Impruneta is the town that served as our homebase for grocery shopping each evening and the departure point for the bus into Florence. Impruneta with a population of 15,000 was smaller in geography than my old college town of Mount Vernon, Iowa whose population at the time swelled to 3,000 with the college kids. Impruneta, like all other small towns, build density into its ancient walls with two-four story buildings lining all of the small streets that wind up, down and around the piazza where people eat, drink, pray, and sometimes just sit. We grew to know the local tobacco shop where we could buy bus tickets, the pharmacy, and the sometimes gelato-sometimes sandwich shop (depending on whether the freezer was operational). Impruneta also featured weekend farmers markets where you could buy everything from fresh swine and beef to Birkenstocks and children's underwear. Small town living.
-The church at the center of town in Impruneta - also apparently home to weekly exorcisms-
Impruneta serves the locals and the visitors in Tuscany, the well known Italian region saturated with hillside villas among grape vineyards, apple orchards, and olive groves. the road into and out of our villa was harrowing and extremely narrow, so vehicle trips into town were limited. For the able bodied who don't mind hills, it was actually easier to walk the mile into town, but the magic of Impruneta for us was the Coop (Co-op) grocery trips with the family. We owned that place after a week weighing our fresh produce, picking out cheese and reinforcing our supply of wine each day.
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