You know you’ve found Ristorante/Pizzeria Marino near the Naples waterfront if you spot chef Salvatore crumbling bread crusts for the pigeons out front. (They flock near the front door after lunchtime for…
When our children were small, we headed to Palermo and Pino’s family every August – no visit complete without an all-family outing to Scopello. Our children and their palermitano cousins would scramble to…
Verona’s Monet show drew us to this Veneto region splendor for an early November three-day weekend. …and Monet just headed up a parade of pleasures. His paintbrush could have created masterpiece views…
On October 3rd – date of the death of St. Francis of Assisi in 1226 – hundreds of African and Syrian refugees tragically died, too, drowning close to the coast of the…
“Pari ‘na paniella” (“it looks like a panella”) is an expression in palermitano dialect to describe an object flattened by a heavy weight. And every Palermitano – no matter age or social class…
On a summer night, skirt around the crowded outdoor tables in the piazza facing the medieval church, go through the door of the crowded Focacceria San Francesco and join the camaraderie. No…
While visiting Pino’s family in Palermo, we finally visited the island of Lampedusa this past summer, discovering another Mediterranean treasure. Bellissimo! No time for our usual jaunt to Ustica – but hopefully,…
We celebrated my birthday in Sicily this past summer, too. What memories of a “volcanic” birthday in Sicily years ago. Here is the note I wrote then: Sicily: Volcanic Adventures September 2006…
At first site of the aquamarine waters of the island of Lampedusa, you’ll wonder if you’ve landed in the tropics or the Caribbean. Only eleven kilometers long, this rocky Mediterranean island –…
Pino and I enjoyed another memorable visit to Siclly this summer, spending time in Palermo and reveling in the beauty of the island of Lampedusa for a week. Following a family tradition,…