Pino and Keegan

Sarnano in the Marches Region: From Good Eating to the Colors of Peace

Generally I don’t have bookings for guided tours in February: for me,  February is dedicated to making videos, writing on my blog and exploring Italy.  When Pino must head off somewhere to view a restoration project he might possibly take on, I join him. Stunning landscapes are guaranteed on any jaunt – as well as…

Artist Maceo Angeli in Assisi – and in Our Home

After learning about the straordinario Maceo Angeli in a guided visit to his medieval home (January 2023), I was taken over by a veritable “Maceo passione.”  I simply needed to know more about this extraordinary assisano (who had died in 1991). I now often ask any middle-aged or elderly assisano I encounter, “Conoscevi Maceo?”  I recently asked elderly retired blacksmith, Roberto as we sipped espressi at…

A Memorable Visit to an Historic Assisi Home: a Day to Remember

Before the end of January, 2023, I hadn’t realized  what might be right behind the wooden doors of the pointed-arch medieval entryways in pink and white local limestone, lining Assisi’s winding medieval backstreets: I But I found out on January 29 2023. On that day, I joined a group for an event sponsored by Assisi’s Museo…

WHEN to Come to Umbria?!

When to come to Umbria? Our region, “Italy’s green heart,” entices all year round with exciting festivals highlighting every single month of the year. Join me for an unforgettable guided hill town tour. I assure you of that. (And even if your Umbria visit does not coincide with a festival).   Festivals are already animating the…

January 27th in Assisi: The Day of Memory Commemorated

Assisi’s school children well-know the significance of that Giorno della Memoria  (“Day of Remembrance” (or “the Day of Memory”) – and a good group participated this year in Assisi’s annual January 27th ceremony commemorating the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps with the ending of the Holocaust on that day in 1945. ·A  law passed in…

A January Assisi Festival, St. Anthony Celebrated

 (Photo above thanks to Assisi News – www.assisinews.it) You might consider St. Francis of Assisi  the patron saint of animals but Italians well-know that this honorific appellation belongs to St. Anthony Abbot, Egyptian hermit monk who died after years of penitence and deprivation at the age of 105 in the Egyptian desert on January 17,…

Palermo Pastries Are Cultural History

Pasticcerie (pastry shops) in Sicily are veritable altars of culinary history. One of these “culinary altars” is certainly Pasticceria/Bar Gardenia, a splendid showcase of culinary creations in Cardillo, a nondescript borgata (small suburb, an outcrop) just outside of Palermo. Pino grew up in Cardillo, though the bar  – opened just over 40 years ago – was not there…

Near Palermo, Ancient Culinary History at That Bar Gardenia

Near Pino’s childhood home in Cardillo, a small Palermo borgata (small suburb, urban outcrop), a grandissima pasticceria/bar,  Pasticceria/Bar Gardenia, draws in customers from all over. The tempting goodness on rows and rows of shelves does it: Veritable opere d’arte di pasticceria (“pastry artworks”): I’d head there every morning during an early December (2022) visit to Pino’s family – sometimes on…