Villa Over a Valley
Judy Self and her yoga-lovin’ friends took one of their annual yoga vacations—this time to Italy. Between days of exercise and relaxation above a scenic Tuscan valley, they trekked across Italy to take in the sights.
By Judy Self, as told to Katie Pollock
(page 1 of 3)
 Photo Courtesy Judy Self Villa Petrischio in Tuscany was athe group's yoga headquarters. |
What I liked most about our trip is that there are almost no decisions to make. Everything’s laid out in advance. We know where we’ll stay, we know where we’ll eat, we know where we’ll go. There’s hardly anything to decide on. You know, you decide if you’re going or not going. That’s about it. Are you going to get up and go to class or not? We have a morning meditation and then a yoga class, and then sometimes, depending on the group, we might have a beginner class and a little more advanced class right after. I really wasn’t much of a meditation student, but after going places like this and having time to try it, I became one. Sometimes it’s just the breathing exercises. Sometimes at meditation we’ll read poetry. Or sometimes we’ll just look out over this beautiful landscape and see that it’s just a great time and a great feeling. There were flowers everywhere. It was so beautiful there.
Life at the Villa
We arrived at Fiumicino Airport in Rome, and they had the bus arranged for us to take us to the villa, which took almost three hours. We stayed at Villa Petrischio in Tuscany. We’ve been there twice. I’d recommend it, but there are just lots of villas. As Giulia says, the whole countryside of Tuscany is for rent. It would almost be fun to go see another place. And then we did lunch and a little restorative yoga, kind of just rest and relax. At the villa they have a place that’s set up for parties and dinners, and they cleared it out for us to do yoga. It’s a big covered building with canvas on top, and it’s got big sliding glass doors, so you can open it up and see the view and feel like it’s open to outside. It’s an enclosed area, and it’s out where you can look over the valley. The valley is a farming area. In fact there’s a farm right down the road, and you can see it while we’re doing yoga.The villa grounds were big, lots of acres. There was a big yard out front, and they have these big beautiful tress. I really enjoyed eating outside. The area by the pool was where we ate. We could eat out on the patio, this big beautiful patio, and you could see the sunset. In the evening, we usually at around sunset, it seemed like. It’s just magnificent, really. I just loved that so much!
The Tastes of Italy
One of the really nice things about Italy is that the food is so fresh. They grow vegetables in the garden at the villa, and they have chickens that lay the eggs, and we have eggs. And everything else is brought in. In an Italian kitchen, you don’t store food in the kitchen. It’s all brought in fresh, usually every day. And then we eat it, and then that’s it! You don’t have anything to store. They had a chef at the villa who took care of us. We’d go in, and they’d have the menu for you to see. One night we’d have something out on the patio, and we’d have a choice of wines. Oh it was marvelous! Just marvelous.If we had something going on, and we wanted to eat something light, we would tell them. With this trip, they were giving us a lot heavier meals, and we were feeling it. Because people do a lot of eating on trips. So Giulia went into the kitchen and said, “more salads, less meat, lighter desserts,” and they did exactly what we wanted. Everything you want, you just ask.
Once they made some chocolate sauce that went with the dessert, and it was like a little cookie, and then some kind of fruit, like part of a pear that was sliced, and chocolate sauce. The dessert was “Mousse of Cantucci with Judy’s Chocolate Sauce.” And we all loved it so much. And I found myself looking around at everybody, and everybody was trying their strategy of getting all that chocolate off the plate and into their mouths. One person would scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape with her spoon and get every bit off. And one person would take her cookie and mop it up, sweep it up and get it that way. But one woman just picked up her plate and started licking it, and she said, “I come from a long line of plate-lickers.”
All the meals were fabulous, but I really did enjoy the pizza and salad outside. I loved that. I remember how good everything was. The other meal that I remember that was a lot of fun was when they did the barbecue out on the patio. They had fried things, like appetizers, and they had little paper cups, like if you take paper and roll it up and make a cone. Then we would go along the buffet and put those appetizer items in our paper cones. That was our appetizer course, and then we went through and had salads and whatever they were grilling on that grill. Giulia introduced us to prosecco, which is a sparkling wine a lot like champagne that we really enjoyed, and we had that a lot.
Every time we did a day trip, they always had the restaurants picked and reserved and the food already ordered. So we went in and sat down, and they just brought food. And often they just bring us a glass of wine and some bread, one place they brought us some fruit. Often there was pasta. We had such a variety. There was a ton of food. We never had to pick a restaurant, and we never had to order a meal, unless it was one of the things not included and there was something special you wanted to ask for. On this trip, all the meals were included. I think they didn’t include the alcohol, but we kind of worked it out that you ate at these tables of about eight people, and we just shared the wine.
Day Trip to Cortona
About every other day we went on trips. Day two was Cortona. There we took the bus around and ate at the Taverna Pane e Vino. We stopped at Le Celle just outside of Cortona, which was the monastery of St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis of Assisi lived there—but this town was not Assisi. That’s a different place. When you go in there’s a sign that says, in Italian, “Stop in the silence in front of God. Rediscover who you are.” And another that said, “Brother, sister, the presence of St. Francis of Assisi has made this place holy. May your visit be devout and restrained. Prepare yourself for the act of listening. You will receive the presence of the Lord as St. Francis did.” It’s a big beautiful place. And it’s all lush, and there’s water running through there, and it’s a really lovely, quiet, beautiful place.As you drive into Cortona, it’s a walled city, and you see it like kind of a fortress almost. This day, there was a wedding going on, and the bride and groom were sitting on the steps at the chapel. So we took a little tour around with the guide, and then we were free to walk around, do some shopping, eat something.
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