I was about twelve years old when our family made a trip to the late 18th-c Spanish Franciscan mission church San Juan Capistrano in California. On a recent Abruzzo jaunt, Pino and…
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Founder of the concept of the albergo diffuso (“scattered hotel” might be the best translation?), Giancarlo dall’Ara summed it up this way: “I think of an albergo diffuso as a novel that…
Driving east from L’Aquila, Pino and I were in search of “three sisters”, le tre sorelle. After a wondrous trilogy of events, an elderly key-keeper – who welcomed us into his home…
On our Marches motorcycle trip a few years ago, we stopped in San Ginesio, once a fortified medieval castle (as were many of the marchigiani hilltop towns). The golden tones of sandstone…
Our Marches region motorcycle explorations took us down from San Giustoon a serpentining dirt road to the main highway leading to nearby Tolentino. Encircled by softly-rounded hills Tolentino’s medieval streets lead to…
Hilltop pastures, live oak and chestnut woods, springtime-green fields of wheat lined the twisting roads our motorcycle followed into the region of Le Marche on that spring day a few years ago.…
If you’re not sure where to find a bit of Paradise on earth, just settle for Eden on a lake, the Hotel Eden of Lake Bolsena. Just about an hour and a…
On the feast of Corpus Domini (60 days after Easter), kaleidoscopic floral tapestries carpet the piazzas of Spello (this year, seventy masterpieces) and not only: narrow floral masterpieces run along the winding…
Yes, Assisi’s early May Calendimaggio festival IS – above all – a festival of love: an ebullient demonstration of the love that all the assisani have for their annual celebration of the…
There’s a single religious moment in Assisi’s four-day medieval celebration of spring, rooted in pagan rituals: the blessing of the banners of the town’s two rival factions, la Parte de Sopra (“Upper…