done so without spoiling the natural beauty, they've actually enhanced it, as if they'd been working together over the centuries to get everything just right.

There are no innocent eyes, of course. To a large extent we see what we are predisposed to see. The early Florentine painters, for example, did not see what we see in the Tuscan countryside, and it wasn't until the 19th century that landscape came into its own as a proper subject and not simply as background for something more important. Nonetheless, the idea of the enchanted place is as old as humanity itself, and our inclination to idealize the Tuscan landscape—to see it as a harmonious meeting place of nature and civilization—has deep roots and ought to be encouraged. Instead of drawing a Maginot Line between nature and civilization as we are inclined to do in the United States, with the Nature Conservancy on one side and commercial builders on the other, we should acknowledge that our inclination to shape the landscape is itself part of nature.

The farmhouses where I stopped to ask directions imposed some limits on my tendency to idealize. These are working farms, not picturesque cottages in a 19th-century painting. The contadini do not plow the land with oxen but with tractors. They work hard and their rewards are uncertain—many olive trees, which don't bear fruit until they're 30 years old, died in the severe winter of 1985, for example. And Tuscan farmyards, like American farmyards, are often littered with pieces of broken-down farm equipment. Similarly, you can hear televisions blaring at midday.

But a little dose of this reality was like an alloy that strengthened my initial appreciation of the landscape, my sense that in this place I did not need to do anything—that for a little while, at least, it was enough just to be.

The information in this story was accurate at the time it was published, but we suggest you confirm all details before making travel plans.