"The information was lost, we didn't know..." The monk tells me from behind the counter of the monastic shop. "No one had noticed the solstice sun illuminating the zodiac?" "No, we didn't notice." The monk smiles. "It was figured out by Simone Bartolini." Simone Bartolini is an astronomer and cartographer who recently (around 2011) figured out that the marble zodiac on the
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Wild Tuscany, A Visit to Magical Maremma
The Maremma, a region on the southern Tuscan coast, is the wild side of Tuscany. With a rough reputation as a place of bandits and malarial swamps a few hundred years ago, it has become a fashionable place in the last twenty years, while still remaining unspoiled. It gives me a wild, expansive, anything-is-possible feel. The Etruscans were the first settlers of this area and
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Tuscany off the beaten path: The Svizzera Pesciatina
Google the Svizzera Pesciatina and not much will show up. These small stone villages are in the hills above Pescia, and I'd not heard of them until I started living in Lucca. My recent visit to them sure felt like Tuscany off the beaten path. Pescia, a simple tow east of Lucca, suffered quite a bit of damage in World War II, and it's not on the tourist track. Above Pescia,
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Where to Have The Most Magical Christmas Eve
Christmas in Italy On Christmas Eve in the village of Abbadia San Salvatore I felt like Lucy walking through the wardrobe. It was like I had entered a place of magical forest folk from pre-Christian times, as I walked the ancient twisting pathways of this mountain town during its bonfire festival. (Called Fiaccole della Notte di Natale in Italian.) The night begins at 6:00
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Memoirs about Italy (And the marketing phenomenon of the word Tuscan)
The word Tuscan has became so overly marketed in the US that a friend of mine said, "When I hear the word Tuscan, I think bull shit." Behind every "Tuscan cheese stick" in middle America, is the marketing phenomenon of Frances Mayes' books on Tuscany. After seven years of success with her first books, Drexel Heritage introduced a "Frances Mayes at Home in Tuscany"
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The Santa Fe of Italy–Don’t Miss This Artistic Tuscan Town
Pietrasanta may be called The Little Athens of Italy but I would call it The Santa Fe of Italy. When I lived in Santa Fe I loved the Canyon Road Art Walk that happens every fourth Friday evening. Santa Fe's historic Canyon Road goes back to the mid-eighteenth century is lined with about 130 galleries, in colorful adobe buildings. Rising beyond the road's end are the Sangre
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