TUSCANY, I confess, has always been a problem. Seen through foreign (non-Italian) eyes, it is arguably the most visited, talked about, written about and lived-in region of Italy. The "fantasy" holiday in Italy usually envisages the lucky punter sitting on a Tuscan terrace with a glass of wine watching the sun set over a hillside vineyard and olive grove.
To these Irish eyes, however, modern Tuscany has tended to seem over-populated, over-cultivated and too firmly established on the tourist trail. True, this is the region where 500 years ago, the great "maestri" of art and architecture laid down a sizeable chunk of what we now like to call "Western civilisation and culture". The problem is that busloads of tourists have heard about it, too.
Tuscany, too, is the region that not-for-nothing has earned itself the inglorious label of "Chiantishire", given the numbers of anglophonic foreigners (there are plenty of French, Germans, Dutch, and Swiss, too) who live there and who, more than occasionally, take to writing about its bucolic splendours. For all these reasons, in 14 years of living in Italy, Tuscany has never been a favourite family haunt. All is now changed, however.
There is indeed a Tuscany eminently worth visiting and one where, if you so choose, you can mix art with nature, queues at the Uffizzi in Florence with walks in the countryside. Even better, there is a Tuscan holiday available where you can skip the tourist queues and the autostrada and concentrate on clean air, good food, good wine and outdoor activities.
The Tuscan farmhouse holiday is alive and well and if you care to visit Jenny Bawtree's establishment at Rendola near Montevarchi, at the foot of the Tuscan hills, you will find that there is indeed a way to mix Piero della Francesca with horse rides through the cypresses. The idea for this particular holiday, we confess, was born out of 10-year-old Roisin's all-embracing passion for the horse. The time in question was the Christmas-New Year holiday week and our requirements were to find an establishment which could offer something for both parents and child, meaning horses all day long for Roisin and something for parents to do in the afternoons. Rendola provided both, and much more besides.
In the end, too, nature won out over art. If you have a modicum of riding ability, then the experience of setting off in the (not too) early morning mist and heading for the wintry Tuscan hills is something to be treasured. After an hour's uphill riding (the horses are all well trained and quiet), you suddenly emerge out of the mist into brilliant sunshine that affords a breathtaking view out over the Tuscan hills.
Jenny Bawtree was once a university lecturer in Florence. Dismayed by the difficulties of the Italian university system, she opted out and headed for the hills more than 20 years ago. She took with her a passion for horses and the countryside and a entirely novel idea that perhaps it would be fun to go trekking on horseback in the Tuscan hills. She found herself a splendid 16th century Tuscan "casale" (farmhouse, complete with regulation chestnut beams and terracotta floors) in the tiny hamlet of Rendola and she was soon in business. (To find Rendola on a map, draw a line between Arezzo and Siena. Approximately half way along the line and a bit north is Rendola).
The idea has sold well. Her establishment is open all year round (we arrived on St Stephen's Day) and entertains mainly Italian tourists through the winter and mainly foreigners through the summer. The newly arrived visitor is asked to undergo a gentle sort of test to assess riding ability and level and then, if competent enough, can choose to head off into the hills for a ride that can last anything from one to five hours.
During the spring and summer, too, treks of up to five days are organised. Just imagine the next time the neighbour with the BMW and the suntan asks you:
"So, where did you go this summer?"
"Ah, we rode from Rendola to Siena and back again."
That will send him scurrying for the slopes of the Himalayas as he tries to outdo you. It should keep him out of the country for a good while, too.
Jenny Bawtree is well versed in the flora and fauna of the area and points out everything from old olive groves mixed with vineyards to the site of a wartime massacre. If you are lucky, too, you may find that some of your companions are well versed in the landscape.
One of those out and about in the misty morning with us was Marcello, an agronomist who supervises the cultivation of much land in the area. Walking through one wintry vineyard, he looked at the vines and pointed out that the vine plant was different. Indeed, so it was since it was much higher off the ground.
Those vines, said Marcello, come from the Veneto region and the reason they are using them here on the edge of Chianti is because they probably have problems with wild boars. If you keep the vine that high off the ground, he added, the boars cannot get at and eat them.
Just to prove his point, about an hour later on the edge of a wood, we came across a hunting party, guns and all, out in search of wild boar held responsible for a lot of crop damage in recent months.
If you feel you might not be up to scrambling around the Tuscan hill and dale and would prefer to take riding lessons in the "maneggio", then that is fine. Likewise, if you merely wish to have a farmhouse holiday in which you breath the clean air and observe the farm life, then that too is fine.
Life on the Rendola farm offers cosy attractions for children unaccustomed to the country. For a start, there is the splendid Caterina, an outsized foal who arrived one day as companion to a nervous horse. The horse has long since moved on, but Caterina has remained, mistress of all she can see (or head-butt) in the stableyard. You turn your back on Caterina at your peril!
THERE is, too, the establishment's dog, a Bernese beast called Barone who is as big as a Jersey heifer, looks as fierce as an outsized Rotweiler and is, inevitably, bouno come il pane (good as bread). If you are lucky, Barone and Caterina may engage in armed combat, producing a contest to delight all, young and old. Then, too, Roisin ended up most morning rides by setting off to search for and usually find freshly laid hens' eggs.
All of the above is great fun, while the exercise provides one with a sharp sense of inner moral superiority. However, the best is yet to come. Highlight of the day comes when all the guests (Rendola is small with just seven "family" rooms complete with bathroom available) meet at the dinner table.
This is a moment not only for making new acquaintances and exchanging hard-bitten stories of life out on the lonesome trail but also, and above all, for enjoying the cooking of Pietro, the man of the house. Two (very) full meals every day, plus a hearty breakfast, mean that you can say goodbye to any idea of losing weight or dieting. Furthermore, there is the temptation of the local brew - we are in Chianti, after all - which flows plentifully and leads one to understand why such as the 17th century naturalist and writer, Francesco Redi, once wrote: "Good Chianti, an aged wine, majestic and imperious, that passes through my heart and chases away without trouble every worry and grief." Which is just about what a holiday at Rendola may well do for you.