Maps on endpapers.

Includes bibliographical references.

The author who captured the experience of starting a new life in Tuscany expands her horizons to immerse herself--and her readers--in the sights, aromas, and treasures of twelve new special places. This book is a celebration of the allure of travel, of serendipitous pleasures found in unlikely locales, of memory woven into the present, and of a joyous sense of quest. She rents houses among ordinary residents, shops at neighborhood markets, wanders the back streets, and everywhere contemplates the concept of home. Weaving together personal perceptions and informed commentary on art, architecture, history, landscape, and social and culinary traditions of each area, Mayes brings the immediacy of life in her temporary homes to the reader.--From publisher description.