When we were in Italy in June we stayed in a villa on the outskirts of the village of Poggia alla Croce, near Figline (a small town which was our closest shopping centre) and half an hour by train from Florence. On the town website there was an interesting event advertised for when we were there, so we decided to go.
It was run by the local community cafe, which we discovered was actually a garden shed with a terrace that volunteers served drinks from. There was a mobile telephone number for booking places on the event and so I sent them a message.
The event was apparently a return of a beloved musical evening with an orchestra combined with a walk in the dark up to the cisterna (the spring which supplied the town water at the top of the hill) and back again. Just to be sure we had a place we popped in to the café and asked. Yes, no worries, they had received my message. Turn up at 9pm to join the walk. Bring a head torch.
I was prepared and had brought my head torch from home, and luckily there was a Decathlon in Figline, so we went shopping for head torches for Simon, Rosie and Jon. All sorted and we turned up on time to see what was going to happen.
The orchestra was small, young and from Florence. Their conductor, who was obviously well known locally, gave a long speech, of which we understood only a few key words of course. He introduced the president of the local association, who have a short jokey speech and introduced our guide. He was taciturn but clearly also locally well known and regarded. I gathered he was a professional nature guide.
Once the orchestra had played a few numbers -- film scores we think -- we headed up the hill. It was quite steep and I huffed and puffed quite a lot. Once we got to a point where we could look out and see the lights of Figline there was a pause in a clearing for a musical number, and I realised that several of the musicians had accompanied us up the hill, with their instruments. It hadn't dawned on me before, because we could hear the orchestra playing below, and at appropriate moments had stopped to clap and cheer them on.
Two more musical stops were made and we passed a World War II trench which people made sure to point out to us. There were also info boards explaining the wild plants around us and it is no doubt an interesting walk in the daylight.
It turned out that the walk was a sort of walk through musical history, from Bach, through the Romantics to something atonal from the 20th century. Naturally the conductor took the opportunity at each stop to give a long explanation, making sure to look sexy, intellectual and trendy at all times, with his long silver hair, narrow legged jeans and definitely not hiking footwear.
The last musical stop was at the huge cross set on top of the hill. Just before we reached it we looked out in the other direction to see the lights of Florence in the middle distance, and fireworks for the festival of San Giovanni (Saint John).
Then it was back down the hill on the other side, past the citerna. One of the absolute highlights coming back was that we saw quite a few fireflies along the side of the road. Everyone was very excited to see them and they caused a lot of chat and attempts at photographing them. I have several photos showing a pin prick of light in an otherwise black image.
At the end we all regrouped on the terrace and there was more music from the orchestra. And then everyone walked home.
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