Continuing Frances Mayes's account of her love affair with Italy, Bella Tuscany presents the author now truly at home there, meeting the challenges of learning a new language and touring regions outside Tuscany, including castle towns, fishing villages, and islands. With fresh adventures and updates on the characters introduced in Under the Tuscan Sun, Mayes also explores new themes in this wondrous corner of the world, delving into gardening, wine-making, and the experience of primavera - a season of renewed possibility. And Mayes reveals more simple pleasures from her Tuscan kitchen in a section devoted to recipes. In the sensuous, vivid prose that has become her hallmark, Bella Tuscany celebrates Mayes's deepening connection to the land and her flourishing friendships in a newfound haven of idyllic living.
Very much more of the same from Under the Tuscan Sun but with more travel and more poetry and more philosophical musings.
I really just wanted to hear about the house and their village, so I found myself skimming whenever the chapters covered their travels. I usually love the travel bits, but a combination of my mood and her tendency to write about their trips within Italy the way academic historians write about battles made it all feel too tedious. But I loved hearing about the house, the restoration, re-building the gardens, and harvesting the olives. That took up about half the book, so I went with a down the middle rating of three stars.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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1 February, 2018:
Finished reading
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1 February, 2018:
Reviewed