In elegant ancient Roman garb, blonde-haired Greta told me with pride about her performances in Bolsena’s July 24th celebration of the lake-side town’s patron saint Cristina, I Misteri di Santa Cristina (those scenes…
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Spello, Umbria medieval gem, entices right from your first glimpse as you pull off the highway: Spello enchants for its medieval architecture, a splendid Renaissance fresco, recently discovered Roman mosaics, and stunning…
Medieval gem, Gubbio, is a favorite tour destination for me….. – and turned out to be a favorite of the tours I offered Judy and Grady during their late-April week here. As…
The best way to recount the joys of touring Umbria for a week with Judy and Grady? Sharing Judy’s comment: “What a wonderful week of touring the Umbrian hill towns with Anne…
In Perugia, artistic treasures are innumerable. You’ll certainly want to include in your explorations, the splendid Renaissance masterpieces of Perugino in the frescoed Collegio del Cambio (Money-changers Guild),…. ……the medieval cathedral, backdropping the…
Foligno, often called “il centro del mondo” (“the center of the world”) was inhabited centuries ago (possibly as early as the 7th-century B.C.) by a native Italic people, the umbri. In the 3rd-century B.C.,…
After discovering the medieval and Renaissance wonders in Foligno, let yourself be drawn by a magnet. An enormous one. You’ll find the 24-meter Calamita Cosmica (“Cosmic Magnet”), mammoth sculpture of Gino De Dominicis,…
Crowded and colorful, bustling, energetic, and animated, gritty and crumbling – no panoply of words can ever describe Naples’ Quartieri Spagnoli. The street network of the “Spanish district” was set out in the 17th-century…
When recently in Naples, our napoletani friends, Roberta and Adriano, knew I was eager to see more of the “undiscovered Naples.” Roberta decided where our explorations should start: at the Basilica della…
A stroll amidst the botteghe of the presepari (creche-scene artists) in Via San Gregorio Armeno in Naples is quite simply an immersion into a showroom of superb Italian craftsmanship. In the splendid presepi napoletani (Neapolitan creche…