Lakeside Goodness at Bolsena

We usually spend many a summer weekend at the Hotel Eden on the shores of Lake Bolsena. No free weekend this year yet – but we did slip in a lunch there this week, enjoying the good whitefish of the lake, coregone, at a peaceful lakeside table. I did coregone all the way, as usual…

“Inside Umbria” Celebration, May 2017: Good Things Come in Threes

“Good things come in threes,” they say. For me, our third year of the early May ten-day “Annesitaly INSIDE Umbria” Celebration affirms the saying. Kris, Sally, Jerry and Carol, mille grazie to each of you for your enthusiastic participation in all our adventures, for the zest with which you each truly lived our “INSIDE” Umbria…

Assisi’s Calendimaggio: Zenith of a May Celebration

A highpoint of springtime in Umbria – indeed, of all of central Italy – is Assisi’s stunning early May medieval festival, Calendimaggio, welcoming the arrival of spring in four days of glorious euphoria. The splendid medieval pageantry is certainly a highlight of my annual early May ten-day Annesitaly “Inside Umbria” Celebration for ten people ready…

Spello’s Infiorate:  Saying It With Flowers

….and not just a kaleidoscope of flowers but seeds, wild field greens, wild fennel, leaves, and walnut, cypress and other seed pods blend in stunning floral tapestries to celebrate the Feast of Corpus Domini (sixty days after Easter) in Spello each year. This medieval hill town’s piazzas and labyrinthine alleyways are carpeted with sublime floral…