We have met so many interesting travelers. Because my books are in over 50 languages, we have visitors from all over the world, and that’s really fun for us. This year, we must be on bicycle tour lists. Q Is there a new generation of travelers coming to the gate of Bramasole, your Cortona home?Ī Amazing, after all these years, we still have a steady stream of people coming to our house. Q Do you and your husband, Ed Mayes, divide your time among more than one home?Ī We live in Italy about six months a year and spend the rest in Durham, North Carolina. That a small town can be this active is fantastic. I’m pleased with that! We have a shockingly good cultural life of constant concerts, plays, lectures and art exhibits, as well as traditional festivals. Lots of cafe bars and trattorias and restaurants - good ones. Most feel that the town awakened, though I am sure there are some who wish things were as they were. So, basically daily life seems the same.Ĭortona, where I live, changed quite a bit due to my books and the film of “Under the Tuscan Sun.” From somber and sleepy, we went to lively and magnetic. (I was afraid that ancient tradition would disappear.) Dinner is still at 8. The weekly outdoor markets endure and are as lively as ever. What has lasted is a comfortable sense of community. But in rural Tuscany, we continue to go to the piazza and join in starting the day with our neighbors who are buying vegetables, having a coffee, joking with friends. Q How has the Italian experience changed over the decades you’ve been there?Ī Three decades! The internet happened. After living here awhile, I became just as enchanted with the bucolic landscape and the ancient walled towns, some with Etruscan foundations, and with, of course, the food and wine. And, of course, about how to get dinner on the table quickly.Ī Originally, the appeal was art - the highest concentration of art in the Western world, and maybe the whole world. We took the opportunity to talk with her about her life and her beloved home, Bramasole, and what’s changed in the Tuscan countryside. Now, 20 years after Diane Lane portrayed Mayes in the film version of “Under the Tuscan Sun,” Mayes, 83, has published “Pasta Veloce,” a cookbook brimming with what she calls “irresistibly fast” recipes. She followed that up with a dozen books - travel memoirs, home decor, poetry, a novel and so much more. ![]() And would we have quite so many Tuscan-style housing developments and color palettes in Northern California without her story? Likely not. ![]() “Under the Tuscan Sun” spent more than two years on the New York Times’ bestseller list, increased travel to the region and spurred others to trade their lives for an Italian fixer-upper. ![]() In 1996, she wrote a memoir about how she famously took charge of her future, abandoning her life as a Bay Area writer and San Francisco State University professor, and moved to Italy to renovate an aging house and, in the process, find herself. Give credit to Frances Mayes for igniting Americans’ long-held love affair with Tuscany.
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