25 Jul 2017

Day 1 of a 30 day photo challenge a friend has convinced me to join. Today the subject is my favourite street in my home village in Tuscany.

Just a street in a village in Tuscany

Tuscan Alley

A friend of mine has invited me to participate in a 30 day photo challenge. I am pretty certain I won’t be able to keep up but, I will give it a try!

So day 1 should be about “a street“. And I had troubles choosing the best photo for this post. I went through my photo archive and found many photos that hold a special place in my heart. In the end, I chose a recent one.

Street Tuscany

This is just an alley in my village, but one that I especially love. It’s a back road that cuts through the oldest part of our little town in Tuscany. On the left, you can see the shutters of the “sacrestia”, the sacristy of the local parish church.

I have spent many afternoons in there when I was a kid. I still remember the smell of the vestments and the paintings, and the stuff that was stored away in some dark back rooms… They smelled like dust, and mold, and days gone by and of the time when the village life revolved around the church. I was fascinated and kind of scared by those dark rooms.

After my teenage years, I have to admit I hadn’t gone back in there for a long time. Not until I had to attend a pre-cana course to get married. The first time I stepped back in the sacristy, it was like I was back in my childhood’s Sunday school days (which was in fact every other afternoon rather than on Sunday!).

The other reason I love this alley is that there are several spots where the plaster has come off the buildings’ facades. There you can spot the really ancient stone and bricks underneath.

The back of the church is right around the corner at the end of the alley. There is a little recess at the foot of the bell tower, which has become the private garden of some of the ladies living on the street. I adore that spot. The bricks are almost black, as if somebody had used that recess as a fireplace or something like that at a certain point in the past. It makes my imagination run.

Anyway, if you come to Tuscany and decide to take a walk in my village, Civitella Marittima, this is my favourite alley.

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