For the past thirty years in late December, the Umbria Jazz Winter festival livens up the medieval hill town of Orvieto, bringing in the New Year with a musical blast of jazz,…
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Although Ray Gelato’s surname means “ice cream” in Italian, there was nothing “chilly” about his group’s performance in Orvieto at Umbria Jazz Winter this past December. Pino and I joined in the…
The illumination of medieval Assisi’s cathedral, basilicas and main square astounded visitors from all over Italy this year. Let me show you a few of the gems of luminosity….and we’ll start with…
Linda and Tim and their wonderful gruppo joined me this fall for a memorable Deruta rural feast. See their enthusiasm in these photos – and taste the goodness! All were enchanted- and not…
Every year for the Feast of St. Francis, one of the 20 regions of Italy brings the oil which will burn all year in front of his tomb in the Basilica of…
At the end of October, Pino and I headed into the bellissima Valnerina (Nera River Valley)….. ….on our way to Cascia, medieval mountain town where St. Rita died in the mid-15th-century. Annually,…
I’ve often termed our bellissima italia “that land of the endless discoveries.” A recent early evening visit to an Etruscan find below Orvieto (of Etruscan origin, 9th-c. B.C.) confirmed this. Spreading out on a…
Pino and I recently headed with son Keegan and his wife, Francesca, to the charming Tuscan village of Santa Fiora (population about 2600), clinging to the southern slope of the extinct volcano,…
Called “Hispellum” by the Romans, majestic Umbrian hill town Spello perches on the lower slopes of Mt. Subasio…. …surveying below the Valle Umbra Nord. 500 square meters of the mosaic floor of…
One of the “undiscovered” medieval hill town gems of Umbria is certainly Gubbio. Not on any railroad line, the winding medieval backstreets of Gubbio are thronged once a year: on May 15th,…