Prato Fiorito is a miraculously tree-less mountain just behind me.  It was beloved of Shelley who, while a resident of Bagni di Lucca, visited it often and recollects it in that ecstatic love poem Epipsychidion.

I wanted to be at the Prato yesterday and, despite the uncertain weather, made my way to the foce Del Lago (where in heavy rain a lake forms.) I reached the crucifix which marks the start of the path to the top of the flowering meadow…

Above, clouds were forming and reforming, sometimes threatening, sometimes shimmering. Percy Bysshe would have loved it – he loved clouds!

All around me was a display of flowers guaranteed to put even the Chelsea Flower show to shame:

Shelley writes:

the odours deep
Of flowers, which, like lips murmuring in their sleep
Of the sweet kisses which had lulled them there,
Breathed but of her to the enamoured air;
And from the breezes whether low or loud,
And from the rain of every passing cloud,
And from the singing of the summer-birds,
And from all sounds, all silence.

…………

And all the place is peopled with sweet airs;
The light clear element which the hill wears
Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers,
Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers,
And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep;
And from the moss violets and jonquils peep
And dart their arrowy odour through the brain
Till you might faint with that delicious pain.

It is a hill ‘twixt Heaven, Air, Earth and Sea,
Cradled and hung in clear tranquillity;

The jonquils, even in this wretched start to the summer, made my heart leap. They are brave little flowers and their presence all around filled me with an intense warmth and joy. They seemed to breathe true love and their perfume was quite intoxicating! I was so glad that Sandra was able to be with me and see them on the Prato Fiorito for the very first time.

There were several other flower species besides the jonquils:

I always look forwards to seeing the jonquils – also known as the poet’s narcissus in Italy – every year and, when my time comes, I would like my ashes to be scattered on this mountain sacred to poets and to all lovers of nature (if Italian bureaucracy allows it, that is!)