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Bel Poggiolo
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Life at Bel Poggiolo
- extract from the book "Carmen Via" -
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"... Consequently, the project began to ramify geographically, and also conceptually.
That bottle on the Internet had become some sort of website, offering fabulous vacation rentals: www.belvedere-italia.com.
We had begun with my wife's Umbrian Belvedere farmhouse and with my own Roman Villa. Then friends' castles and palazzi in Tuscany and Venice had been added.
'Belvedere' signifies 'a beautiful observatory'. I would add, 'a scenic base camp for explorations in Italy'.
The visits to Nemi and Barbarano had been quite something, also for me. They had unveiled unsuspected prospects - away from the claustrophobia of Petra's Etruscan tunnels and Visigoth chambers. Now I could make out Phoenician trading posts in Spain, Greek colonies in Sicily and Asia Minor, patron courts in Tuscany, pilgrim routes from Canterbury to Jerusalem, spice depots from the 'Most Serene Republic' to the 'Sublime Porte'."
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