Frances Mayes's Blog

Spring is travel time! See You in the Piazza, my extensive guide to out-of-the-way places in Italy, is out in paperback on 10 March. I’ll be back in Italy in late spring and already have plans to revisit some of the places I discovered while writing this  book. I hope it leads you back to that essential sense of discovery so crucial to having a great trip. I especially love the tiny town of Puglia, as well as its stupendous beaches. Le Marche, Friuli, and the towns south of Rome were also great favorites. But who can choose? I’ve said it before–Italy is endless. One great city discovery–Torino. Everyone has heard of it but few go there. It’s the greenest city in Italy and a superb food destination. With mass travel ever expanding, my meanderings into the less-trod towns seemed timely. It’s exciting when the GPS simply gives up and leads you into some farmer’s olive grove.

On 31 March, out comes Always Italy, from National Geographic and distributed by Penguin Random House.  With my co-author Ondine Cohane who lives in Tuscany, we traveled to all twenty glorious regions of Italy, something most Italians haven’t accomplished! Each region is unique and diverse. With 350 photos, up-to-the-minute recommendations, extensive wine information, this book takes you there–architecture, design, truffle hunting, outdoor adventures, spas, new museums, and, of course, restaurants, from the tiniest gelato shop to the best dining spots in Italy. A comprehensive guidebook, Always Italy is also a cultural companion. May it lead you to Calabria, Valle d’Aosta, Molise, as well as to an undiscovered Milan, Rome, Venice!

Check my Spring travels on TOUR: Vero Beach, St. Louis, Doylestown, Washington DC, New York, Los Angeles, Raleigh, Chapel Hill. I’ll post later events in Italy, in case you’re nearby. Of course, I would love to meet you!

I’m so thrilled to announce that I’ll be featured in a new PBS special airing this month, The Dream of Italy: Tuscan Sun Special.

Ed and I are joined by host Kathy McCabe as we introduce our Tuscan town of Cortona, provide a tour of our villa Bramasole, and share practical travel tips and enchanting stories along the way to a whole new audience of PBS viewers!

We had such a fabulous time filming, and we hope you’ll join in on the adventure! Find out when the special is streaming on your local PBS station here.

March 12–an exciting day for me. I start my tour for the debut of See You in the Piazza: New Places to Discover in Italy. Please check EVENTS and come say hello if you’re nearby.

My husband Ed and I were down in Puglia, way south, and relishing the tiny towns, the seaside villages, and the Baroque city of Lecce. Many places, Troia, Lucera, Orsara, I’d never heard of. We traveled spontaneously about, discovering more and more rose windows in Romanesque churches, bread makers whose ovens were medieval, country inns with great kitchens serving forth vegetable-based menus, regional archaeological museums with astonishing finds, and secret coves for a swim in transparent waters. Away from the well-traveled spots, I rediscovered an aspect of travel I love:spontaneity. Hence the genesis of this book! Travel forth into the places in between. For a year and a half, we zipped around Italy from top to toe, with leaps over to the islands as well.

What I learned I already knew but now I truly, truly know: Italy is endless. How can there be such diversity in one small country? North in Trentino Alto Adige region:

Way south in sunbaked Sardegna:



and a million place in the middle!

Join me on these journeys into the interior, the heart of Italy.

This is the last photo I took before I left Cortona in late fall. What I love about winter there is how the valley fog rises like a sea, leaving us above as though on an island. Now I’m back in North Carolina, longing for Italy but also SO excited to be planning my book tour for See You in the Piazza: New Places to Discover in Italy. What a grand adventure to travel to little-known places, and to other places you know but hardly anyone praises the way Siena, Assisi, and others are praised? I’m thinking especially of Genoa and Parma. Everyone knows them but who goes, who relishes their grand attributes. I traveled all over for a year and a half–loved Puglia and Piemonte–and loved writing about off-the- trodden-way discoveries. Hope I get to meet you on my American travels in March!

Somewhere there MUST be spring! I’m seeing bits of it on my book tour but mainly it’s cold, baby! Today I am reading for Purple Crow in my hometown, Hillsborough NC, and tomorrow, April 12, I will be in Southern Pines NC at The Country Bookshop and on the 13 April at Litchfield Books luncheon in North Myrtle beach SC, where surely it will be spring. This followed by a signing at Litchfield Books in Pawley’s Island. Ed is driving with me and we get to spend the night on lovely Pawley’s Island. Next week I’m heading to California. Click on EVENTS here to see the whole journey. Meanwhile, I want to share this review from USA Today.  https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2018/04/09/women-sunlight-frances-mayes-book-review-tuscany/480886002/

Along the way, sometimes I get a couple of hours to play. In Washington, I was able to see the Sally Mann photography exhibit at the National Gallery. Her landscapes go to the heart of the mythic and primitive South. I also got to visit this old friend, Ginerva de’ Benci, one of Leonardo da Vinci’s greats:

On planes, too, there’s time to read such wonderful novels as The Flight of the Maidens  by Jane Gardam. And I just picked up Elizabeth Strout’s Anything is Possible. Anyone read either of these?

Onward! Happy spring!

La Primavera! Not long now. With spring on our doorsteps, See You in the Piazza  gets a fresh look. And updated info–I have been SO focused on writing two books at once that I’ve fallen behind on my blog, which gives me so much pleasure. My novel, WOMEN IN SUNLIGHT comes out 3 April! I will be traveling north, south, east, and west, plus several in the middle. Please click on EVENTS and if I’m coming your way, do come say hello.

Here’s a preview:

Women in Sunlight follows four women over  the first year of their friendship. There’s a fifth woman, too, and although dead, she still has an active presence in the life of my narrator, Kit, a writer of forty four who is on the verge of a huge change in her life. Camille, Julia, and Susan, the other women, are older, and truth be told they are beginning to feel somewhat marginalized. Their families and / or their circumstances lead each of them to consider moving to an “active life-style” community of constant activities, no house and garden worries, organic dining, etc. They meet at the orientation. Their friendship takes off and over the course of a summer they begin to consider bolder options.

Enter Italy! The women find a villa on a hillside outside San Rocco. Kit, their neighbor, quickly decides to tell the story of the three intrepid Americans. They travel, they make friends, they enjoy all the benisons of Italian life, but unexpectedly, who each one is begins to expand. Cookbook editor, part time art lecturer, real estate agent–their former careers burgeon into their real and never realized potential. In the land of la dolce vita, they discover ambition, focus, and belief in themselves. And there’s more, but I should leave surprises. At the end of the lease, do they return, refreshed to the known and loved realm of the American South, or do they stay? I honestly didn’t know until the end.

My hope is that you enjoy reading about these friends as much as I loved discovering them. I miss them now, but actually, I will meet them over and over in Italy. What inspired me in the first place was all the women travelers I’ve met in the piazza of Cortona. There’s one–sitting with her cappuccino and notebook at a table under the clock tower. I know her. She’s on a quest. She’s my character, my reader, my friend.

***

 If you’d like a signed bookplate, you can have one–no charge–by opening: http://bit.ly/womenpreorder   And if you’d like to order a personalized book, please contact Sharon at Purple Crow Books in my hometown, Hillsborough NC:

purplecrowbooks@gmail.com or telephone: 919 732 1711. She will contact me and I’ll drop by the store and sign your book however you’d like, then she mails to you. I’ll be heading to Italy in May so contact her in April, if you’d like. This summer I will be polishing SEE YOU IN THE PIAZZA: NEW PLACES TO DISCOVER IN ITALY. That book has been incredibly fun! What a country Italy is!

Meanwhile, now the days are long again, always a relief. I’ve been at my desk all winter and am the color of a turnip. Yesterday, I started moonflower, gourd, sunflower, and morning glory seeds. By the time I’m home from my book tour, Ed will have put them into the ground. These are prime gardening days coming up and I plan to be outside as much as possible before I start boarding those planes. More later!

In the next three weeks, I am wrapping up the travel for SEE YOU IN THE PIAZZA: PLACES TO DISCOVER IN ITALY. It won’t be published until April, 2019. This coming April, my new novel WOMEN IN SUNLIGHT comes out. The travel book is such a joy. We have been on the road for most of a year. It has been revelatory: Italy is truly endless! We are finding staggering variety in this country that is the size of Arizona but holds so many worlds.

Just back from the south of Sicily and I want share photos of a kitchen. The inn is Baglio Occhipinti near Vittoria, a wine center and lively town. Fausta, a young landscape designer, restored a tumble of white stone farm buildings, with roots back to the Arabs. Baglio is Arabic for courtyard. Her sister, Arianna, did the same with other buildings down the road where she makes Occhipinti wines. She’s raking in the awards. A big salute to these two women making a difference! And having a grand time. The inn has six calm and welcoming rooms. Ours was all white–sofa, chairs, bed, curtains. The art on one wall was a piece of old painted door, on another, framed botanicals from the property. The were charmingly amateurish, like a project you’d do with a child on a summer afternoon. It’s that kind of place.

In the kitchen, Sebastiano cooks. You can have a cooking session with him, or Fausta can arrange for a wonderful local woman to come cook with you. “She speaks no English,” Fausta said, “but everyone understands her.” Candlelit dinner is served in a lofty space that used to be a winemaking room and, probably a granary, since the ceilings are so high. Dinners are Sebastiano’s set menu–whatever is fresh from the garden. More on all that, and their wine, in my book. What amazed me is the kitchen. I look at Remodelista and other design sites frequently. This kitchen made me laugh thinking of those curated wonders. I love this old world quirkiness and heart.

Here’s the oh-so-necessary island. Tart for breakfast cooling. Pull up a chair. Pumpkin for evening all chopped for Sebastiano’s risotto:

What would be cupboards and counter space:

The stove and stone sink. Door opens to garden tables where breakfast is served:

Food storage and wood oven:

Dinner both nights was excellent. You can talk to guests at the next table or not. Only those staying here can dine. White clad, candlelit tables are set up to the right of this cozy space, the table stacked with books. Guitar by the hearth.

We discovered so many unique-to-the-place, interesting towns. This inn, deep in the countryside is surrounded by fascinating towns where you might be the only tourist. Sicily is another world. Read more about Franca and Arianna’s places: http://baglioocchipinti.com  and

http://agricolaocchipinti.it

Thanks so much for the suggestions for travel! I welcome more. Can always add a chapter or two.

Also! We have a small olive oil crop this year, due to crazy weather, but the oil is, as always, sublime. You can order for holiday delivery up until 1 November, and anytime after for delivery in and after January. Check the website, which my grandson William designed:

http://bramasoleoliveoil.com Here’s a new photo by Steven Rothfeld of this transforming elixir:

In the next three weeks, I am wrapping up the travel for SEE YOU IN THE PIAZZA: PLACES TO DISCOVER IN ITALY. It won’t be published until April, 2019. This coming April, my new novel WOMEN IN SUNLIGHT comes out. The travel book is such a joy. We have been on the road for most of a year. It has been revelatory: Italy is truly endless! We are finding staggering variety in this country that is the size of Arizona but holds so many worlds.

Just back from the south of Sicily and I want share photos of a kitchen. The inn is Baglio Occhipinti near Vittoria, a wine center and lively town. Fausta, a young landscape designer, restored a tumble of white stone farm buildings, with roots back to the Arabs. Baglio is Arabic for courtyard. Her sister, Arianna, did the same with other buildings down the road where she makes Occhipinti wines. She’s raking in the awards. A big salute to these two women making a difference! And having a grand time. The inn has six calm and welcoming rooms. Ours was all white–sofa, chairs, bed, curtains. The art on one wall was a piece of old painted door, on another, framed botanicals from the property. The were charmingly amateurish, like a project you’d do with a child on a summer afternoon. It’s that kind of place.

In the kitchen, Sebastiano cooks. You can have a cooking session with him, or Fausta can arrange for a wonderful local woman to come cook with you. “She speaks no English,” Fausta said, “but everyone understands her.” Candlelit dinner is served in a lofty space that used to be a winemaking room and, probably a granary, since the ceilings are so high. Dinners are Sebastiano’s set menu–whatever is fresh from the garden. More on all that, and their wine, in my book. What amazed me is the kitchen. I look at Remodelista and other design sites frequently. This kitchen made me laugh thinking of those curated wonders. I love this old world quirkiness and heart.

Here’s the oh-so-necessary island. Tart for breakfast cooling. Pull up a chair. Pumpkin for evening all chopped for Sebastiano’s risotto:

What would be cupboards and counter space:

The stove and stone sink. Door opens to garden tables where breakfast is served:

Food storage and wood oven:

Dinner both nights was excellent. You can talk to guests at the next table or not. Only those staying here can dine. White clad, candlelit tables are set up to the right of this cozy space, the table stacked with books. Guitar by the hearth.

We discovered so many unique-to-the-place, interesting towns. This inn, deep in the countryside is surrounded by fascinating towns where you might be the only tourist. Sicily is another world. Read more about Franca and Arianna’s places: http://baglioocchipinti.com  and

http://agricolaocchipinti.it

Thanks so much for the suggestions for travel! I welcome more. Can always add a chapter or two.

Also! We have a small olive oil crop this year, due to crazy weather, but the oil is, as always, sublime. You can order for holiday delivery up until 1 November, and anytime after for delivery in and after January. Check the website, which my grandson William designed:

http://bramasoleoliveoil.com Here’s a new photo by Steven Rothfeld of this transforming elixir:

Dear Friends! Thanks to all who wrote asking if I’ve fallen off the sharp edge of the world. No. I’ve just been writing two books. Down the rabbit hole! The novel, Women in Sunlight, is finished and I even have a galley copy hot off the press. It will be published by Crown in April. The other, a travel book, is named for this blog: See You in the Piazza: Places to Discover in Italy. 

I am still traveling non-stop and writing as I go. This summer, I have been in the Dolomiti and Piemonte and Puglia and Lazio and Friuli! This fall I will be in Sicilia, Sardegna, Calabria, Le Marche, and the Veneto. Intense but exhilarating! I expect to finish by the end of November. These travel reconfirm what I already knew: Italy is endless!

Please don’t forget my blog; I enjoy the interaction and comments so much. If you have any little-known places you love in Italy, please send! I will be back to normal soon. Ci vediamo!

Above, a heavenly spot in the Dolomiti: Lago di Braies.

Buon giorno! I am flying to Rome today!  Olive harvest, travels in Puglia and the Marche, cooking with all the delicious fall treats–mushrooms, chestnuts, truffles. Fall is glorious everywhere, of course, but there’s something about the slant of late afternoon light and the linden trees turning golden and the owls at night that seem more present than in the rest of the year.

Before I zip my suitcase, I’m sending links to a couple of articles that I hope you enjoy. “Frankye’s Cookbooks” is a one-sentence ode that came out in The Oxford American awhile back.

http://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/934-frankyes-cookbooks

The other, a few thoughts on the writing life, appeared last week in The Guardian, which is my favorite paper for literary articles and reviews.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/201....

More later!!!