The clouds of Tuscany say it all …….

Now like many I have that vision of Tuscany with verdant rich fields, blue skies and hilltop castles mixed with walled towns.  To which you can add heaps of vineyards and those Cypress trees. 

My Wikipedia tells me that the “climate is fairly mild in the coastal areas, and is harsher and rainy in the interior, with considerable fluctuations in temperature between winter and summer, giving the region a soil-building active freeze-thaw cycle, in part accounting for the region once having served as a key breadbasket of ancient Rome”.*

But I didn’t expect the stories from a friend that last week the “weather is terrible. Raining incessantly and cold. Really weird for May”

All of which was testified by the pictures which offered up heavy grey rain clouds and a landscape more in keeping with bits of Britain during a very indifferent spring.

But then the weather has been particularly unpredictable in Italy over the last few months.

We have sat and watched the Italian news reporting floods and heavy rains across the south, and the appearance of snow in Campania.

And now we have those awful floods in the neighbouring region of Emilia Romagna which have deluged towns with storm water, cut off villages, blocked roads, along with a loss of power to communities whose rivers have burst their banks and a death toll which continues to rise.**

Location; Val D’Orcia, Pienza, Tuscany

Pictures; the good and the bad, Val D’Orcia, Pienza, Tuscany, 2023, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento

*Tuscany, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuscany

**la Republicca, May 19th, 2023 https://www.repubblica.it/?refresh_ce