Tag: #travelblog

Germans and Italians have a history.  Well, Germans and a lot of people have histories, but the one with Italy is complicated.  They’re neighbors, but completely different in their worldview.  They’re both European, but with very different sensibilities.  They both flirted with Fascism, then took very different path forward. ...

Late summer and fall are prime festa times in Italy.  This year, however, COVID has put an end to the festas.  It’s very sad for us, but I’m glad they’re taking things so seriously here.  Festas are celebrations, usually to mark the harvest of some crop or to honor...

Few things are as iconic of the Italian landscape as the cypress tree.  This is especially true in Tuscany, where you see them lining curving drives and punctuating even the most humble vistas.  Their neat, columnar shape make them ideal for wedging into a garden to provide vertical structure. ...

It’s grape harvest time here.  We’re really not in wine country, but everywhere you look you see rows of grapes.  We even have some in our backyard.  Ours are white grapes and are very sweet.  Almost like a muscadine. I don’t know grape varieties, but would like to learn...

One of the absolute best things about living where we do is that we are less than two hours from Florence, one of the greatest cities in the world.  To finish up my birthday week, we decided to spend the day in Florence just because we could.  We had...

Birthdays roll around every year to remind us that as much as we don’t like to think so, we are getting older by the minute.  They provide us with the framework we need to mark time.  I can watch other people age, but I live my life not through...

Santuario della Verna I really don’t know what my fascination with St. Francis is.  I was raised Southern Baptist and we didn’t do saints and such.  But for some reason, St. Francis strikes a chord with me.  Maybe it’s because he was all over this part of Italy.  Maybe...

When we decided to take this fantastic journey, one of the things we were looking forward to was sharing it with friends and family.  So we took on the apartment upstairs to use for visitors.  After seven weeks of preparing, organizing, and planning, we hosted our first guests.  Tim...

We’ve been a little housebound for the past few weeks due to various issues and situations.  We had expected to take many day trips while we’re here and we’ve really been itching to get out.  We finally got out recently and took two trips.  One to Deruta and one...

Most of you know that Italy got hit pretty hard early in the pandemic.  I think because of that, they are very cautious about how they proceed.  Almost everyone wears a mask and you can’t go into stores, offices, or restaurants without one.  They still limit the number of...