Their ruggedness, the attitude of people towards foreigners – a tad hostile at first, then really welcoming -, the daily life there, everything is explained in careful detail and with great accuracy, in a funny and entertaining way. I know most of those villages quite well and the writer is able to picture them perfectly. Like many other villages of the Ligurian entroterra (backcountry), it is mainly the home of farmers and olive growers, who work hard and speak very little. As the writer herself describes it “glamour, we soon spotted, was not the outstanding feature of the village of Diano San Pietro”.Īnd it is so true. It is secluded and far from the hustle and bustle of the Riviera, a bit rugged and wild. It seems like all other memoirs, but there are a few things that make it different.įirst of all, it is set in Diano San Pietro, a tiny village perched on the hills of Liguria. It is Extra Virgin by Annie Hawes, the story of an English woman who buys an old house in Italy, restores it and eventually moves there and changes her life.

There is actually a lovely memoir about life in Italy as a foreigner, which somehow follows the same pattern but it does it in its own way. They are undoubtedly charming, but sometimes it is nice to read something different. They usually involve golden light, rolling hills, wine, and food, sometimes love with a handsome Italian guy. They are usually set in the Tuscan countryside or in Umbria, sometimes in Rome – all great places for a perfect romance.

However, these kinds of memoirs are more or less always the same. I have read quite a few of them and I had to admit they tend to follow the same cliché: moving to Tuscany, buying property there and finding the love of your life – which isn’t a bad scenario at all, to be honest. One of the most famous is undoubtedly Under The Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, but there are many others. If you go to a bookstore, you’ll surely find a lot of memoirs about moving to Italy and living the Italian dream. Subscribe to the Vespa rides and get full access to Your Italian Toolbox, a library of language learning materials that you can use to practice Italian.

Living In Italy by Stef Smulders