Tuscany. What's it really like?
The author of the Inside Tuscany: A Second Time Around guide book series offers a new book of essays and stories about living and traveling in Tuscany and Italy.
Book Sections
- The Aretine: including life in the major hill town of Arezzo and its Saturday and Antique markets, watching the Giostra del Saracino, and revisiting the WW II atrocity at Civitella in Chiana.
- Culture: examining the role of the Catholic church in society, understanding and using proper customs and courtesies including when to use ciao and the kiss-kiss, shopping in tiny specialty stores, studying in Italian school, walking in the passeggiata, harvesting grapes, looking at the lives or relatives, and dealing with Italian bureaucracy.
- Food: finding good restaurants and bars, eating at the great osteria La Capannaccia, ordering caffè in a bar, trying to eat Tuscan bread, and surviving a meal as a guest in someone's home.
- Traveling and Living: stories of exploration including the Blue Grotto in Sicily, dealing with a car accident, living and freezing in an 18th century rectory, taking the right photo equipment and pictures, surviving culture shock, adapting to the rapid evolution of connectivity and, buying an Italian cell phone.
- Driving: driving in the city and on the autostrada, navigating in cities and the countryside, and dealing with the short-term Italian driver thinking.
- Walking the Aqueduct and the magic of discovery.
A Reader Reviews
In the spirit of John Steinbeck (Travels with Charley) and Charles Kuralt (America), Grabinger has authored a book which at once recounts his experiences in Tuscany and gives the reader a rich repertoire for knowledgeably approaching the region. In this fast-paced book, we learn what to expect at meals, on the autostrada, in the shops, and at the markets. It is a great source for understanding and coping with Italian (or at least Tuscan) culture. If you are going to Tuscany, read it!
Just to let you know how much we enjoyed your book, my wife and I took turns reading it to each other at our lake cabin in northern Minnesota, we broke out in laughter several times.
About the Author: The Author: Scott Tiezzi Grabinger
Why are my guidebooks unique?
Experience.My family and I have been traveling around Italy since 1992 learning the towns, sites, foods, language, and culture.
I believe in slow travel. My books focus on small towns and culture for repeat visitors to Tuscany - the kinds of places that most guidebooks cover in 30 words or less. To me, second timers want to travel slower to engage more in the culture - gelato - than try to "collect" as many sites as possible.
Family makes all the difference. My Italian cousins give me a unique perspective from other writers. They show me the real "Inside Tuscany" with its hidden tiny hill towns, incredible panoramas, and restaurants and pizzerias known only to the locals. They have taken me to sagre (festivals dedicated to a single food like steak, or porcini mushrooms) and weekend long festivals and antique fairs. They "try" to teach me how to "act Italian" - but it is still hard to get used to eating dinner at 8:30.
I speak Italian. It's impossible to recall how often a church caretaker or museum docent has opened up and taken me on a private 40 minute tour because I could understand them. Or the number of times I learned about specialties in a restaurant that aren't on the menu or found the perfect Vino Nobile for the secondo piatto. Thanks to the the language I've learned to harvest grapes and olives to make wine and olive oil.
I live in Tuscany two months a year. My base is in Arezzo and from there I study Italian, branch out to discover new places and events, participate in festivals and daily markets, walk in the evening passeggiata, and make friends.
Now available, a book of true stories: Walking the Aqueduct: Tuscan Adventures and Culture.
These are stories about my adventures, misadventures with insights about the culture of and traveling in Italy. Available in both paperback and Kindle formats.
Contacts and Social Media Contact: scott.grabinger@gmail.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/scott.grabinger
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/scott-grabinger-3890b073
Blog: insidetuscany.blogspot.com
For book information go to: www.insidetuscanybooks.com
For Tuscan itineraries go to: www.insidetuscanytours.com
