What happens if you decide to make a dream come true? Newly retired and looking for more than a vacation, John and Nancy Petralia intrepidly pack a few suitcases and head to the "perfect" Italian city. Within days their dream becomes a nightmare. After residing in two Italian cities, negotiating the roads and healthcare, discovering art, friends, food, and customs, the Petralias learn more than they anticipate--about Italy, themselves, what it means to be American, and what's important in life. Part memoir, part commentary, quirky and sincere, Not in a Tuscan Villa is about having the courage to step out of your comfort zone and do something challenging in later life. The adventure recaptures the Petralia's youth, rekindles their romance--and changes their lives forever.
First, it is well written, every page immersing the reader deep into the experience of two people who had the courage to take a year and do something totally different from their previous experience. There is an exciting sense of adventure, a willingness and the sense of humor to accept that everything will not be as you planned, and the ability to change focus (and houses) when reality proves to be below expectations.
We go along with John and Nancy every step of their way, riding a bike, shopping, eating, volunteering at a food festival and a senior center, absorbing the culture and joy of Italy. There are great descriptions of many places you have heard of, and others not on the normal tourist radar. There are also moving interactions with the Italians they met along the way.
My wife and I lived in the south of France for 7 summers, using our apartment for home exchange to travel throughout Europe. (See http://patandlewtravel.wordpress.com/ ) Many times we have heard from our friends how much they would like to do what we did, but they never do. John and Nancy, with different objectives and a different plan, reached out and changed their lives as a result. Their report is a great read and also a wonderful guide for those who may be similarly inclined.
I just finished reading “Not in a Tuscan Village” by John and Nancy Petralia and thought long and hard about my review. I know this is being promoted as a travel book, but I think it is a love story. Nancy’s narratives captured her love of art, history, design, food, communications, relationships and adventure. John reveled in the everyday joy of loving, living and being proud of his Sicilian heritage and South Philadelphia upbringing. Together, they share their own love story so beautifully while educating each of us about the treasures of Italy and being Italian. This book is magical. You need to buy it, embrace their spirit and enjoy.
Good book. Interesting perspective from Baby Boomers who like opera, jazz music and architecture. Italy has a lot to offer but no where is perfect as they point out with a realistic but fun view. I like how they go with the flow and are open to learning about new places and meeting new people.
I found this book interesting for the two different voices. The authors alternate chapters so it's a sort of he said, she said. He's more of a commentator, and a funny one, talking about things they observe and often relating that to his South Philly upbringing. She's more the narrator of their experiences and talks about art, the working people, their friends, and the benefits of winter travel. They both write of the struggle to become fluent in Italian and their misadventures. I was surprised how much history, both Italian and American, I learned from this book.
It's an easy read and a pleasant one. I'd say the overall message is that a different perspective changes you. And over time the authors change how they feel about many aspects of their lives. For anyone who's dreamed of living abroad, especially in Italy, this book is almost as good as doing it.
I enjoyed learning more about the places in Italy than you get from the typical whirlwind tour; about daily life - for Italians and those trying to be Italians; and about the authors' story and adventures. I think you will enjoy it too!
This is a book about what happens when two people not only dare to dream, but dare to make their dreams come true--to become the authors of their own life story. It's a book about life. It's about the friend on the other side of that stranger. It's about life lived outdoors on foot or bicycle, at an outdoor café and in the public square. It's about life lived with eyes and ears open to experience. It's about life invigorated by learning about self and other. And it's about life enriched by generosity. Whether your dream includes Italy, or whether you haven't let yourself dream at all, this book is an invitation for you, too, to become the author of your own life story.
I loved this book!!! I loved learning about Italy- all the history and way of life- Nancy and John made me feel as if I was in Italy with them....... I really got such a strong feeling for what life is like there- I've always wanted to go and visit and hopefully one of these days I will have the opportunity. Living somewhere for a year puts you in such a different vantage point than visiting for a week or two or even a month. I loved hearing about all of their adventures and learnings of Italy and their culture. Great book!!!!
Damn! I just finished reading this book. I did not want it to end. I began reading yesterday morning morning, had to put the book down to go out, and just finished it right now. I had to tell everyone how much joy this book has given me. The authors touched the core of my heart. I was THERE!, I cannot wait to suggest and then later discuss this book with my book club. I do not know how the authors managed to perfectly blend two different styles, two experiences and two voices and have the end product become one unified and special experience for the reader.
I started skipping pages about a third of the way through. About half way through I threw the book into a corner. Spending a year in Italy is my dream as well, which is the reason I picked up this book. Unfortunately it did not nothing for me, except perhaps to tell me that their research before leaving was both insufficient and flawed. But that was obvious from the very beginning. The word naïve came to mind more than just a couple of times. The rude swearing was offensive and added exactly nothing to the story - on the contrary. If I want a lecture on Italian history, cities to visit, or Obama politics, I will read a book by a historian or a travel writer. The typos were driving me crazy, both in English and Italian. I can add German to the list of languages butchered. The words were not only misspelled but her answer (which he proudly says he taught her) doesn't even exist as a word in that (my native) tongue.
I'm finished because I'm putting this mess of a book down. The typos! In both English and Italian. Which at one point was written ITALAINO instead of ITALIANO!!! And Pelligrino for pilgrim instead of Pellegrino. How the hell do you do that with a bottle of the damn water right on the table in front of you? An acquaintance, Sheila, had her name spelled as Shiela in every other paragraph. Chiuso which is closed in Italian was spelled chuiso which means nothing. Porcshe for Porsche, distain for disdain, Gallop for the Gallup Poll!!!
And then the nastiness with which the husband talked (albeit in his head) to and about the police officer who pulled him over for going 65 kph in a 50 zone. He was doing his fricking job! You were the one speeding so why all the rudeness?!
I really should avoid vanity publishing altogether. It does a number on my blood pressure.
Well, kudos to you . I have read many adventure stories of people traveling throught bella Italia, but I truly felt I was taking the journey with you both ..... it was very real and written with so much heart. The joy of your discoveries and experiences was palpable.Although every second I spend in Italy is food for my soul, it's always nice to venture along through someone else's eyes. Thank you for sharing your unforgettable year in this book. I'm sure if we met one day, we'd feel connected by our passion for Italy and our love of sharing joys with family and friends.
Toss up between 2 and 3 stars. So wanted to really enjoy this book and story, but the typos. And the flow. Timeline jumps around. The chapters alternate between the husband and wife, but you don’t figure that out until many chapters have been read first. Ultimately, the editing failed these first time authors.
This was a fun and eye opening read. The authors picked up and moved to Italy for a year. We've considered spending a few months in Europe after retirement so it was interesting to hear some of the challenges that the authors faced and how different life is over there. The authors loved to cook so there was a lot of discussion about cooking and food. This is one thing that scares me because I am not a good cook and I'm afraid we would starve if I have to cook from scratch each day. It would be interesting to see how this would change me since I would obviously have to adapt. I loved reading about all of the churches and museums. We visited Paris once and reveling in all if the history was my favorite part. I can't wait to spend an extended period of time in Europe now!
I enjoyed this book so much because it is about pursuing and living your dream. This couple always wanted to live in Italy for a period of time. Turns out they were able to live there for an entire year. There were unexpected twists and turns that had to be met and that was a good bit of the fun except, of course, a trip to the hospital but that provided excellent insights into the health care system in Italy. Bottomline: they have a good system. I felt as if I were on the trip with them and learned so much about Italy; the people, the history and the cuisine. Love the cuisine! It's a great read. I recommend it.
3.5 stars. I enjoyed reading this book about a couple in their 60s who got out of their comfort zone and moved to Italy for a year. What made this book more interesting to me than Under the Tuscan Sun is that this couple really made an effort to learn the language and immerse themselves in the culture rather than hang out with other ex pats. The publishing is second rate. The cover is blurry and out of focus and the text had quite a few typos and grammatical errors. A pretty sloppy presentation.
Not in a Tuscan Villa is an excellent read! It allows you to exeperience Italy without any travel. Nancy and John Petralia take you on their personal journey for a year living in Italy. You'll taste the wine and food, hear the music, and get to know the people of this wonderful country. A must read for anyone who has visited, plans to visit, or just wants to get a first hand view of Italy. It also will inspire you to live out your own dreams.
A very enjoyable, and informative, description, of what it would be like to be dropped into the middle of small-town, and charming, Italy, including Health Care, Pompeii, Garibaldi, and the list goes on. A must read in two voices for anyone planning to actually or virtually visit La Dolce Vita.Congratulazioni.
Why do I persist in buying cheap travel memoirs for my Kindle, worrying that I won't have enough to read on vacation? I hope I didn't pay more than 99 cents for it, if that. Yes, it was pretty bad. I finished it, though, with some skimming, so I guess it could have been worse.
Some good info about Italy and traveling. Could have used some editing. Also got a little preachy about the "free" healthcare, but later admits that the best way to get service in any kind of timely manner is to buy your own insurance on top of the "free" healthcare. I put "free" in quotes because the taxes are exorbitant in Italy and people generally live small, in large part, because it's expensive lot live there. The authors also lament that so many men in their late teens and thirties live at home, but if you can't get a decent job and the taxes are high, well, you really can't afford to be on your own.
And that's really the goal of the left - raise prices, lower wages, raise the cost of living so people get married later and have fewer kids. It happened during the Obama administration and again during the Biden administration. Once people are dependent upon government, you go socialist, then everyone's poor.
The tourism info was solid, though, but these two are wealthy - they live on LBI in NJ, which is very expensive (it's an island off the Jersey coast with beach access on one side and bay access on the other). Can Italians afford to move here for a year and tour the nation without working? Ha ha ha ha... again, that's why our system is better.
I would love it if towns had squares like in Italian cities, where people get together and enjoy their culture, but America is multicultural, and people don't do that here. Old towns do have squares, but the post-war urban sprawl never built town squares, so we don't have that here.
And yes, Italians eat much healthier than we do, and we should eat more like they do in the Mediterranean, which is what Kennedy wants, though now the Democrats mock him even though he's been a Dem his whole life.
So yes, read it, but take their political stances with a grain of salt because the system they espouse would never allow them to afford to move to another country for a year.
An engaging travel guide cum memoir, Not in a Tuscan Villa is the story of two Americans of retirement age fulfilling their dream of living for a year in Italy. This book is an enjoyable read, especially if you share the authors' love of Italian history, architecture, and seafood.
I knocked two stars off - the first because it's a little repetitious. We are told numerous times about how good the calamari is. About how Italians use "punto," which means "point taken," in several different ways. And that Italians have access to high-quality health care. The book would be better if each of these, and a dozen or so other examples, were mentioned two to four fewer times.
The second star I scraped off because, in a few places, while sharing their thoughts on people they meet, the authors cross the line from insensitive to genuinely offensive. The husband is in Italy in part to improve his Italian, but when he hears an African speaking in their native language, he calls it "gibberish." Several times they refer to Romani as "gypsies," an antiquated, borderline racist term. I know plenty of Americans their age, and I'm sure there was no malice in any of this, but numerous editors and a writing club reviewed this book before publication. Someone should have caught these missteps.
All and all, this is a decent book worth reading, especially for Americans planning on visiting Italy. The snapshots of some of the towns and sights are themselves worth the time spent perusing the book.
I’m giving this book four stars and that is mainly because of my love of Italy and the fact that I haven’t been able To finish a book in a while. Nothing has held my interest. That being said I found a few things annoying. There weee too many places where the subject matter turned into a lengthy history lesson and I skipped over the pages. A history major myself,I knew some of the context so maybe others would find it interesting but to go on and on about Garibaldi was unnecessary. Same with economic issues in both Italy but mainly in the US, was just plain unnecessary. Also, there were chapters or at least one that was totally out of order. I can’t remember exactly but in one place it was spring (the spring when their trip ends but then they were back on a “cold November day” and it threw me off. There were definitely typo-os and words that were just wrong. And lastly, and this might make me sound prudish, which I’m not, I got the “icks” every time John commented about or worse to a young waitress or nurse or whomever. He’s a 60+ yr old man asking a 20 something year old waitress is “you have to be pretty to work here” if he did it once maybe but he constantly commented on the young women. Yes I agree ( and I’m biased lol) Italian women are beautiful but he didn’t need to write this into his book so many times. To me it made him sound creepy and insincere and not at all endearing. All that said I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy the visions of Italy, the art, etc. it was a quick read if you skip the history lessons and all around enjoyable.
Somehow the Internet gods figured out I am planning a trip. Usually I find these algorithms slightly creepy but I caved when I saw that one of the writers of "Not in a Tuscan Villa" was from Pittsburgh. John and Nancy Petralia are retirees who decide to take the plunge and do what many dream of: make a dramatic change of scene for an entire year to live in Italy. Their book alternates chapters told by John then Nancy - both equally well-written, inspired by a writers' group to which they belonged in Long Beach Island. Their coverage was practical and romantic. Practical in that they had to figure out how to budget (renting their NJ home) and how to find a place to live. While the Internet was robust during their time away (2009-2010) I can only imagine that much of their adventure would be easier now. They cover things that you might not imagine unless you have taken a similar journey - like acquiring a special visa and more importantly how they navigated the health care system when John had two medical incidents. And then there were the sights! They must have taken wonderful notes because their descriptions of the town, villages and events they visited were wonderful. With all the practical tips they shared, I would have enjoyed an overall budget description. Ben fatto, John and Nancy!
Enjoyed this travel novel that chronicled John and Nancy Petralia's dream trip to Italy. The trip, taken in their early 60's was a dream come true for the couple from NJ. I think there were many elements of this book on many levels. The couple researched where they wanted to live based on location and the fact that they did not plan to have access to a car. They started in Bologna, but an inferior apartment weighed heavily on them, even though the found enjoyable experiences there. They eventually moved to Parma. During the year they traveled extensively, navigated the roads and the language, and made many friends. John was hospitalized twice, with good outcomes each time. They people watched and immersed themselves in the local culture. One of their surprises was how the experience made them look at America differently. The book was written pre-Covid and Italy's healthcare system was overwhelmed by the pandemic. The Petralia's talked about how the Italian healthcare system focused on prevention instead of treatment. I looked for any response to the Italian response to the pandemic but could not find anything. Wonder if and how their view may have changed.
"What I did on my vacation" - the themes school children write in September is about the level of writing you should expect here. These two people are certainly not writers and it is surprising to me the this book got published. Which brings me to the title - add the word Tuscany or in this case "Tuscan" into the title and people will buy it. The only mention of Tuscany is in reference to a lunch they had in Florence one day during their year long stay! Nice trick.
The book is dull and boring, full of sweeping and uninformed opinions about the government and economy of Italy. I found their observations of Italy to be banal in the extreme (how many times can you mention the price of gas in Italy?). What really annoyed me the most was the errors in Italian. If you're going to use Italian, use actual Italian words, ex: lunch is "pranzo" not "pranza", wife is "moglie" not "moglia", a water bus in Venice is a"vaporetto" not a "valporetto", a bridge is a "ponte" not a "ponto".
There are many better books about traveling in Italy or living in Italy. These people have nothing to add to the genre.
As someone who is living in another country (Spain), I think what I appreciated most about this book was the authors' reflections on how living in another culture changed their views of their own American culture. And, of course, I also loved their reminiscences of the experiences they had traveling around in Italy and attending various cultural events. I found the way they put the story together occasionally confusing as they took turns writing chapters without identification of who was writing, and because the tale lacked chronology a good deal of the time. But, at the same time I appreciated the thematic ways they organized their experiences, and I loved the fact that they wanted to be immersed in the culture instead of seeking out an expat community. Another great aspect was the way the experience enhanced their relationship. In general I think this might be a good way for a couple considering living abroad to examine their own "must haves".
This was an enjoyable and insightful story about an American couples’ experience living in Italy for a year. I applaud them for their courage and sticking with it despite the challenges! Being half Italian and growing up overseas, I could truly understand some of the frustrations! I was, however, disappointed that they abruptly ended their chapter on their visit to Pompeii and Ercolano, with only a mention of their plan to go to the National History Museum in Naples. Also, although I realize this isn’t a book on Italian phrases, but being an Italian speaker, it was a little disconcerting that several of the phrases weren’t correctly written or translated. All in all though, I enjoyed revisiting some of my favorite cities and learning about some I want to visit now! I also enjoyed how they alternated chapters, each giving their perspective of their adventures.
I suppose that my joy in reading books like this relates far more to my 'living my dream' through the experiences of others than it does to the actual reading and literary merit. I have travelled a fair amount in Italy, but never been anything other than a tourist. To go there to live for a lengthy period of time would be a dream come true. Sadly I see no way of making that happen and so I do it through books like this. I enjoyed John and Nancy's adventurous spirit, openness and joy in everything they saw and did, people they met, food and wine, experiences of all sorts. Thank you to the Petralias for bringing me the pleasure of living your dream with you. ***** (Rating based purely on personal enjoyment)
I love the way this couple writes. It was a fun ride to be along with them on their journey living in Italy. We actually lived in Parma, Italy for 90-days because of this book! This couple is amazing and have been following them on Facebook for quite a while. It thrills me to find good people - a wonderful couple.
I enjoyed the first half. It would have been nice to have pictures. The second half became a personal “rant” about politics, economics, GNP, global warming and anything that doesn’t work the way John thought it should such as the Electoral College. His unfortunate and unnecessary comparisons felt petty and made the book vapid I couldn’t wait for it to end
3.5 What happens when you make your dream come true? Well this American couple did just that and overcame many obstacles to live in Italy for one year. Their travels all over using public transportation including train buses and bicycles show that they were determined to make the most of that year.