If it weren’t for the eye-catching bright red and white umbrellas spread out over the outdoor tables surrounded by scarlet begonias, you might drive right past what seems to be a nondescript…
Pino’s first trip to the tiny island (3 km x 700 m) of Ventotene this August and my fifth but we’re in synch on island eating: Ristorante da Verde on Piazza Castello…
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…
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…
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…
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…
When you’re ready for the best in “farm-to-table” eating (called “kilometro zero” in Italian), head to the medieval hilltown gem of Scheggino on the Nera River for dinner at Osteria Baciafemmine where…
I’ll never be anywhere but in Gubbio on May 15th for the indescribable Corsa dei Ceri (“Race of the Candles”). I’ve heard it’s in the book A Thousand Things to Do Before…