When our children were small, we headed to Palermo and Pino’s family every August – no visit complete without an all-family outing to Scopello. Our children and their palermitano cousins would scramble to…
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The openings of the tower’s embrasures (once used for the shooting out of crossbows) had been covered over with wire netting and the birds were frantic: their nests were inside. Animal-loving (or…
The milling of the just-picked olives calls for a celebration. Pino called up Peppa as soon as the mill confirmed a date for the pressing of our olives: “Portiamo l’olio per la…
We were on our way to Peppa’s for castagne e vino novello (roasted chestnuts with the new wine) when Pino’s phone rang: our turn coming up, pressing of our olives within the…
It was a race against time this year. We’d hoped to get our olives picked before the predicted rainstorms arrived. I was up early on Saturday to make an olive harvest lunch…
Verona’s Monet show drew us to this Veneto region splendor for an early November three-day weekend. …and Monet just headed up a parade of pleasures. His paintbrush could have created masterpiece views…
These days, yellow and white banners – the colors of the Vatican flag – flutter off balconies and over pointed-arched medieval doorways cheerily blending with the vases of red geraniums hanging on…
On the last day of Citta’ della Pieve’s October saffron festival, guided visits through the town focus on “the saffron hues in Renaissance master Perugino’s Citta’ della Pieve masterpieces.” Art intertwined with…
We let the celery lead on a late October Sunday in Trevi. After all, we were there for the celebration of the renowned sedano nero (“black celery”) of Trevi, one of fifteen…
On October 3rd – date of the death of St. Francis of Assisi in 1226 – hundreds of African and Syrian refugees tragically died, too, drowning close to the coast of the…