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ANDREA
DELLA ROBBI
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Our latest adventure with the CAI group was a 2 day trip to the religious
sanctuary of La Verna which sits on Mont Penna, an isolated mountain of 1283m
in the centre of the Tuscan Apennines. The sanctuary is especially known for
its association with Saint Frances of Assisi, who visited here often, and is said to have received his
stigmata here in the 11th century.
As we were both recovering from colds, on the first day we opted for the easy choice - 2 hours walking around the base of the sanctuary followed by lunch in
the restaurant, then another easy afternoon walk and a tour of the sanctuary. It’s
here in the Basilica where we saw our first Andrea Della Robbia. For those as
unknowing as we were the Della Robbias were a dynasty of Renaissance sculptors
known for their remarkably fine glazed ceramics.
Autumn is here and the ‘forest’ as I was corrected (not a
bosco, ie. woods) was filled with the most amazing varieties of fungi. Immediately
one of our fellow walkers ‘Ave’ starts to pick various mushrooms and claims to
be taking them home to eat? Marino and I can’t believe it, firstly that they’ll
make the trip home (it was an overnight trip) and secondly that what she’s
collecting are actually edible! They all looked toxic to me! However we were
assured they would be delicious!
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EDIBLE
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EDIBLE
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TOXIC!
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EDIBLE
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LA
VERNA
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MARINO
AND THE LOOT
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So, we all started collecting for her. The bag got quite full
towards the end of our 2 hour walk and Marino carried it for awhile. After prizing the plastic handles from his nearly broken hand he
estimates
there were possibly 5kg of fungi!!
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MAMMA
MIA!
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This really was an easy weekend, we dined in for lunch, were
bussed to our 3 star hotel for the night (which included dinner and breakfast), and
were bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to start the walking the next day.
Our second day took us through more forest; the colours,
landscape and temperature were all very different from our previous mountain
adventures. The forest was silver and green from the lichen, spotted with the occasional
orange or red from the fungi (the toxic kind). It was also a very foggy and
misty morning and therefore quite eerie and still, although not so peaceful due to the
yackety yack (in Italian) from our party of 12. We soon arrived at Eremo di
Camaldoli, an 11th century Benedictine monastery and hermitage hidden
deep in the thick forest. This truly is a religious adventure!
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OOOOH …
SPOOKY
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The second half of the day takes us back into the forest and
more fungi. We have been assured by Ricardo that we can eat most of the fungi
and he points out some delicious looking numbers! Finally we decide to take some home and have them for dinner. Immediately we are surrounded with people suggesting 10 different ways to cook them. Each way is, of course, the best way! After ignoring most of
the instructions we cook them in our own way and they are delicious!
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THIS
IS DINNER
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On our journey back to Lucca, Ave announces that she’ll cook
the fungi collected on the first day and we are all invited to her house for dinner! And so ends another fabulous weekend with the CAI walking group.
Here’s my entry
for the CAI Lucca photo competition.
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I THINK IT'S A WINNER!
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