Off the Tourist Path: How to Find the Hidden Tuscany

From L'Italo-Americano...

John Keahey is a journalist turned travel writer who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. Some years ago on a visit to Italy he became enamored with Italian culture: its history and art. His falling for Italy in such a big way is understandable. He joins the legions of writers since the seventeenth century who have written about their Italian journeys.  Besides the book under review, he has also written Seeking Sicily, Venice Against the Sea, and A Sweet and Glorious Land: Revisiting the Ionia Sea, which I reviewed in this column when it appeared in 2000. In the latter book Keahey follows in the footsteps of George Gissing’s 1897 classic, By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy.    

Keahey’s Hidden Tuscany is not the conventional travel book listing those obligatory monuments and villages to visit. Nor is he interested in pointing his readers to new and undiscovered restaurants, thus rendering them both popular and avoidable.  There are enough Rick Steves in the world of travel writing, and Keahey does not intend to compete with the travel industry. Rather, in Hidden Tuscany he writes an introspective and interesting account of his travels through Tuscany’s smaller, lesser known villages. (Click to read more...)

Buy Hidden Tuscany on Amazon