2009 – Naples, Herculaneum and Pompeii
Vesuvius blew on August 24, 79 AD. Pliny the younger saw it all from his boat and wrote that the explosion looked like a giant umbrella pine tree. Today the …
2009 – Rome; Vatican,Trastevere and the Ancient City
The Italian word for history is La Storia, the same word for the english us for a story. The truth is not in the facts, it’s in the telling. Here are …
2006 – Rome; Christmas, Zampognari and Santo Bambino
One would think Christmas is a big deal here in Rome, bigger than anywhere else in the Christian world. One would expect holiday themed store windows and crazy sales, attracting …
2006 – Rome in August; summer thieves and Barbarians
It’s summertime here in Rome and there can be more people in the streets at 11pm than at 11am. Even though the city seemed at ease ( Rome also clears …
2006 – Western Sicily; Palermo and the ruins of Magna Grecia
Ferragosto The Italian holiday of Ferragosto commemorates the 15th of August, when the Virgin Mary ascended, body and soul, into heavenly glory. With regard to the timely co-incidence of Christian …
2005 – Tuscan Vandalism and the Brenta River of the Veneto
Florence The big news in Florence. Last night a local idiot climbed up Bartolomeo Ammannati’s fountain of Neptune in the Piazza Signoria and as he stepped into “Il Biancone’s” hand, …
2004 – Venice and the Veneto
The stretch of the Adriatic Coast from Pescara to Venice is flat, the water is bile colored acquamarine and the high rise apartment buildings and new condominiums springing up the …
2004-Tuscany – The Guigiole Tree and Driving to Naples with foreign plates
There’s a fruit grown in Toscana for hundreds of years known as the Giuggole (jujolay). The fruit is about the size of a cherry, looks like a crabapple, and when …
2004 – Le Marche
To get from Florence to Ascoli Piceno in Le Marche, go to Perugia, follow the direction to Assisi, then follow the direction to Spoleto. At Spoleto, turn left…. We crossed …
2003 – Padua – Celebrating my Birthday on the Feast of St Martin
“I’ve come to wive it wealthily in Padua” was how Cole Porter wrote it for the score of “Kiss me Kate”. Actually in the three days we spent walking through …
2003 – Bologna and why you need to get an international drivers permit
The driving directions from the hotel were: follow the signs to centro and go to Piazza Maggiore, we are next to the St Petronio cathedral. It was raining pretty hard …
2003 – Paestum, one of the best preserved Greek cities in Italy
Paestum – July 12, 2003 The odometer clicked past the 3000 km mark as we boarded the ferry in Messina, Sicily and headed back to Villa Giovani in Calabria. The A3 …
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