The title above are the starting lines to what has been named the most popular love poem of all time!!
We throw the word love around fairly easily. I love my hubby, I love my kid, I really love hot Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies, I love to run once I have started, and I love Bagni Di Lucca…
We are not the only people to have fallen in love with such a quaint beautiful town in the Northern hills of Tuscany…titled as one of the most “romantic couples” in all of the Victorian period, poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett also fell in love with Bagni.
In 1846 at her doctors almost insistance for health reasons (failing in one way or another since a teenager), she and her new husband moved to Italy! After a private and secret marriage Robert swooped up his new bride from her disapproving father’s home in England. They lived in Florence for many years , then in Siena, but spent several summers in Bagni di Lucca to escape the summer heat. Although Elizabeth was a prolific writer of poetry, she was also controversial dealing with issues like child labour and slavery. These strong topics are what drew Robert to her in the first place. But her romantic side flourished in Italy. During the summer of 1849 while in Bagni di Lucca, she presented her husband with a notebook filled with love poems from the year of their courtship…it was published as “Sonnets from the Portuguese” and made her instantly popular with the love stricken Italians!
A walkway along the river was named after the famous couple. You can find the brown sign down by the Conad grocery store pointing the way to the walkway , known as the “Passeggiata”. Enter the paved trail and follow the walkway up the river. At the end you can hop over the wall and enjoy a dip in the river or throw some rocks in! The staircase leading up to the road lands you down into LaVilla where you can convienently grab a gelato!
Isn’t love grand?
“…and if God choose, I shall love you better after death.” Poems, E E Browning 1850
Come and take a river side stroll won’t you??
