Tom Tom has spent the last three years walking, travelling, and WWOOFing through the UK and Europe.

I was in Calabria, staying up in the mountains, right on the toe of Italy. An Italian guy, Pierre, rocked up one day with a dog and dreadlocks. We welcomed him. He stayed the night and cooked us pasta, and brought a five-litre bottle of wine. The next day, he left but said, I could come and stay if ever I was passing. I was going to the north of Italy, so I took him up on it. My original plans fell through, and I was kind of stranded with him. He said I could join him on a trip to a village in the Apennines.

We drove for two or three hours and met up with a friend of his, whom everyone called “The Maestro.” He was a 60-year-old with long hair, a beard, boots, and a husky voice. We sat at this little bar with plastic chairs in the woods by a lake and had a Campari and a joint. I was just following them. We went for lunch, another Campari, wild boar, and coffee. I didn't really know what we were doing. They spoke a little English, and I spoke a little Italian, but there was definitely a language barrier. 

Then we started driving up into the mountains, up these little roads. We stopped in a lay-by, got out, and started walking down a path in the pristine woods. Chestnut, beech, deciduous woods, really green and springy. We walked up these paths along the edge of the hill, past the occasional waterfall, or over a mini wooden bridge. I was just trudging along following them, gaping at all the incredible beauty around me. I had no idea where we were going.

We came to a little hut and over the brow of a hill. They said we were here. I looked down and there was a lightly dilapidated stone farmhouse with some sheds that were fallen in. There were homemade wooden fences, and donkeys, geese, chickens, all kinds of animals. A group of young people were sitting around in a beautiful garden. One was sitting up in the tree. They were drinking box wine and getting stoned. 

We said, “Hi.” They didn't know who I was and they weren't super welcoming. I was feeling quite anxious. I asked someone where they were from, and they said they were from here or the other side of the mountain. I spoke to someone from Spain and asked how long she had been here. “Oh, time doesn’t exist here,” she said. I had met someone in England who had said that if I go to Tuscany, I must avoid the valley where time doesn’t exist. Suddenly I realised, by complete accident, I was there. I was like, “Fuck, no! What am I going to do?” When you’re high and paranoid, you come up with all kinds of ideas.

We went to look around a courtyard. There was hay and chickens and someone walking past wearing a felt hat, carrying a big pile of tree branches. Behind was a swimming pond, cut out of the hill, with beautiful, slate, crystal clear water. I went swimming with a big guy who had big necklaces, long hair, and loads of tattoos. He was snorting coke and was a bit judgmental. There were terraced gardens by the pond too, where vegetables, fruit trees, and herbs were growing. Everything was so well looked after.

I couldn’t work it out. This place was a complete paradise—it was functioning and it was looked after—but everyone was just sitting around taking drugs. It was like heaven, but it was also kind of hellish for me. My evening dragged a bit because I was feeling anxious, not really managing to speak to many people. In that situation, you see people’s faces and their eyes more. You see through and know who you trust. There were maybe seven young people. Two girls, the rest of them boys. There were two older men living in that house as well. They were in their 60s, and it seemed like they were overseeing the place. 

We went into the kitchen. Someone walked in with a bunch of freshly harvested herbs. Everyone’s just sitting around doing what they want. They stuck on a Lou Reed CD. It was complete freedom. I think that was the purpose of the place, in a way. I began to feel better. I remember sitting in the kitchen, just watching this scene with complete awe, with Lou Reed on, everyone eating off tin plates with their funny hats on, and the view of the mountains through the French windows. 

They said I was sleeping up on the mezzanine. There was a big pile of blankets and sleeping bags. I'm guessing lots of them just slept there together. I started sleeping, but they were playing really loud, bouncing music downstairs, and two of them were dancing in the empty room below. Eventually one of them came and took me across the courtyard. There was an old wooden piano, loads of drums hanging from the ceiling, huge bookshelves all over the wall. I slept in there, and then woke up the next morning feeling better. 

A lot of them were up at seven or eight, working already. They’d had breakfast, then went off to work in the garden together. There was an Amy Winehouse CD playing this time. Another joint was being passed around.  One of the older guys was teaching them. I was sitting out front under a grapevine trellis, watching. 

A guy came over and started chatting. He was beaming. He said all the young people living here grew up in this place. Their parents occupied this whole valley 40 years ago, when all 12 farmhouses had been empty and abandoned. Some of them were third generation. They went to school there in the school they built. He said that this place is an idea, an ideology, but it exists. It’s literally a living philosophy. In a way, the rest of the world didn’t exist because this was their reality, this was their world. He said that in the normal world, people have to work way too hard to party on Friday. But here they party always, because life is a party. It’s a celebration.

The next day, me, Pierre, and the Maestro headed off and started walking back through the woods. The Maestro had recently acquired a house in the mountains to the north, which they said was haunted. I decided to leave them to it and went to Turin to see a friend.

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