The strole around our garden - 18 Jul 2010

Welcome to the guided tour along the Peter & Christine estate. Please follow the guide and do not step outside of the dedicated path. Thank you. Here you can see our house. It's nearing completion and when the windows will be in place next week, it will most certainly already look a whole lot different, wont' it? But Christine... where are you going? You're not going inside now are you? You're supposed to show mama Cosetta and friend Fiorella all corners of our estate! So put yourself together! I know that it's hot out there but come on... here in the mountains it's not nearly as hot as in the cities below! It's a mild 32° and a gentle breeze makes it more than bearable, even under the merciless midday sun.

Ah... ok... off we go into the large field in front of the house. We turn back one last time and please hold your cameras at the ready... there's a splendid view of the house coming up...

We continue west along the edge of the field. Can you see the woodlands in front of you? They're ours. To be precise, just the front part that is, which is bordering our field and going downhill in southerly direction. Not the forest on the hill just behind it (left on the picture)...

Here you can see it a bit more clearly. The woods on the foreground are ours, the ones on the hills in the distance are not...

We now take a small path on our right, in between the trees, and arrive at another, smaller field. This field isn't ours but the woods to your left are. They extend as far as the trees you can see about 50 yards further. In these woods there's not only a large variety of trees, plants and wildlife. You can find tasty mushrooms there (given that you know which ones to pick... :-) ), berries, beautiful flowers, wild little strawberries which are just packed with flavour and... if you know how to find them... delicious truffles!

Allright allright... We know that you're just tourists and that obviously you hadn't thought of wearing a pair of decent walking shoes when you came to visit our estate. So we'll skip the trail through the woods and head back for the main field. East, in the far distance, you can spot Mount Valestra, which is quite near to where mama Cosetta has her B&B... the place where we got to know this magnificent part of Italy...

Mind where you're going!!! I warned you that you were not to walk outside of the dedicated path! You nearly stepped on this beautiful flower which grows so lonely in this vast meadow...

South it goes... downhill. At the southwesterly edge of the field there is yet another path in between the trees which leads to another field...

Just look at that! The three mountains which dominate the area: (from left to right) Mount Prampa (1698m), Mount Cisa (1698m) and last but not least Mount Cusna, with its 2120m the second-highest peak in the entire Appennines. Do you see that large bush on the foreground, straight in the middle of the picture? That's more or less the border of our estate. It cuts the field in two from roughly east to west...

We're now going back to the house. By the way, all of the woods you can see on your right (east, southeast and south) plus the woods on the hill behind our house (north) are ours too. But they're not easily accessible and on top of that they're going rather steeply downhill on the south side. So we won't bother you tourists with a slightly adventurous journey through the wild and rough. I'm sure that you've seen enough as it is for the moment.

Oh... and please don't forget the guide! :-)