DAPPLED SUNLIGHT ON AN OLD OLIVE TREE

It is said that the trees in this olive grove are up to 1,000 years old. I couldn't say but at a guess, this one is about 400 years old. Olive trees can suffer from the cold and be killed, seemingly, but they regenerate within a few years. The one upper left, not quite in picture, is immense but was too shaded for a good shot.

I realize I do nothing but pretty pictures of Tuscany because that's what I like to see. We drove to Siena yesterday, a drive of less than two hours, and it was another world. It is about two weeks ahead of us so that trees were turning yellow, the sunflower fields were bare, and ready for the next crop. It was like time travel.

The rolling hills of Chianti are beautiful, there are magnificent villas on hill tops, and it is obviously a richer area than where we live. Siena, the little that I glimpsed of it, is a more sophisticated and wealthy city than Lucca. It is beautiful, however.

But there is much that is ugly. There are industrial estates of flat-topped concrete buildings, all looking rather run down, and there are high rise flats with mono-pitch roofs clustered outside Florence. (Luckily or not, they do not rise too high because most of Italy is riddled with geological faults and earthquakes are always possible.) Who designs this ugly stuff? What happened to the brilliant architecture of old? I know, it is the same everywhere.

Maybe one day I will do a pic of some of the ugliness, but not yet.