It is springtime in Vitiano, a tiny hamlet south of Florence. While it won’t show up on most maps, Roman travelers surely strolled down this very lane just as this umbrella-wielding resident does today. The soil is dark and fertile, farm country and Julia is the eldest of a family who has worked the surrounding land for generations. Italy is a tapestry of tiny ancient crossroads such as this, a magical weave of people, place and time.

A passing shower has ended and the emerging sun reflects off the standing water on the damp ground. The warm, moist smell of musk is in the air. The intermittent sound of water dripping from the trees in the olive grove is all you hear in this little slice of heaven in the Italian countryside. - JC