Looking at the restoration going on now out behind our farmhouse, you might wonder what phoenix will rise from the ashes. Now scaffolding crawls up all the fine stonework, not all the…
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Modena’s known for Ferrari and Maserati – balsamic vinegar, too, of course – with Ducatis and Lamborghini produced not far away. But there’s more to the so-called “Motor Valley” of Italy than…
In one way or another, Umbria’s June rural rites rotate around the summer solstice. The ancients believed that on the vigil of June 24th (later designated as the feast of St. John…
On a recent jaunt, two Giuseppes connected: one is my husband Pino (in southern Italy, “Giuseppino” is the diminutive of “Joseph”) and the other is Beppe, last miller of Tuscany. (Other diminutives…
La passione. It’s a recurring theme to life in Italy. As I often tell my tour guests while strolling the Umbrian hillltown gems, “If you don’t get la passione, you miss out…
Just outside of the massive medieval walls of Castiglione del Lago, walk up the “little steps (“le scalette”) to a wooden terrace shaded by a wide cream-colored awning. “Osteria Le Scalette” in…
During late May and June, enjoy the best in simple local cooking (at enticingly low prices!) and ballroom dancing with “the locals” at a sagra. Which one and where? That depends on…
Actually, there’s nothing “piccola” about la passione in Gubbio every year on June 2nd, except the size of the little ones living that passion. On May 15th, their fathers, uncles – in…
The last time I was in Cascia, Pino and I were warming frozen hands over steaming bowls of roveja soup at a January rural festival. On a recent visit there (May 22nd)…
It’s not just for the “aria fina” (“good air”) that you stop at the Agriturismo Aria Fina in the mountains on the Basilicata/Calabria border near the mountain town of Mormanno. Although we…