Meanwhile, my niece Victoria visited for a few days from Dublin, where she’s spending the year. It was lovely to bond with her outside...

My road to a home in Italy, and then to a habitable one, and then to one in which I feel at home has been and continues to be a tortuous...

After my night in Rome, I headed to Fossacesia. As I wrote in my last post, I’d arrived in Italy feeling pretty crummy. By the time I got...

Well, friends, Romans, and others who get the idea... I’ve shamefully neglected this blog for weeks, in part because I’ve been low on...

I love homely contadino food. Always have. Show me a garlicky tomato sauce or thick bean soup or almost any mashup of humble ingredients...

“Is there a train called an expresso here?,” the American 20-something shouted at the woman behind the ticket window at the Santa Lucia...

The more time I spend in Italy, the more I’m aware of what a stranger I am, culturally. It’s funny to say that because I think of Italian...

The first and only time I visited Genoa prior to my stop there a few weeks ago, I had the distinct impression of a sinister city;...

I got home from Italy last Tuesday night, 15 days earlier than I’d planned. There were so many things I’d hoped to do during this last...

When I rolled into Venice Tuesday evening, so did the fog. The moody atmosphere it created seemed just right for photographing the Bridge...

The Nativity Scene There’s no place like Rome for a nativity scene, called in Italian a presepio or presepe. Both terms are correct,...

Most of us have favorite foods from childhood —and particularly from childhood holidays — whose deliciousness probably is more about the...

“…For I think there can be nothing else in the world so full of glittering and exquisite surprise as that first glimpse of Venice which...

I’ll be going to Italy for several weeks right after Christmas. I’ll fly into Rome and spend a few days there and continue on to Genoa...

In Lancianese cooking, one of the esteemed cuisines near me, peppers both hot and sweet figure heavily. This dish is made of the sweet...

Coffee is, of course, a serious thing in Italy. And it’s all about quality versus quantity. Those espressos are one mouthful, but it’s a...

In my town, as in most of Abruzzo, there’s a large population of street cats. Even those who have nominal “homes” often must live...

The Abruzzese palate has a high tolerance for heat. At local restaurants, meals often are served with a dish of hot pepper on the side so...

Every once in a while, I see in the corner of my eye something dark and darting, usually high on the wall. It gives me a real start until...