With 90% of the elegant Renaissance buildings lacerated in the October 2016 earthquake, Marches region hilltown gem Visso awaits a resurrection. The town is now zona rossa and cordoned off: ……. and the…
We headed through the magnificent Valnerina to a wink of a hilltown, Todiano, not far from Preci. The arched entryway to the village is testament to its origins as a 14th-c feudal…
For the Feast of Corpus Domini – sixty days after Easter – floral splendor carpets the medieval alleyways of hilltown gem, Spello, for their stunning festival, le Infiorate. Depending on the year’s climactic conditions, la…
When here in our splendid Umbria, “Italy’s green heart”, you simply can’t miss meeting and feasting with Umbria’s rural people. Just ask young Shelby from Georgia, here in June in one of…
At the end of December, people from all over Italy head to that medieval gem, Orvieto, to take in five days of jazz, blues – and not only. We never miss a…
No where we’d ever be at the end of December except in Orvieto for the Umbria Jazz Winter festival. During our late December Orvieto stay, we never miss the jazz lunches at…
New this year at the late December Umbria Jazz Winter festival in Orvieto: spaghetti whipped up on stage for the public as the five young musicians of Spaghetti Swing – a Cooking…
On these biting December days, our wood stove warms our Assisi farmhouse and the hot wood stove oven often tempts me into trying new dishes. Here’s one we enjoyed yesterday: Lemon Zest…
Gathering together at the village wash area to scrub the family laundry was often a social highlight of the day for women of the small villages in Italy. Chattering animated the scrubbing…
Cultivated at nearly 1500 m on the vast Piano Grande (“Great Plain”), the famous tiny lenticchie di Castelluccio (Castelluccio lentils) cook quickly due to their thin, tender hull. [lcaption]Lentils in flower on…










