L’Eroica was invented in a cafe, the place where we spent most of our time after work. We cycled to the cafe; we read about and discussed cycling and its mythical heroes who inspired the best Italian writers and journalists of the twentieth century. In the bars, back then, people still discussed the world, exchanging ideas about how to improve it, before hope, joy, culture, and the desire to spend time together was lost, before playing cards, bowls and serious reasons to go out at night were put aside.

Cycling was THE sport in our cafes, at least up until the time of Bartali and Coppi. In the bars, we waited for news on the radio from the Giro or the Tour, challenges were issued and bets taken, we gathered the young children together and put them on bikes, hoping to discover a champion among them.

L’Eroica was invented there, amid the passions of a generation that grew up poor in everything but hope and values. They believed in the future, they had simple tastes for real things in a wonderfully peasant Italy, connected to the land and to the cult of fatigue and hard work.

Today, people need to recover these rhythms and habits, flavours and joys, and the capacity to laugh together.

L’Eroica has become a showcase throughout the world for the best of what Tuscany has to offer; at the L’Eroica Caffè that rare humanity that has gathered around a philosophy that shares life values and ideals, will try to find new old ways of eating, drinking and spending time together, to preserve the environment, its streets and countryside. And, perhaps, it will try to give some cities back their human dimension.

• Giancarlo Brocci