TAILOR-MADE TRAVEL TO TUSCANY CRAFTED BY A LOCAL EXPERT

Orto Felice

The Happiness you share.

I had a beautiful childhood. Growing up in the countryside of Tuscany surrounded by green hills and a land that changed according to the season, was a magic theater.

At a very young age I was left free to decide what could be dangerous or not in the environment around me. Obviously my parents were always there to avoid me doing hazardous things but, in general, I was exploring nature and its cycles on my own, listening to people complain about the dry weather and the poor sunflowers ‘crop, or the frost that damaged the olives on the trees, or the early harvest of the grapes when late September seemed to promise too much rain. Climbing trees was one of my favorite sports and I did not mind scratching my knees to blood.

It was very beautiful for me to see my daughter experience some of the same adventures I had as a kid; chasing fireflies in the hot nights of June, doing somersaults in the Spring fields full of daises, picking bunches of daffodils to decorate the dinner table, run through the garden with our dogs free from the leash, wait hours for a shooting start on the night of San Lorenzo.

I’ve always believed that being surrounded by nature, and immersing yourself in it, weather simply getting your hands dirty or watching a new plant grow, has a positive effect on your mind.

I always believed that being surrounded by nature, getting your hands dirty, seeing a new plant grow will have a positive effect on our mind. So when I heard about Orto Felice, I immediately recognized the value of that form of horticultural therapy that the Azienda San Felice started to promote a few years ago.

Borgo San Felice is a prestigious hotel complex which is part of the Relais and Chàteaux group. The beautiful rooms and suites, all furnished with taste and comfort, are located in the heart of the most fertile Chianti’s wine area. The estates, that used to be an ancient medieval Tuscan village, covers a territory of 650 hectares in the Comune of Castelnuovo Berardenga, a few kilometers outside of Siena:140 hectares are dedicated to specialized vineyard and the rest of the land looks like the garden of Eden with its 17.000 olive trees and many orchards and long lines of cypress trees, big terracotta vases full of roses and geranium at every corner and bushes of aromatic herbs and lavender that spread their fragrance all around the pathways.

Through ORTO FELICE, Borgo San Felice has opened itself to social agriculture, a form of farming that allows disabled young people to experience both the mental and the physical benefits that come from the productive cycle of nature. ORTO FELICE is a vegetable garden managed by disabled students assisted by local farmers, often in their ‘terza eta’’, who volunteer under the supervision of Sonia Belluardo, the devoted coordinator. I met Sonia in January when the students where still away for their Christmas Vacations. She had just come back from a walk with a few guests of the Hotel and Gennaro, the donkey mascotte of the Borgo.
She showed me their greenhouse full of tiny cherry tomatoes and braided garlic, the long outdoor rows of black cabbage, sage and rosemary. She talked about their second initiative called AIA FELICE while fearless chickens of all sizes and colors where carelessly walking around us. Sonia explained that all their products, including the eggs, are used by the two restaurants of the Relais, Il Poggio Rosso and Osteria il Grigio while the surplus vegetables and fruit are sold at the local markets.

Watering a plant, seeing how seeds can bust open and form roots, teaches all of us ho to improve our confidence and patience.As we say in Tuscany:’La natura e’ il miglior dottore'(“Nature is the best doctor”).

Besides the physical therapy that comes from digging and transplanting, ORTO FELICE provides an important moment of socialization as all participants have an active role and together enjoy the fruits of their work. The enthusiastic involvement of the elderly villagers, allows the surviving of the local farming traditions but, most of all, materializes new forms of solidarity. Gardening at ORTO FELICE is healing for the young and the adult, both feeling useful and included. Watering a plant, see how seeds can bust open and form roots, teaches all of us how to improve confidence and patience.As we say in Tuscany:’La natura e’ il miglior dottore’.

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