Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes

Author:Frances Mayes [Mayes, Frances]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Personal Memoirs
ISBN: 9780553816112
Publisher: Transworld Pub
Published: 2006-03-15T07:00:00+00:00

Riva, Maremma:

Into Wildest Tuscany

FINALLY, WE'RE READY TO LEAVE BRAMASOLE , if only for a few days. The floors are waxed and gleaming. All the furniture Elizabeth gave us shines with beeswax polish and the drawers are lined with Florentine paper. The market supplied us with antique white coverlets for the beds. Everything works. We even oiled the shutters one Saturday, took each one down, washed it, then rubbed in a coat of the ubiquitous linseed oil that seems to get poured onto everything. The can of mixed garden flowers I flung along the Polish wall bloom with abandon, ready to bolt at any moment. We live here. Now we can begin the forays into the concentric circles around us, Tuscany and Umbria this year, perhaps the south of Italy next year. Our travels are still somewhat housebased: We are ready to stock a wine cellar, to begin to build up a collection of wines associated with places where we have enjoyed them with local food. Many Italian wines are meant to be drunk immediately; our “cellar” under the stairs will be for special bottles. In the cantina off the kitchen, we'll keep our demijohn and the cases of house wine.

Along the way we plan to taste as much of the Maremma cuisine as possible, bake in the sun, track down other Etruscan sites. Ever since reading D.H. Lawrence's Etruscan Places years ago, I have wanted to see the ancient diving boy, the flute player in his sandals, the crouching panthers, to experience the mysterious verve and palpable joie de vivre hidden underground all those centuries. For several days we've plotted our route. This seems like a journey into the far interior, though, in reality, it's only about a hundred miles from our house to Tarquinia, where acres and acres of Etruscan tombs are still being explored. Time keeps bending on me here. The density of things to see in Tuscany makes me lose sight of our California sense of distance and freeway training, where Ed drives fifty miles to work. A week will be short. The area called the Maremma, moorland, is no longer swampy. The last of the marshy waters were long since drained off. Its history of killing malaria, however, kept this southwestern stretch of Tuscany relatively unpopulated. It's the land of the butteri, cowboys, of the only unsettled piece of coast along the Tyrrhenian, and of wide-open spaces interrupted only by small stone huts where shepherds used to shelter.

Soon we arrive in Montalcino, a town built for broad views along a bony ridge of hills. The eye seems to stop before the waving green landscape does. Small wine shops line the street. A table with white cloth and a few wineglasses waits right inside each door, as though inviting you in for an intimate drink with the proprietor and a toast to the great vintages.

The hotel in town is modest, indeed, and I'm alarmed that the electrical switches for the bathroom are located in the shower. I aim the showerhead as far into the opposite corner as possible and splash as little as possible.

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