Where the Cypress Rises

History, tradition, art and festivals and friendship are the themes that Australian artist Virginia Ryan effortlessly interweaves throughout her intriguing personal memoir. First published in 2000, ‘Where the Cypress Rises’ tells the story of her family’s growing affection for a hill town in central Italy. “It was midsummer. The thick, cloying blanket of afternoon heat spread itself drowsily across the Umbrian landscape, leaving the earth scorched under a sun-bleached sky. On far-off mountaintops storms were brewing and distant thunder seemed to rise from a sunstruck earth, an incantation from other times. We drove on and on in a trance towards the hill town of Trevi, only casting aside weariness with the excitement of seeing our new home again. The recently acquired object of our desires was an abandoned olive mill clinging to the edge of tree-lined slopes on the outskirts of the town, purchased quite impulsively the previous summer.” Excellent Mothers' Day gift anywhere in the world.