Magical IIlumination in Assisi at Christmas

Current Events, Festivals, Folklore, Guided Hilltown Visits, History, Italian 'Passione', Special Events, Traditions, Umbrian Hilltowns, Uncategorized, Video SnipsLeave a comment

Magnificent illumination highlights Assisi’s medieval monuments during the Christmas season. Quotes of San Francesco – beloved patron saint of all of Italy – are incorporated in the illumination of the splendid 13th-c. Basilica di San Francesco where the Saint is buried.   The Basilica  overlooks the valley below, la Valle Umbra Nord (the North Umbria Valley):…

In Spello, Feting the Olive Harvest with Bruschetta – and Not Only

Cooking Umbrian, Current Events, Festivals, Folklore, Food/Wine Lore, Guided Hilltown Visits, History, Italian 'Passione', Local people, Recipes, Special Events, Traditions, UncategorizedLeave a comment

A tractor adorned with fiscoli – those discs used in olive mills during the pressing  –  stood alone near the medieval church of Spello, Santa Maria Maggiore, an olive tree standing tall on the tractor trailer above the fiscoli: For the two days of Spello’s beloved oilve oil festival, that tractor and others would roll…