When I moved to Castelnuovo last year, I immediately made a mistake. I drove over to the mechanic’s, got out, introduced myself and explained what was wrong with my car. “Lei e’ ricca, signora,” the mechanic said in turn. It was the car that misled him. It’s a ten-year old diesel VW, but a big one, and one of the rare automatics found in Italy—a car that apparently says to the world its owner has cash to burn. The last thing you want, especially as an American new in town, is for anyone to think you’re rich. If I had only driven my Golf–dented on both sides, covered in dust from our long dirt driveway, a war zone inside thanks to popcorn fights on the way home from school and 150,000 miles on the odometer—everything would have been different.
The Truth About Tuscany 