THE EXOTIC BOTTOM OF THE BOOT: CHARACTERS,ROMANCE AND HISTORY ABOUND IN THIS EMERGING TERRITORY FOR WINE LOVERS.

摘要

If you read the literary works of the first modern travel writers to discover the southern realms of the Italian peninsula, you will be charmed by tales of Robin Hood brigands in Calabria; women who dance the tarantella in Puglia; and fishermen in Campania who lure swordfish into their nets with love songs.If you travel there today, you will find that nothing much has changed.Unlike northern regions such as Tuscany and the Veneto where culture, language and geography merge with apparent seamlessness, southern Italy is an eccentric patchwork of fiercely independent spirits and jagged contrasts.In his book, Southern Italy (1969),travel writer H.V. Morton describes the mysterious land between the toe and the heel of the Italian boot as "a country for scholars." He was referring to its ancient role as Magna Graecia (Greater Greece) and to the many subsequent roles it played as the gatekeeper of the Mediterranean.