Paradiso at Il Molino

(Jim)

Montalcino street

For the last few weeks, we've stayed in less-than-ideal accommodations in Aix-en-Provence and Dubrovnik.  We enjoyed both towns, but found ourselves unable to cook nice meals due to inadequate kitchens, coping with broken dryers, enduring sinks without hot water and beds without blankets.  This trip has reinforced something we've long recognized about travel - space, light and luxury are relaxing, while crowded, poorly-lighted, and imperfect accommodation create chronic, low-level background stress.

Don't get me wrong.  We very much enjoyed Aix and Dubrovnik.  Our kids voted Marco, the guy we rented from in Dubrovnik, the single nicest person we met on our entire trip.  The price we paid for our week in an apartment a stone's throw from the walls of the old city was very fair, in a place where $1,000 a night rooms were available across the street at the Hilton.  But it was by no means luxurious.

Our villa at Il Mulino

During that whole period, I was thinking about Il Mulino, our villa in Tuscany, and hoping it would be the relaxing, fully-appointed retreat we hoped for.  I never talked about it, fearing to jinx our stay by saying, "I hope Il Mulino is really nice."

Now we are here, and it is better than nice.  As one of the kids said within five minutes of arriving, "This is paradise."

We approach by driving past the Abbe Sant'Antimo, one of the most beautiful Renaissance structures in all of Italy.  It was first built by Charlemagne, in thanksgiving for his troops escaping the plague (?) while marching north from Rome.  It is now run by French Cistercian monks, who hold Mass with Gregorian chants every day. 

Checking out the pool

Our villa is a converted 12th century mill, which was in service until 1945.  It has been restored at great cost, with foot-thick stone walls, antique floor tiles, roof supported by massive hand-hewn wooden beams.  There are four bedrooms, living rooms on two floors each with a stone fireplace, a kitchen with attached pantry full of dozens of pots and pans.  One of the most striking things about staying in a stone building is how silent and still it is.  Nothing creaks.  The house makes no sound.

Remember that final scene from Groundhog Day that I talked about in Norway?  Amy beat me to it this time.  A few hours after we arrived, she put her arm around me, pointed at the villa and said, "Let's live here.  We'll rent to start."

Bell tower in Montalcino

The costliest part of this whole trip may turn out not to be the falling dollar.  It may be the cost of building a new stone house back in Pennsylvania, when we return from our trip.  Amy has a near-constant gleam in her eye as she contemplates one charming feature after another.  "Do you think we could...?" she asks several times a day.  (Fill in your own end to that sentence:  add a separate walk-in pantry, replace the kitchen floor with centuries-old stone flags, add an outdoor patio with a pool and terraced herb garden, build a stone bridge over the brook behind the house, etc. etc. and so forth.)

(Amy)

The year after I graduated from college (Holy Cross, 1988), I lived in Nîmes in the south of France and traveled extensively throughout Europe.  I slept sitting up on many trains and in the cheapest youth hostels available.  While walking to work most days, I would pass the nicest hotel in Nîmes and would wonder who could actually afford to stay there.  When Jim, Jack (22 months), Katharine (6 months), and I returned for a visit in 1998, we stayed in that hotel, which actually cost about $125/night.  My two most vivid memories are of the absolute knowledge that staying there was all the sweeter and more meaningful for having roughed it in the past, and of a palpable desire that my children would be exposed to difficult and uncomfortable things in their lives so that they too could experience what it is to deeply appreciate something.

Resident of nearby Castelnuevo del Abbate