All Around Italy

Used since ancient times for cooking, cosmetics and curative properties, saffron is the wonderfully aromatic queen of spices. The Greeks used it to fight toothache whilst the Romans used it in fish sauce recipes. And since the 1200s Italians have …

Indeed, at the times of the Empire, all roads led to Rome, especially when you think the Romans are behind the creation of the first Italian and European communication arteries in history. Don’t we all know about the Via Aurelia, …

Ferrara: oh, the tragedy of having overlooked this beauty of an Italian city for so many years! But we’re in the good company of a whole lot of other folks, it seems, with their heads in the Italian sand. Thankfully, …

Fubine is evocative in autumn with the deep reds, yellows and browns of fallen leaves. You hear the crackle underfoot as you walk the countryside around the small town set amid the first gentle hills of the Monferrato region. Vineyards …

When I still lived abroad, I once visited my brother in Rome with two Irish friends, who were astonished by the fact the city only had two underground lines (it’s three today). “Well, every time they begin digging, something archaeologically …

It’s a scientific fact (as if we needed proof) that fresh salt air, serene blue seas, and sand sifting between our toes is the best stress busting recipe around. But when done Sicilian style, the experience elevates to 5-star gourmet …

Venice at the height of its power conjures images of merchant traders, carnival masks and debauchery. But for all its decadence Venetian life was governed by a well-established democracy with strict standards of behavior that held society together. The State …

Water carries life within: nothing could be and exist without it. Water is also frightful, because of its power, which destroys and obliterates. A force and a blessing of nature, water is mirror of life and death, its very appearance …

You probably know them better as Phlegraean Fields and may be aware they’re not far from Naples and the Vesuvius. Those who studied a bit of Classics in school may remember the Romans, and the Greeks before them, had a …

String some lights, hang a wreath, decorate the tree, and deck the halls with every form of green and red imaginable – Christmas is nigh! But have you polished up your Urn of Fate – fattened your Fasson ox – …