All Around Italy

It’s hard to find a place not to like in Tuscany, an Italian region rich in food, wine, culture, and picture-perfect landscapes. A region reminiscent of a mosaic, her small borgos and villages coalesce as elements of a stunning big …

Our favorite time of year to travel is the “off-season”, and we do so frequently, but even we were surprised to find a castle hotel of this caliber for a mere $66. Off-season travel offers many benefits: lower lodging prices, …

Lake Como might well be one of the most spectacular areas of natural and manmade beauty in all of Italy, if not in all the world. Popular villages and towns such as Bellagio, Lecco, Menaggio, and Laglio attract the rich …

If you think of the cities of Tuscany, Livorno may not immediately spring to mind. With “rivals” like Florence, Siena and Pisa, it couldn’t be more difficult to stand out! Yet, the quaint port city that the great Amedeo Modigliani …

Life expectancy in Italy is among the highest in the world: with an average of 84.01 years, the Belpaese is the 6th longest-living country in the world, after the famously long-living Far East (Hong Kong and Japan top the list, …

Pietrapertosa is a small village in the Potenza province of Basilicata, with 1,200 residents. It is beautifully located in the Dolomiti Lucane, a mountain range that shares name and beauty with its more famous cousins, up North. Its name comes …

Mention you’re going to Puglia and chances are people will ask about Bari or Lecce, maybe the Gargano Peninsula or the trulli of Alberobello. But it’s unlikely that anyone will ask you about Barletta. Yet a day trip to this …

Every person who likes to cook will tell you that it’s not uncommon, in the kitchen, to make a lucky mistake: picking up oregano instead of basil, or hazelnuts instead of almonds can lead to interesting variations on well-known classics …

Sarteano is a village of almost 5,000, located in the province of Siena, 525 meters along the slopes of Mount Cetona.  Narrow alleys and beautifully preserved medieval squares made this small but lively settlement in the Senese hills a fantastic …

Stereotypes are hard to die and they are more complex than we may think. Because if it’s very easy to dismiss them as superficial nonsense, sometimes they do hold a grain of truth, under all that silly fluff.  I don’t …