About Us
Agriturismo Re Piano is run by an Italian-Dutch couple, Antonella and Dick.
Antonella tells us what the farm means to her.
“I was born on this land.
The house dates from the early 1900s. Back then it was smaller, a single storey built around a central core, and it was called the “Casetta” – the little house. A farmer known as “Tabacò” lived here, with the animals kept alongside. The little house has come a long way since: the ground floor was extended and a first floor was added.
Over time it passed from one family to two.
I knew the Casetta well. Every now and then I came here when I wanted to play with children of flesh and blood – real ones, in other words. There were two of them in this house, more or less my age. They were boys, but that made no difference to me: I only learned to play with dolls much later.
A lot of time has passed since, forty years ago, a little girl who lived up above the lake filled a plastic bag with a handful of earth from this place to take with her.
My parents had decided to move into town, and I went with them. Not that it was my decision, of course: those were times when change was in the air (now there is only stagnation… what a difference). People were leaving the countryside because working the fields was hard, and in exchange they got a steady wage on the assembly line – “the Factory”.
I, the “little girl”, had been born there and could never imagine another place where I would feel at home. Now I can say it: for many years all I did was feel as if I were living away from home.
In that house I had shared fears and joys, and in places like this fantasy and imagination play an important part.
Farewell to starry evenings and to sunsets with long shadows where I could let my mind wander; farewell to the imaginary friends I played with. I cried my eyes out when we drove away in our Fiat 500 – I don’t think I have ever cried so much since.
Only much later, in 1990, did we come back: my husband Dick, who comes from the Netherlands, and I.
We fell in love with the sky and the beauty of the landscape, which I knew so well but saw anew through his eyes, with the carefree spirit of the young and in love. Without asking ourselves too many questions or making too many plans, we bought the farm from one of its two owners.
It was like a promise of love.
In this place you forget everything MATERIAL. Being in touch with the land, breathing in its scent, and everything that grows from it becomes what you live for.
As the seasons follow one another, each one distinct and full of intense and different emotions, you feel the need to SHARE all this with others.
THIS IS MY IDEA OF AN AGRITURISMO.
Does it sound PLATONIC… ROMANTIC?
To me this land is LOVE, and if you don’t feel good here, how can you pass that on to others? Sharing your own experience of feeling GOOD in these places with the guests who come to VISIT you.
A TOURIST who comes to these places is a SPECIAL person.
For some the silence is deafening, and you are almost compelled to search for yourself, to listen and to listen to yourself.
Never mind psychoanalysts or psychiatrists: the spirit needs pauses, it needs peace.
TO SEE. TO LISTEN. To know how to feel, even with your eyes closed.
THE ESSENCE OF A HOLIDAY – that is what “RE PIANO” means to me.”