Piuca is a large, wild garden surrounding an old house.
Usually, I get to Piuca at night, I leave late from Milano, trying to drop all engagements behind me. It’s just a five-minute drive from the last paved crossroads to the gate, and the landscape changes dramatically as it becomes a plant sanctuary.
I drive uphill at the end of the dirt road: the car lights shine on the gate next to the little Madonna shrine, it is possibly as old as the house and one of the few built elements in the garden; actually, the only piece of masonry besides the house itself.
I pull the handbrake and quickly get off my car to open the gate, then go back to the car, drive in, and close again, since wild boars always seem to be ready for invasion.
I park my car in front of a luxuriant Arbutus andracne. I was lucky enough to find it by chance, many years ago, at a nursery where they had taken it for a plain strawberry tree: it marked the beginning of my garden.
