Dianne Hales

You can find bigger Christmas trees and more extravagant decorations in the United States, but nothing looks, tastes, feels or sounds like la stagione natalizia (Christmas season) in Italy. With roots in the “Saturnalia,” the winter solstice rites of ancient …

Blonde-haired, creator of the Dream of Italy newsletter and PBS travel series, doesn’t look Italian—nor does her name sound Italian. But the first time she visited her great-grandfather’s  village in Campania,  McCabe  felt that she had come home.   “When …

“What do you miss most about Italy?” I asked my first Italian teacher in San Francisco many years ago. “La piazza,” she said so wistfully that I thought for a moment it might be someone’s name. After years of passing …

Autumn is my favorite season in Italy – not just for the mild days and starry nights, but also for the centuries of history embedded in the Italian words for its months, rituals and celebrations. As the hours of sunlight …