High tea: student guests dine on the terrace each evening watching the sun set over the beautiful Camaiore valley

Spirit in

the sky

Looking up into the Tuscan hills, with their olive groves and walnut and lemon trees, you can just make out the low, golden-stone wall, heavy with purple bougainvilleas and jasmine, that marks the boundary of the ancient hamlet of Peralta. On the other side of the wall is a wide, rush-covered terrace, where, shaded from the heat, you can watch the sun set into the deep, green Camaiore valley below while you drink from a jug of cold local white wine and nibble on crostini with olive paste, wild green asparagus and red sundried tomatoes. This alternative Tuscany the northern undiscovered part, sits high above the Mediterranean and is less than an hour from the walled, medieval city of Lucca and the airport at Pisa. The first person to fall in love with this hamlet in the Alpuan Alps was a young Italian sculptor, Fiore de-Henriquez, who came to use the famous bronze foundry in Pietrasanta. Forty years ago she bought the hamlet and set about restoring the small string of stone-walled houses and building her home. With imagination and true Italian style she decorated rooms with local fabrics and small artefacts, some monastically austere, and created her big glass studio beyond a dreamy courtyard draped with wisteria. Gregarious, full of native generosity and verve, Fiore — by now internationally famous — always wanted guests to share her home, food and wine, and a tranquil retreat. She also wanted a commune for artists to learn to write, sculpt or simply walk in the hills. Out of that desire came the holiday courses now run at Peralta by the delightful and capable Dinah Voisin. This is where you come to get in touch with your creative side. Art courses are popular, and everywhere you look there is a watercolour to be painted. There is a treat for aspiring writers this year. Authors and university tutors Jan Marsh and Kathleen Jones take students through a seven-day course covering all aspects of technique and editing, tailoring their lectures to the needs of the members. One of the most obvious courses is offered in Fiore's own studio by her assistant, sculptress Gitte Wendelboe Lassen, who works in both marble and bronze, with a maximum of seven people. Fiore spent much of her life in Chelsea and casts of famous heads surround her studio: painter Augustus John, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Peter Ustinnov, Laurence Olivier With a natural cook such as Laura Bianchini working on the premises, it seems only right to exploit her talent for creating glorious regional recipes, and include her in the courses. Laura's family have lived for generations just down the hill in Pieve di Camaiore, a bustling market town. She has brought her children up on recipes learned from her own mother using everything that grows and moves in the Tuscan woodland: garlic, olives, herbs, wild asparagus, chestnuts, wild boar, porcini mushrooms. Laura has little English but lots of flair. Her students crowd round to watch her pound pasta dough, saute squid or crush borlotti beans (there are more than 10 types).

Passing on what her mother taught her:
Laura Bianchini

Tuscan cooking is delicious and quick - perfect for London supper parties. Peralta has its own olive groves, and the olive harvest is a burst of activity, the mill in town booked for the first pressing. The tall, dark and handsome Roberta Villani makes an appearance at the pizza oven one evening to demonstrate making perfect pizza. And perfect it is. This relaxed, mildly eccentric version of cookery school is not for the purist. All the food is served, with huge jugs of local wine, for supper. For those who loathe frantic coastal holidays, this unpretentious little eyrie (a startling hairpin rush up a narrow track) is worth exploring. Its shabby-chic rooms are charming and the facilities work almost every time. The swimming pool is at an impossible angle up a rocky footpath at the top of the estate. This is an other-world place, where the spirit of Fiore, now in her eighties, pervades. As she says, with that piercing Italian passion: "What are we without a soul." For information, course costs and accommodation at Peralta, visit www.peraltatuscany.com.

The London Evening Standard
Wednesday August 13 2003