Our apartment is perfect.  It’s part of an old palazzo which has been in the Busatti family for about 200 years.  The building is over 300 years old.  The Busatti shop is on the ground level and the apartment is just above it.  You climb an ancient staircase and...

Our first morning in Italy was bright and clear.  We all slept late and felt rejuvenated after our long trip.  It was such a beautiful day that we decided to go up to Chiusi della Verna to visit the monastery founded by St. Francis in the 1200’s. The drive...

We’ve returned to Italy, but this time we are accompanied by our 18-year-old grandson, Hunter.  He just graduated from high school and will be starting Kennesaw State in the fall.  We’ve been coming to Italy since before he was born and all his life he’s heard us talk about...

We made it back to Atlanta after the long journey over the Atlantic.  We flew out of Rome, so we left Anghiari about 10:30 in the morning and took the train from Arezzo and got to Rome about 3:00.  Our time there was spent repacking for the flight home...

Our hearts are heavy as we wake up to our last full day in Anghiari.  Most of the packing is done and it always amazes me how much more we leave with than we came with.  I don’t think we buy that much, but somehow it adds up.  We...

One of our dear friends is Rossano, who used to own the sports bar where we go.  After we left, he sold the bar and is semi-retired.  Rossano gave us a very hard to find book on WWII in the Anghiari area when we lived here.  We loved to...

Ludo.  We love this man.  He was one of the first people we met in this country and he’s helped us so much over the years with our business and has remained a dear friend.  Now he has a family and we just had to see him.  We had...

I woke up this morning with 7,000 steps on my fitness tracker.  No, I didn’t have a restless night or make many trips to the bathroom.  Let me explain. After we had planned this trip we found out the Rolling Stones would be playing in Lucca, which is about...

You know, the world is a funny place and life has many hilarious quirks.  As it turned out, two other couples from Atlanta that we share a love for Italy with are enjoying their Italian vacation at the same time we are.  We made plans back in Atlanta to...

Today started cloudy and gave way to a good little shower.  We were out walking and got caught in the rain.  We ducked for cover in the lavanderia, then the church, then the portico outside the bank, and finally made a run for it back home.  It looked like...