Autumn borders

The arrival of Autumn here in Torri has finally brought a slight lowering of temperature and nature is at last showing signs of her preparation for Winter. Just as in Britain, we have had an exceptional period of weather here, in our case much dryer than the norm. Our walks now take us through a painted landscape, still the dark greens of olive and conifer but dotted about now are bright yellows of less common deciduous shrubs, colour which in the course of the coming weeks will disappear as the leaves fall.

Our most recent jaunt took us from the quiet and barely accessible village of Collabassa, perched high between the Bevera and the Roya valleys, and along a mountain ridge to Olivetta, a better cared for village with freshly painted houses and murals like this one opposite the village grocery store.

Clearly there is a spirit present in some villages, absent in others, that brings colour and artistry for the enjoyment of the residents and, of course, for us visitors. This village sits just inside Italy and a tiny road zigzags its way into France from here.

Our path runs somewhat lower, broadly following the line of a ridge separating the Bevera and Roya valleys, the twists and turns taking us first high above one river then the other. It is steep and exposed in places, rough underfoot and damp in corners where the sun doesn't reach but arid it is not. Much of the vegetation alongside our path is tough and spiky, shrubs that we half-recognise but with weapons or armour not found on British varieties.

Fruits and berries abound, most of which we don't recognise and leave well alone, but here and there are small trees with round orange fruits like large marbles but soft and sweet inside a granular skin. We think these are lychees but as yet nobody has been able to give us the local name (suggestions anyone?). They grow alongside our path, a fast-food convenience for us as we stroll along although it may be a mistake to eat too many as there is something in them that accelerates digestive transit.

We traverse a steep slope which has been devastated by fire not long before, the conifers standing charred and lifeless, the pale soil exposed to the sun athough ants are already making new homes for themselves. The contrast is sudden, from green and gold to brown and charred, but the path remains intact here so we pass unhindered.

Further on we hover above the town of Airole, still sunlit despite the long shadows and beneath which, in a long tunnel, runs the railway line heading north towards French and Italian alpine ski resorts. We are close to the border which follows natural features, ridges and summits, twisting and turning east and west oblivious to the demands of modern man. High in the mountains, of course, there is nothing to show ownership or nationality, nothing to mark which laws hold sway.

By contrast, travelling by road closer to the coast there is a strange feeling of unreality when one passes between Italy and France and the language of the road changes - 'servizio' (motorway services ) become 'les aires', 'peddagio' (tollbooth) becomes 'péage' and 'il semaforo' (traffic lights) become 'les feux'. Roadside markers change shape, crash barrier design is different and even the roadway markings are not painted the same colour. Next week we have been invited to the Lyon home of our French friend, Guy. Although he regards himself as French, at least half his parentage is Italian and his surname is shared by many in Torri. This trip promises to be an intensive French language and cultural experience for us but he is kind and sensitive (il a sensibilité) and anyway, life is too short to miss such an opportunity.

Insects, mostly

Just as there are many things about English life that a foreigner would find amusing or strange, here in Italy we remark upon many things that grab our attention for what we regard as their novelty.

There is a commonly seen vehicle that to our English eyes looks like something recovered from a second World War film set but which in reality is the workhorse of many small local businesses. It comes in various forms, all of which are known as 'Ape' (pronounced 'appay'), the Italian word for 'bee', has three small wheels and a tiny 50cc engine which buzzes, under load, just like the insect whose name it carries. Blue seems to be the favourite colour for these ubiquitous vehicles which are steered from inside the tiny cab, either with a wheel or handlebars, depending upon vintage, I assume.

That might be the end of the story but for the fact that there is a vehicle, much more well known in Britain, that has been named after another insect, the wasp.

The Vespa motor-scooter needs no introduction to me as I can recall years as a self-possessed teenager posing on similar vehicles trying to catch the eye of some passing lovely and I am sure that present-day young men all over the world still ride these machines without realising the meaning of the name in Italian. Again the name must surely derive from the similarity of the engine noise to that of the insect in flight.

Rather louder but sticking to the transport theme we move on up the scale to the tractor, and here we thought we were on comfortable ground until we saw the local version of this vehicle, a single-cylinder diesel engine, often with a furiously spinning, unprotected flywheel protruding from the front, a narrow wheelbase and a small cart on the back.

With four-wheel drive this beast is completely suited to the land it lives on. It can pass along narrow village streets, climb twisting mountain roads, carry loads far heavier than might be supposed and will come to no harm if left out in all weathers. It is perfect for our French friend, Guy who takes us up to his olive trees, 300 metres up the mountainside, so we can help with the harvest. Anything bigger would block the road or possibly cause a landslide as it negotiated the hairpin bends. Sadly, despite the racket the engine makes, now a familiar noise to us, the Italians have yet to come up with an insect to name this after.

They say the Italians are a passionate nation, not something I am qualified to comment on,

but the three black beetles acting out this little scene beside a footpath leading up out of Torri, made us think that there might be something about the sun or the air here that promotes coleopteran promiscuity. We were on an afternoon walk up a tiny valley to find the original source of water supplied to our village before mains-purification came along and were following a rough track balanced precariously on the steep hillside.

The upper valley narrowed to almost nothing and the stream fell over a short waterfall, above which there was lush vegetation and a small clear pool, a secret place enclosed within headwalls of rocky crags above. Even in this wild isolated place there is evidence of man's intervention, retaining walls still standing here and there trying to keep the land in place, preventing the fragile soil from washing away so that olives could be grown. The vegetation is mostly green but here and there a striking splash of yellow-orange catches the eye, a deciduous tree succumbing to the shortening days of late Autumn.

Central heating

Our apartment here in Torri is built to a pattern that is common all over the Mediterranean, the walls massively constructed in stone and rooms with high ceilings formed as a curved arch without wooden supporting beams. The interior is painted white, the windows are curtain-less with exterior shutters and the floors are laid with rich brown quarry tiles with the occasional rug to soften the echoes. It is a pattern that suits the summer climate better than it does the winter as the apartment interior remains relatively cool throughout the day regardless of the temperature outside. We are grateful, therefore, for the large wood-burning 'stufa' built into our living room wall which forces heat into the surrounding stonework so that it can seep out again all through the night and into the next day.

In a village like Torri, a compressed village environment set in a deep valley, it is only the very favoured inhabitants who can expect to see the sun shining through their windows all day long, especially in winter when the hills send long shadows across the land. Our apartment is more blessed than many as we live high up on the third floor, higher still if you count the cellar which itself is some distance above the road. The apartment has a roof terrace - not the place for vertigo sufferers - and this is probably the highest point in the entire village. All this height comes at a cost, of course, as there are 61 steps between the road and the front door of the apartment, a challenge on a good day, quite painful on a bad one.

All of which brings me to the explanation for my aching legs and to the reason my arms are longer now than when we first arrived. It is well known folklore that a wood burning fire will warm you twice, once when you chop up the wood and once again when it burns in the grate. Here in Torri, however, they say that wood warms you seven times! It goes like this: First it is cut it from the tree, then it is sawn into logs before the wood is transported down the hillside to be stored for drying. When ready, the logs are split apart, then carried home for storage. Finally the wood is taken from the cellar up to the house and then at last it is burnt on the fire.

Thanks to the kindness and energy of Guy, a Frenchman who has family connections in Torri and who sweeps in from France every so often to look after his various plots of land hereabouts, and thanks to a massive expenditure of muscular effort by Guy, myself and from my long-suffering brother, after two days of log splitting and transportation, we now have a sumptuous woodpile in our cellar. This is mostly olive wood cut three years ago and now nicely dried and ready to burn; for kindling we will use pine cones collected on our mountain walks, these being melon-sized and completely dried out, easily stuffed into a large sack which is then slung over the shoulders as we descend. And as a quid pro quo for his wood, Guy is having English lessons from us, in addition to which, when he needs other help, someone to climb a ladder or push about one of his many wheelbarrows, he endearingly calls for my assistance ('Caan yu 'elp me plees?'). His energy and enthusiasm is boundless but outside of the English lessons, we communicate entirely in French, a challenge for both Kate and I as we to try to recall words learnt at school over 40 years ago. After a day with Guy our brains are buzzing with his language, hyperactive with words and phrases we should have used, things we could have said. Fortunately he is a patient man as well as being excellent company, providing us with a completely new insight into the world that is Torri.