Palermo has long had a bad reputation. Ground zero for the mafia, they say. Dirty. A port city only good to take you elsewhere. Gone are those days. Now Palermo is a favorite for hipsters throughout Italy. Curious Italians are giving it a second chance and international travelers choose it as an introduction to Southern Italy – the… Read more »

Sure, I’ve made some travel mistakes. Besides wishing I had done more research or missing out on a major site, I’ve missed trains, lost tickets and gone the wrong way for hours. It seems that a large part of travel is dealing with the unexpected, even if sometimes it’s your own fault. It can be… Read more »

Nearly every holiday in Italy has its traditional dessert, but none is better than Carnival’s. Called Carnevale in Italian, Carnival or Mardi Gras is a big deal in Italy. It’s celebrated for several weeks before Lent begins with the biggest and final bash on Fat Tuesday, the final day before Lent. Though everyone knows about… Read more »

I’ve traveled quite a bit in Italy, but I haven’t always done it well. Maybe there was no time to do proper research. Maybe we got there at the wrong time or the wrong day. Maybe we missed the best thing there was to see. Because even though I harp on and on about being… Read more »

Perugia is small, so you can easily tour it like any small town: Start in the main piazza, see the duomo, take a walk and eat some food. But this time, you’d be missing out.  It seems like all roads lead to Piazza IV Novembre and from there you can see most of Perugia by walking down its… Read more »

If Umbria is the green-heart of Italy, Perugia is the bullseye at the heart of Umbria. An ancient Etruscan settlement, the fortified city center sits atop a hill with a spiderweb of streets, an inviting central piazza and sweeping views across the valley. The city’s university – one of the oldest in the region –… Read more »

How to make a list when your dream is to see it all? In 2018 I made an Italy Travel Wish List based on momentary inspirations. We made it to the Isole Borromee with a wonderful late-summer day-trip and have a trip to Palermo planned for March! Though we didn’t get to Bologna we did travel in Emilia Romagna,… Read more »

Italy has everything. It has the sea and the mountains, the hills and the plain. It has lakes and rivers and forests and national parks. It has incredible ancient borghi and larger cities that have managed to enter the modern age with a firm hold on their ancient pasts. It has Medieval castles, Renaissance art and even contemporary… Read more »

There are hundreds of coffee guides, pages of general rules and traveler manifestos, lists of places to see and cultural guides for Italy. Even at this blog! But there’s one piece of advice that I never see, though I’ve experienced it time and time again: Make restaurant reservations ahead of time In big cities like… Read more »

Lately my travels in Italy have been small. I mean really small. Not only are the trips brief, maybe a day, at most a weekend, but we tend to hit villages, towns, at most a very compact city. Marco and I have seen most of the big sights in central and northern Italy. What really charms… Read more »