I don't say I'm moving to Tuscany (not since that Cortona woman's book showed up in the Brooklyn Heights movie houses - didn't like the book and haven't seen the film, even though a colleague's son had a bit part in it.) And today's New Yorker's Back Page has Roz Chast, one of my favorite cartoonists, making even thinking about moving to Tuscany one of the sure signs that a woman is entering her "Goddess" years! Now, I rather like the idea of entering my "Goddess" years, but I certainly don't want everyone to know that I'm doing so. Thus, I am moving to the Val d'Orcia. I am moving to a village, not a hilltop farmhouse with a swimming pool. There isn't one cypress tree on my property, albeit there are a lot in other parts of the village- mostly in the parks. The views of the landscapes are more sere and more distant than those romantic postcard views. The proximity of the village to the slopes of a big mutha' mountain makes it a bit less stylish than other hilltowns. Only the occasional medieval-fortress-freak tour bus heads up the steep, multiple hairpin-turn road to the Rocca located in the hamlet down from my village. The piazza of my village is sleepy. It's also heavily weighted with stores that meet the needs of the village's inhabitants. Hell, even the bar has been chiuso per malatia for months and months and months. You've got to go out of the centro storico for an espresso, to that modern bar in the middle of a parking lot with lots of video games and i ragazzi coi motorini. Lovely views from the terrace there though.

posted by Joanna @ 3/23/2004 03:34:00 AM