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…
No better way to spend an icy January week-end than in Arezzo, especially if you’re staying at the warm and welcoming Casa Volpi. After meanders in nearby Monterchi, we arrived close to…
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…
L’Aquila’s Christmas-market booths are backdropped by scaffolded buildings, devastated in the 2009 earthquake. A towering Christmas tree laced with dim twinkling lights in the main square stands tall in front of the…
Fewer guided Umbrian hill town requests in November means I have more time to join Pino on his frequent trips to L’Aquila. His restoration team – Impresa Edile Alagna – is nearing…
I was “along for the ride” with Pino as he headed from L’Aquila to Atessa in southeast Abruzzo to check out a possible restoration project. Along our route, medieval hill towns clinging…
Pino will be coming to L’Aquila three times weekly for a couple of years now, as his company is restoring an apartment complex (three buildings) damaged in the devastating April 2009 earthquake.…
According to legends, a myriad of la Madonna images have miraculously arrived in Italy from the sea. No one knows when the venerated Byzantine Madonna Greca image arrived in Isola a Capo…
Rolling around in huge metal bins over hot coals, chestnuts pop in the night in the medieval backstreets of Arcidosso, Tuscan mountain village. When the husks slip loose on the roasted chestnuts,…
Two out of three nights on the magical island of Marettimo (western Sicily coast), we ate at Il Veliero and only because one night we arrived too late to nab a table.…