Web Roves of the Week: Frances Mayes' Tuscany

In a matter of days, I will be in Tuscany. I've only visited once, but there's something inside of me that says I belong there, that I should live there. Maybe one day I will. So today I pay homage to the romantic Tuscan landscape and way of life with an excerpt from Frances Mayes' classic, Under the Tuscan Sun. 

"I AM ABOUT TO BUY A HOUSE IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY. A house with the beautiful name of Bramasole. It is tall, square, and apricot-colored with faded green shutters, ancient tile roof, and an iron balcony on the second level, where ladies might have sat with their fans to watch some spectacle below. But below, overgrown briars, tangles of roses, and knee-high weeds run rampant. The balcony faces southeast, looking into a deep valley, then into the Tuscan Apennines. When it rains or when the light changes, the facade of the house turns gold, sienna, ocher; a previous scarlet paint job seeps through in rosy spots like a box of crayons left to melt in the sun. In places where the stucco has fallen away, rugged stone shows what the exterior once was. The house rises above a strada bianca, a road white with pebbles, on a terraced slab of hillside covered with fruit and olive trees. Bramasole: from bramare, to yearn for, and sole, sun: something that yearns for the sun, and yes, I do."----- Excerpt: Under the Tuscan Sun, Frances Mayes

For more on Frances' life in Tuscany, check out her blog. The most recent post features Sting's stunning Tuscan villa. Sigh...