Tuscany (Timeless Places)

Rating:
Summary: One of the Most Beautiful Places on Earth
Review: To me, there is no place on earth as beautiful as Italy and one of Italy's most gorgeous regions is certainly Tuscany. To those lucky enough to have actually visited Tuscany, it is instantly recognizable: the soaring pillars of cypresses, the purple-tinged vineyards, the silvery leaves of artistically twisted olive groves, the fields of poppies and sunflowers, the fragrant lemon trees in terra cotta pots. And that's just the landscape...and a very small part of it as well.

The towns and villages in TIMELESS PLACES TUSCANY are recognizable as well and showcase the plethora of art and architecture that began in Tuscany during the Middle Ages and reached its peak during the Renaissance (Leonardo da Vinci was a son of Tuscany).

In TIMELESS PLACES TUSCANY, we are given a brief overview of the history of Tuscany, its towns and villages and its incomparable landscape. We also learn something about Tuscan cuisine and the fact that it was a Tuscan, Catherine di Medici, who created French haute cuisine when she married Henri II and brought her personal chefs to the Court in France.

The book takes us to the Tuscan towns of Siena, Cortona, Firenze, Montalcino, Lucca and Montepulciano, the town that inspired Botticelli's allegorical paintings of Spring. We learn something of the customs of each village and why they exist. We travel to Saturnia in southern Tuscany, believed to have been founded long before the Etruscans inhabited the area and then to the hills where Carrara marble can be found.

The text of TIMELESS PLACES TUSCANY is simply an overview, but the photos are gorgeous (and all in color), from the beautiful photograph of the Church of Santa Maria dei Servi in Siena on the cover, to the many, many lovely photographs that adorn the pages of the book.

TIMELESS PLACES TUSCANY will make a perfect "coffee table" book for your own home or a wonderful gift for anyone who feels a love and a connection for this timeless and beautiful area.

Rating:
Summary: Everyone's Desires
Review: TUSCANY has almost every facet of living that the wanderer could desire - serene countrysides, ancient cities filled with the most important treasures of Western Art, museums, incredible vistas of mountains, vineyards, coastlines, and skies punctuated with spires of buildings as old as civilization. Author Alexandra Bonfante-Warren wisely edits her writings about Tuscany to be a bit different than her other volumes in the Timeless Places Series: TUSCANY is less concerned with historical data than it is with the magic of the four seasons as they caress this magnificently beautiful region of Italy. Historical references are many, though they merely enhance allusions to the magic of Florence, Sienna, the small villages, and the immeasurably beautiful photographs of the foods of Tuscany. Here are fruits and vegetables in the fields, hanging in villages, cooked to sensual perfection on old pots. The photographs are rich in color and in variety of subject and, to the credit of the photographic editor, we are presented with an unsually rich and different vantage of this favorite region. A delightfully written and lovingly produced book. This is, as is the entire series of travel books "Timeless Places", a wealth of beauty at an unbelieveably low price!