La Dolce Duality: Field Notes From a Wellness Retreat in Tuscany

The first night, the pool went pink.

Not a filter. The actual sky, doing the thing it does here in May, throwing rose and amber over the water while the light softened across the vineyards. Down in the old Buccelletti olive mill, a welcome table was set for all of us: pappa al pomodoro with burrata, a bottle of Buccelletti red for every few seats, somebody already laughing too loud. And I stood at the edge of it for a second, a little outside my own body, thinking: these are my people from Denver, and this is my life in Tuscany, and somehow they are in the same frame.

That was the whole idea behind La Dolce Duality, a wellness retreat in Tuscany I hosted this past May with Duality, my gym back in Denver. Six days, one valley, a group who flew across an ocean to move, rest, eat, and drink very good wine. But I didn't fully understand what I'd built until I was standing in it.

The Part I Didn't Understand Yet

On paper, it was simple: bring a group from my fitness community across an ocean, put them somewhere beautiful, move our bodies in the morning, and let the afternoons go completely soft.

What I didn't clock, until I was in it, was how much it would feel like a reunion of two versions of me.

There's the me who built a life in Denver: the businesses, the community, the version of myself who found her people in a gym. And there's the me who sold all of that a year ago and moved my family to Italy to start over. I don't usually get to have both in the same room. This retreat put them at the same table.

That is the part I had wrong about starting over: I assumed I was leaving the old life behind. If you're lucky, and you do the work, you get to bring it with you and set it down somewhere with a better view.

What "La Dolce Duality" Actually Means

The name is a play on la dolce vita. But the duality is the real point.

Duality, the gym, is about strength. Discipline. Showing up. The version of wellness that asks something of you.

Tuscany, at least the Tuscany I've come to know, is about the other half: the long lunch, the closed shops in the afternoon, the permission to do nothing and call it enough.

Most retreats pick one. They're either a boot camp with a nice backdrop, or a soft-focus reset where you never break a sweat. What I wanted was the honest middle: the duality. Sweat in the morning, spritz in the evening. Move hard, then let the whole afternoon go slow.

Turns out that balance isn't a compromise. It's the actual thing most of us are missing at home, where we're either grinding or collapsed, with nothing in between.

What the Days Actually Looked Like

We stayed at Borgo Gaggioleto, the cluster of stone villas on the Buccelletti estate in the Val di Chio, just outside Castiglion Fiorentino. Mornings started with movement led by the Duality coaches: Pilates and a chakra flow up in the fireplace room of the old olive mill, a poolside bootcamp when the weather was good, restorative work with balls and bands, and one quiet morning of intention-setting and meditation. Then breakfast in the mill, and the day cracked open.

The afternoons were the slow half, and we filled them on purpose but never too full:

• An afternoon in Cortona, the hill town just up the road, for shopping, gelato, and a cocktail at a little bar tucked into the stone.
• A day trip to Florence by train, because you can't be this close and not go once.
• A thermal-bath day at La Posta, out in the Val d'Orcia, floating in hot volcanic water with the hills rolling out in every direction. The most Tuscan way there is to undo a week.
• An e-bike wine tour through the vineyards to two family wineries: Buccelletti, where we toured the 1625 family chapel and the historic olive mill, and La Pievuccia down the road for a light lunch and tasting.

And every evening came back to a table. A welcome dinner in the olive mill. A prix-fixe night at La Dogana in Valiano. A wood-fired pizza party under the pergola with hand-carved prosciutto and too many focacce. A farewell dinner by the pool: tagliatelle with ragù, sliced steak, tiramisù, and that Buccelletti red doing its slow work while the light went down. The dinners ran long the way the best ones do, the way you forget to check your phone because the actual moment is better than anything on it.

On the last morning we did one final Pilates class outside the villas, then a closing circle where everyone shared their one takeaway, their anima, the thing they were carrying home. Then the shuttles came, and it was over.

Why Buccelletti

I could have hosted this anywhere with a pool. I chose Buccelletti on purpose.

It's a family wine estate. The family has farmed the Val di Chio since 1625, and it's now woman-owned and run, which mattered to me for a retreat full of women. The villas open onto the valley. You taste in a restored olive mill and drink wine that was made a few hundred meters from your bed. Nothing about it is staged; it's just genuinely, quietly beautiful, in the warm ochre-and-plaster way this corner of Tuscany does without trying.

Full disclosure that's actually a point of pride: Buccelletti and La Pievuccia, where we did the second tasting, are both Fontaine Consulting clients. So hosting a retreat there was its own piece of duality: the storyteller and the strategist, the personal brand and the business, working the same week. That's the whole thing I'm building, said out loud.

What I'm Taking With Me

Here's the honest version. This May I stood at a long vineyard table watching my old community and my new home meet each other, and I hosted it. Me. A year into this life, in my second language, in a valley I now know by heart.

And then, the day the retreat ended, we got the news: the farmhouse we'd moved into three weeks earlier, the one we thought was the whole point of the move, wasn't going to be ours after all.

I keep turning that over. The same week held both: the proof that this life is real, and the loss that tried to argue otherwise. But the table taught me something before the phone rang. Home was never the house. It's the valley, the relationships, the people who fly across an ocean to find you at a long dinner table. That part, nobody can take back.

Still standing. And now, apparently, hosting dinner.

If You're Thinking About a Retreat in Tuscany

A few honest notes, whether you come to one of mine or plan your own:

• Late spring is a gift. May gave us long golden evenings and warm-but-not-brutal afternoons. High summer is beautiful too, but build the day around morning movement and late dinners, not noon activities.
• Pick a base, not a packed schedule. We did one anchored thing a day, a town or a city or the hot springs, with real space to do nothing. That space is what people remembered.
• Choose a host who lives here, not a tour operator flying in. The difference is the relationships: the winery that opens the family chapel for you, the table that stays set an extra hour.
• Balance the two halves on purpose. Movement and rest, effort and ease. If a retreat is all one or all the other, it's missing the point.

Frequently asked questions

Where was the La Dolce Duality retreat held?

At Borgo Gaggioleto, the villas on the Buccelletti Casali wine estate in the Val di Chio near Castiglion Fiorentino, eastern Tuscany, about 15 minutes from Cortona.

What kind of retreat is it?

A wellness retreat that balances movement and slow living: morning Pilates, flow, and bootcamp led by Duality coaches, then open afternoons for wine, hot springs, and long communal dinners. Hosted with Duality, my gym in Denver.

What did the retreat include?

Six days of accommodation, daily movement, breakfasts and most dinners, an afternoon in Cortona, a day trip to Florence, a thermal-bath day at La Posta in the Val d'Orcia, and an e-bike wine tour to the Buccelletti and La Pievuccia wineries.

Do I need to be very fit to come?

No. The point is the balance, not the burn. Sessions meet you where you are; the afternoons are yours.

When is the next one?

I'm planning the next La Dolce Duality retreat now. If you want first access before dates go public, get on the waitlist below.

Keep Reading The Field Notes

If this stirred something, you're probably dreaming about your own version of it. I write the honest version of building a beautiful life in Italy: property, renovation, slow living, and starting over. You can read more field notes here, and wander through my corner of Tuscany while you're at it.

Want first access to the next retreat? The waitlist opens before dates go public. Add your name here.