Tuscany Italy Quotes

Although I am a person who expected to be rooted in one spot forever, as it has turned out I love having the memories of living in many places.

In America, one must be something, but in Italy one can simply be.

If you deconstruct Italy, you will in the end see a grapevine, a tomato and a small boy hammering a shard of marble.

This golden field covered in stars above - the empty night and the feeling of love.

At Bramasole, the first secret spot that draws me outside is a stump and board bench on a high terrace overlooking the lake and valley. Before I sit down, I must bang the board against a tree to knock off all the ants. Then I'm happy. With a stunted oak tree for shelter and a never-ending view, I am hidden. No one knows where I am. The nine-year-old's thrill of the hideout under the hydrangea comes back: My mother is calling me and I am not answering.

Rome and New York were impressive, but they knew they were. They had the beauty of a vain woman who had squeezed herself into her favourite dress after hours of careful self worship. There was a raw, feral beauty about this landscape that was totally unselfconscious but no less real...There was no pomp or vainty here; this was an innocent, natural beauty, the best kind, like a woman first thing in the morning, lit up by the sun streaming through a window, who doesn't quite believe it when you tell her how beautiful she is.

We had never before been to Italy in May, and it is truly the most wonderful month. The Lucchese countryside is a riot of colour and scent. Every road, even the busy autostrada, is lined with brilliant red poppies, making the most mundane street look picturesque. The olive trees dotting the hills are covered with silvery green and the pale cream of new buds, while the grass is tall and soft, every patch threaded with wildflowers.

Melancholy skies and empty fields of gold grey clouds and emeralds days our love in pieces captured only by poems (of mine).

The Tuscan countryside whizzed by in a kaleidoscopic whirl of shapes and colors. Green grass and trees melded with blue sky, purple and yellow wildflowers, peachy-orange villas, brown-and-gray farmhouses, and the occasional red-and-white Autogrill, Italy's (delicious) answer to fast food.

He's already tan, and leaning on the rail in his yellow linen shirt, with the pure glory of Venice racing behind him, I think he looks like someone I'd like to run off with, if I already hadn't.

But no one will weep for me or for them. They have been buried, nameless, beneath five centuries of time. I am a vampire. My name is Vittorio, and I write this now in the tallest tower of the ruined mountaintop castle in which I was born, in the northernmost part of Tuscany, that most beautiful of lands in the very center of Italy.

Julie went to her hotel room window to check that the Campo, the central square of Siena, Italy, was still out there.

Unlike Japan, Italy's cuisine has long centered on meat dishes. In their home province of Tuscany, duck, rabbit, and even boar would be served in the right season. I suspect that is how they learned how to butcher and dress a duck. The breast meat was glazed with a mixture of soy sauce, Japanese mustard, black pepper and honey to give it a strong, spicy fragrance... the perfect complement to the sauce. Duck and salsa verde. They found and enhanced the Japanese essence of both... ... to create an impressive and thoroughly Japanese dish!

… dreamy Tuscan landscape whose peculiar spell is to make you think that it’s yours forever. That you’re here to stay. That time actually stopped the moment you left the highway and drove down a pine-flanked road that steals your breath each time you spot the house whose sole purpose on earth, it seems, is to compress in the space of seven days the miracle of a lifetime.

It was March in the Napa Valley, just under sixty miles north of San Francisco, and Joy Lammenais’s favorite time of year. The rolling hills were a brilliant emerald green, which would fade once the weather grew warmer, and get dry and brittle in the summer heat. But for now, everything was fresh and new, and the vineyards stretched for miles across the Valley. Visitors compared it to Tuscany in Italy, and some to France

And this is what I’ve always suspected about Tuscany. It is about many beautiful things—about small towns, magnificent vistas, and fabulous cuisine, art, culture, history—but it is ultimately about the love of books. It is a reader’s paradise. People come here because of books. Tuscany may well be for people who love life in the present—simple, elaborate, whimsical, complicated life in the present—but it is also for people who love the present when it bears the shadow of the past, who love the world provided it’s at a slight angle. Bookish people.

The University of Pisa, whose scientific reputation throughout Italy was second only to that of Padua, was informed by official decree: 'His Highness [Cosimo III] will allow no professor ... to read or teach, in public or private, by writing or by voice, the philosophy of Democritus, or of atoms, or any saving that of Aristotle.' There was no avoiding this educational censorship, for at the same time a decree was issued forbidding citizens of Tuscany from attending any university beyond its borders, while philosophers and intellectuals who disobeyed this decree were liable to punitive fines or even imprisonment. Gone were the days when the Medici were the patrons of poets and scientists; Florence, once one of the great intellectual and cultural centres of Europe, now sank into repression and ignorance.

Down every aisle a single thought follows me like a shadow: Brand Italy is strong. When it comes to cultural currency, there is no brand more valuable than this one. From lipstick-red sports cars to svelte runway figures to enigmatic opera singers, Italian culture means something to everyone in the world. But nowhere does the name Italy mean more than in and around the kitchen. Peruse a pantry in London, Osaka, or Kalamazoo, and you're likely to find it spilling over with the fruits of this country: dried pasta, San Marzano tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, jars of pesto, Nutella. Tucked into the northwest corner of Italy, sharing a border with France and Switzerland, Piedmont may be as far from the country's political and geographical center as possible, but it is ground zero for Brand Italy. This is the land of Slow Food. Of white truffles. Barolo. Vermouth. Campari. Breadsticks. Nutella. Fittingly, it's also the home of Eataly, the supermarket juggernaut delivering a taste of the entire country to domestic and international shoppers alike. This is the Eataly mother ship, the first and most symbolically important store for a company with plans for covering the globe in peppery Umbrian oil, and shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano Vacche Rosse. We start with the essentials: bottle opener, mini wooden cutting board, hard-plastic wineglasses. From there, we move on to more exciting terrain: a wild-boar sausage from Tuscany. A semiaged goat's-milk cheese from Molise. A tray of lacy, pistachio-pocked mortadella. Some soft, spicy spreadable 'nduja from Calabria. A jar of gianduja, the hazelnut-chocolate spread that inspired Nutella- just in case we have any sudden blood sugar crashes on the trail.

We would mull over the ills of Italy and the ills of the world, and conclude at the end that everyone's crazy so what's the use, let's go have some lunch and a little wine.

Tourism Tourism is the largest segment of the Italian economy. Millions of Italians work in the tourist industry. They work in hotels and restaurants. They drive taxis and lead tour groups. Tourists flock to Italy for its gorgeous scenery, beautiful weather, and incredible art. Italy if the fifth most visited nation in the world, welcoming about forty million tourists each year. One major destination is the Italian Riviera, which draws visitors with its beautiful beaches, sunny days, and cool nights. Many tourists head to Rome to see its ancient ruins and magnificent art. Tuscany is also rich in art and appealing landscapes. Twenty million people travel to Venice every year to experience the charms of a city that has canals instead of roads.

Getting together Social gatherings are popular with Italians, and it is common to invite relatives and friends for a meal, even if there is no special occasion. On the weekend, many people visit their relatives or go to a soccer match. Some families like to have Sunday lunch in a restaurant, such as these people in Tuscany.

Speaking Italian Italian is a Romance language, meaning that it is based on Latin, the language of ancient Rome. Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Romanian are also Romance languages. Many people who speak only Spanish can understand and be understood by Italians. The Italian spoken today originated with Tuscan Italian, a mixture of dialects, or varieties, from the region of Tuscany. In the 1300s, Dante Alighieri wrote The Divine Comedy in Tuscan Italian. The leading writers of the Renaissance also used Tuscan Italian. Although Italian is the nation’s main language, several Italian dialects are spoken. These include Friulian, which is spoken by about six hundred thousand people in the northeast of the country, and Sicilian. People in Calabria, the boot’s foot, use a dialect that includes a lot of Greek words. These came to the region more than two thousand years ago, when the Greeks colonized the region.

Like Cortona, my best beloved Tuscan hill town, Oxford invites you in, makes you a participant in the repetition and variation of its particular themes. As in Piazza Signorelli, you’re a star in the cast as you step into the daily play. Your breathing slows, your shoulders push back. All the proprioceptors agree: This is how a town should be built. But unlike any Italian town, here the green air under massive trees dislodges my senses: world in a jar. You may stroll in this vast terrarium, or so I felt growing up in a one-mile-square town in south Georgia. One reason I felt immediately at home in Tuscany was that certain strong currents of life reminded me of the South. The warmth of people and their astonishing generosity felt so familiar, and I knew well that identical y’all come hospitality. “It’s unhealthy to eat alone,” our neighbor in Italy told us early on. “We’re cooking every night so come on over.

How many people today have what you are talking about? What roots are there in an apartment twelve floors up? What roots are in a housing development of hundreds and thousands of small dwellings almost exactly alike? My father came from Italy," he said. "He grew up in Tuscany in a house where his family had lived maybe a thousand years. That's roots for you, no running water, no toilet, and they cooked with charcoal or vine clippings. They had just two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom where everybody slept, grandpa, father and all the kids, no place to read, no place to be alone, and never had had. Was that better? I bet if you gave my old man the choice he'd cut his roots and live like this.

CHIANTI The yellow sun lays low upon the fields that are covered in dry grass. Soft is the rain that falls in the distance yet does not dare to come near the places where summer lives and dies. The haze is the aftermath of the kiss summer shared with the land so gracefully. And now, I may kiss your wine-stained lips within September's pale delight.

SAN GIMIGNANO The towers align the hills like crowns of heavy stones; Empty are the dreams of the ones that built them long ago. The thirst for power still stands frozen in its tracks - the only witnesses of it stand high against the silver sky. The distance gets smaller, and the towers become higher. So many have fallen, laying their family's name to rest, in gentle forgetfulness.

A POET'S HOMAGE TO FLORENCE What heart dares to look upon a city so golden and is not moved to write a single line? Whose soul can bear such beauty and not praise it with all its words? May there be poets without a page left, artists with no colour to give a memory of you; and even lovers who refuse to burn? My love, your likeness is like marble that makes the altar of paradise.

SIENA I wander down the steps along the walls of bricks and high houses - down to the waters that lay deep. Streaming down from the hill on which the old city was built with a tower standing high, that reaches up not far from the grave that these waters lay in. Alabaster is the hand that reaches in it and cold is the heart that touches the pale divine. Beating fast after climbing back to the light and narrow streets - I found now what it seeks. Descending down, down to the hidden stream - oh Siena, my goddess without a pomegranate seed.

MARBLE GRAVES The silver moon stands silent between two cypresses - its light leaning against the walls of the old palazzo that lays in ruin. Hidden behind olive groves lays the tomb of forgotten men and unsung heroes. Their souls found peace within the Allgrove's of singing cicadas and rustling long grass. The marble is heavy and their graves cool and dark - deep is their sleep eternal their demise. The moon is slowly covered by a shroud of clouds, cypresses now lay in darkness - silence.

It certainly wasn't the sensible thing to do. [Referring to her move to Italy.]

I spent most summers in Italy as a child either in Tuscany or at the Amalfi coast.

Marco Polo’s father, Niccolò Polo, traded with the Persians who were known to the early Europeans. These early Persians came from the province of Fârs, sometimes known in Old Persian as Pârsâ, located in the southwestern region of Iran. As a people, they were united under the Achaemenid Dynasty in the 6th century BC, by Cyrus the Great. In 1260, Niccolò Polo and his brother Maffeo lived in Constantinople, now Istanbul, Turkey. After the Mongol conquest of Asia Minor, the Polo brothers liquidated their assets into tangible valuables such as gold and jewels and moved out of harm’s way. Having heard of advanced eastern civilizations the brothers traveled through much of Asia, and even met with the Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, who later became emperor of China and established the Yuan Dynasty. Not being the first to travel east of Iran, they had heard numerous stories regarding the riches to be discovered in the Far East. Twenty-four years later in 1295, after traveling almost 15,000 miles, they returned to Venice with many riches and treasures. The Polo brothers had experienced a quarter century of adventures on their way to Asia that were later transcribed into The Book of Marco Polo by a writer named Rustichello, who came from Pisa in Tuscany, Italy. This was the beginning of a quest that motivated explorers, including Christopher Columbus, from that time on.

Corruption. Everywhere else we call in the IMF; in Italy they call it family values. And northern Europeans, whose countries don’t allow politicians to accept a doughnut, happily pay endless bribes to get electricity put into their holiday homes in Tuscany. And what’s more, they feel happy and privileged to be allowed to join in the rustic corruption of Italian politics and pay the mayor. Italy is a trough of special interests, fixing, foul play, pay-offs and excommunications. Italians wave their hands in mock exasperation, and the rest of the world smiles benignly, and goes, aww, those Italian scallywags. If Italy happened to be in the Middle East, there’d be a Yankee aircraft carrier in the Venice lagoon and sanctions. But Italians get away with it simply by being Italians, and we all know what they’re like – and they know we know. Every other nation in the world tries to make life be as it should be; the Italians make the most of how it is. We all say corruption is a bad thing; we must stop it. The Italians say we are all fallible; to pretend otherwise is arrogance. Everywhere else has crime, but in Italy, it’s organised by professionals. All men are lecherous bastards who only want one thing; surely, say the Italians, it’s better to be seduced by Casanova than Attila the Drunk. Instead of pitting virtue against vice in an eternal war of abstinence, failure and guilt like the rest of us, Italy has made the vices virtues, and vice versa. If you come from a prescriptive, prudent, parsimonious society, this seems hypnotically attractive, and I am as mesmerised and seduced as any gap-year convent girl. Most years I try to find myself in Siena for the Palio. The Palio is a horserace held twice a year. But

Hues of pale green, on delicate olive branches the soft rustling of somberness along the fields of gold that lay themselves to gentle rest after another long summer. I have nothing to bury under them except my own heart -that is my soul's greatest regret, once my lines begin to fill in autumn, under the velvet gloom of shortening days. The admiration of the Florentine sun had doomed my words to become eventually a remembrance once September falls in October's pale hands. I shall have nothing to grieve for once the winter arrives, coming over the distant hills and laying bare the orchards along his way. I doomed them to become ruins by overthinking, hoping - at least once too often - for change; So, let it be then. I will mourn my mere passion for life in the presence of death - though my art may be eternal.

Sicily--- Oranges, pistachios, and/or aubergine. Sicilian food a product of immense, diverse history. Have sardines! Try the orange cake. You'll find it all over, but there used to be a good one in Taormina. I shake my head in amazement. Somehow, it feels like Dad had been quietly guiding me. Tuscany--- Wild boar is good but tomatoes are better. Nothing else! Please say something with Chiara's tomatoes. I want to help her. Farm is a century old and sells some obscure varieties. Tomato salads, tomato bread soup, panzanella. And here too, Leo and I had organically found the path my father laid out for us. The notes on Liguria are less specific, but when I read his scrawled handwriting, I smile to myself. Liguria--- Was thinking about beans, but basil a good opinion. Oh boy, I cannot wait to show that note to Leo. Basil a good option! Leo. I sit and write with an open heart, not shying away from treacly memories of cut oranges shared in the sea. Pushing my cynicism to the side and allowing the love I have for food, for Italy, for my father, to run from my heart down my veins to my fingers and onto the page.

The smells of barbecued seafood waft through the air, and I think about the crazy difference between here, with its blue sea and salty air; luscious, green Tuscany; and sun-burnished Sicily.

The Italians, who have been “guest workers” at many times and in many countries, are thrown by the phenomenon happening in their own country. During this second summer at Bramasole, the newspapers are tolerant to indignant about Albanians literally washing up on the shores of southern Italy. Living in San Francisco, a city where immigrants arrive daily, we cannot get excited about their problem. Americans in cities have realized that migrations are on the increase; that the whole demographic tapestry is being rewoven on a vast scale in the late twentieth century. Europe is having a harder time coming to grips with this fact. We have our own poor, they tell us incredulously. Yes, we say, we do, too. Italy is amazingly homogeneous; it is rare to see a black or Asian face in Tuscany. Recently, Eastern Europeans, finding the German work force at last full of people like themselves, began arriving in this prosperous part of northern Italy. Now we understood Alfiero’s estimate for the work. Instead of paying the normal Italian twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand lire per hour, he is able to pay nine thousand. He assures us they are legal workers and are covered by his insurance. The Poles are pleased with the hourly wage; at home, before the factory went kaput, they barely earned that much in a day.

I have always fancied myself as a fairly objective looker, but I’m beginning to wonder whether I do not miss whole categories of things. Let me give you an example of what I mean, Alicia. Some years ago the U.S. Information Service paid the expenses of a famous and fine Italian photographer to go to America and to take pictures of our country. It was thought that pictures by an Italian would be valuable to Italians because they would be of things of interest to Italy. I was living in Florence at the time and I saw the portfolio as soon as the pictures were printed. The man had traveled everywhere in America, and do you know what his pictures were? Italy, in every American city he had unconsciously sought and found Italy. The portraits—Italians; the countryside—Tuscany and the Po Valley and the Abruzzi. His eye looked for what was familiar to him and found it. . . . This man did not see the America which is not like Italy, and there is very much that isn’t. And I wonder what I have missed in the wonderful trip to the south that I have just completed. Did I see only America? I confess I caught myself at it. Traveling over those breathtaking mountains and looking down at the shimmering deserts . . . I found myself saying or agreeing—yes, that’s like the Texas panhandle— that could be Nevada, and that might be Death Valley. . . . [B]y identifying them with something I knew, was I not cutting myself off completely from the things I did not know, not seeing, not even recognizing, because I did not have the easy bridge of recognition . . . the shadings, the nuance, how many of those I must not have seen. (Newsday, 2 Apr. 1966)

According to a study done in 2011 by the welfare department of the CISL trade union, in the three-year period from 2006 to 2008 it could take as long as 540 days to have a mammogram scheduled (Puglia), 90 days to get a bone-density scan done (Veneto) and 74 days to see a geriatrics specialist in the generally well-organized Tuscany region. I myself know someone who had to wait seven months to get a heart bypass, and one of my next-door neighbors here in Rome waited almost a year for a hip replacement. Of course, this is not unusual for a country with national health; all the Brits I know decry their own system violently and even in Sweden, once a model for such things, there is considerable disorganization. The fact remains that the Italian national health system is often more virtual than real, forcing people who can afford it to look for an alternative solution.

Short story: The true and incredible tale of David Kirkpatrick, a Scottish ex-boy scout, and miner, serving in WW2 with 2nd Highland Light Infantry and the legendary elite corps 2nd SAS. A man who becomes a hero playing his bagpipe during a secret mission in Italy, March 1945, where he saved the lives of hundreds just playing during the attack. After he fought in North Africa, Greece, Albania, Sicily and being reported as an unruly soldier, (often drunk, insulting superiors and so on) in Tuscany, 23 march 1945 he joined as volunteer in the 2nd Special Air Service ( the British elite forces), for a secret mission behind enemy line in Italy. He parachuted in the Italian Apennines with his kilt on (so he becomes known as the 'mad piper' ) for a mission organized with British elite forces and an unruly group of Italian-Russian partisans (code name: 'Operation Tombola' organized from the British secret service SOE and 2nd SAS and the "Allied Battalion") against the Gothic Line german headquarter of the 51 German Mountains Corps in Albinea, Italy. The target of the anglo-partisan group's mission is to destroy the nazi HQ to prepare the big attack of the Allied Forces (US 5th Army, British 8th Army) to the German Gothic Line in North Italy at the beginning of April. It's the beginning of the liberation of Italy from the nazi fascist dictatorship. The Allied Battalion guided by major Roy Farran, captain Mike Lees Italian partisan Glauco Monducci, Gianni Ferrari, and the Russian Viktor Pirogov is an unruly brigade of great fighters of many nationalities. Among them also not just British, Italian, and Russian but also a dutch, a greek, one Austrian paratrooper who deserted the German Forces after has killed an SS, a german who deserted Hitler's Army being in love with an Italian taffeta's, two Jewish escaped from nazi reprisal and 3 Spanish anti-Franchise who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War and then joined first the French Foreign Legion and the British Elite Forces. The day before the attack, Kirkpatrick is secretly guested in a house of Italian farmers, and he donated his white silk parachute to a lady so she could create her wedding dress for the Wedding with his love: an Italian partisan. During the terrible attack in the night of 27th March 1945, the sound of his bagpipe marks the beginning of the fight and tricked the nazi, avoiding a terrible reprisal against the civilian population of the Italian village of Albinea, saving in this way the life of hundreds The German HQ based in two historical villa's is destroyed and in flames, several enemy soldiers are killed, during the attack, the bagpipe of David played for more than 30 minutes and let the german believe that the "British are here", not also Italian and Russian partisan (in war for Hitler' order: for partisans attack to german forces for every german killed nazi were executing 10 local civilians in terrible and barbarian reprisal). During the night the bagpipe of David is also hit after 30 minutes of the fight and, three British soldiers of 2nd SAS are killed in the action in one of the two Villa. The morning later when Germans bring their bodies to the Church of Albinea, don Alberto Ugolotti, the local priest notes in his diary: "Asked if they were organizing a reprisal against the civilian population, they answered that it was a "military attack" and there would.

Hot peppers are to Calabria what Sangiovese is to Tuscany.

Grand Tourists and their retinues typically crossed the choppy English Channel at the Port of Dover, stepping onto French soil in Calais. From there, the parties would set off on a three-day trek to Paris. Once fitted for new clothes, many proceeded to decamp for a season or longer for their first taste of Continental culture. (...) Not everyone took the same route. The more adventurous traveled from Paris to Lyon then farther south to Marseille, journeying by sea from Marseille to Livorno, in the Tuscany region, or Genoa, although the Italians’ lack of necessary sailing skills at that time made passage risky. Meanwhile, the wary typically trekked from Paris to Lyon then over the Alps. For the latter, Geneva was a subsequent stop, by default rather than preference. Despite the breathtaking beauty of the Alps, coaches—the mode of transport used at the time—simply could not traverse the treacherous Mont Cenis pass, ascending 6,827 feet. Invariably, the harrowing peaks and rocky precipices forced willing travelers to navigate by mule or sled. Regardless of the hassles, those who pressed on reaped extravagant rewards. (...) All roads, however, ultimately led to Rome, befitting its vaunted history as the intellectual, scientific and artistic center of the Renaissance and Baroque culture.

Au XVIe siècle, en Italie, entre Rome et les collines dorées de Toscane, un nouveau monde est en train de naître, grâce à de grandes familles de souverains flamboyants. Ils savent s’entourer de vaillants militaires, d’artistes et d’écrivains de renom, mais aussi de femmes extravagantes et talentueuses. Pour leur rendre grâce, on invente un nouveau qualificatif les distinguant des vulgaires prostituées, ce seront des « courtisanes », cortigianae , des femmes ayant des manières les rendant dignes de figurer à la cour.

luxury wines such as Gaja Barbaresco, Conterno Barolo, and Super Tuscans such as Sassicaia and Masseto, we revel in the challenge of finding the most interesting and tasty Piedirosso, Pigato, and Procanico to tempt our guests. To that end, when the restaurant was under construction and still uninhabitable, we found ourselves in a whirlwind of tasting appointments off site, often up to eight hours straight, auditioning hundreds of wines daily for several weeks. Each day, we asked our trusted wine sellers to bring only the wines of a particular region of Italy. Alto Adige day seems to always be a bit easier, as these northern wines tend to have a nice palate-cleansing and reviving acidity that certainly helps when there are so many wines to taste. On that day we taste wines like crisp, clean Sauvignon Blanc from Zemmer and the elegant Chardonnays of Elena Walch, both made from international grape varieties, and Hofstatter Pinot Bianco and Mayr-Nusser Lagrein made from homegrown grapes. On the other hand, Tuscany day can be a tough one, with all of the rich, high-octane reds that are typically presented, and for the tremendous number of high-quality wines that we just cannot bring ourselves to forgo swallowing. Tuscany provides us with glassfuls of the classic Sangiovese-based Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino, and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, and their more reasonably priced facsimilies: Sangiovese Toscana, Rosso di Montalcino, and Rosso di Montepulciano. The neoclassic Tuscan reds include the blends in which Sangiovese is married with grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah. These are the Super Tuscan wines. We call these few weeks of intense wine tasting “The Gauntlet.” As much fun as it sounds, you realize that tasting can actually be very hard work. Thank goodness for the chef’s sandwiches: Sicilian Tuna to revive the palate after all of that Sicilian Nero d’Avola, Bresaola and Arugula on Lombardy day when we have been drinking Sforzato di Valtellina and its simpler cousin, Rosso di Valtellina, both made from Chiavennesca—all perfect vehicles for bringing our palates and ourselves back to life!