After I had gone to the courthouse to get married. After the signed documents and a visit to the US embassy. After I had gone to dozens of public offices and was finally a legal resident of Italy, there was still a very important document I needed to obtain. ASAP, they told me. I needed my Tessera… Read more »

Lombardy is completely surrounded by the stars of wine production — Veneto, Piedmont and Tuscany – so you’d be forgiven for overlooking the regional wines, but Lombardy’s wines can still hold their own. Most famous for its sparkling whites and deep Valtellina reds, Lombardy also has a range of lightly sparkling reds that are surprisingly versatile.  As a… Read more »

For the last five and a half years I’ve written a blog post every Monday with very very few exceptions. Sometimes I’m really proud of a post, others I know its not my best. Sometimes I’m on top of things and have everything done ahead of time, others I don’t even get it published until… Read more »

The long, winding country roads, fields and fields of grapes separated only by cypresses and the nearly deserted hill towns in Tuscany lend themselves perfectly to a classic road trip. But it’s not the only way to see the Tuscan hills. Though the smallest towns are difficult to reach by public transportation, some of Tuscany’s most famous… Read more »

If being pregnant in Italy raised me from a frivolous ragazza to a praised signora, having a baby added a crown to my regal head. I felt admired and coddled as a pregnant woman. I was still seen as my own entity, just a more important one. Being pregnant in Italy was a breeze. Then… Read more »

Long obsessed with traveling, travel blogs and media are not new to me. Travel blogger moms, however are a category unto themselves. Before Adeline, I scrolled past their posts thinking “how?!” And “wow!” Then breathed a sigh of relief that they had to hoist around all that shit (not including the baby) and not me…. Read more »

Ideally, you’d have at least a week to visit Palermo and the west coast of Sicily. Or if you’ve already seen Palermo you could fly directly in to Trapani to tour around the area – maybe with a few extra days tacked on to visit the Egadi Islands! But I also know that that’s not always… Read more »

Sicily is a big island with a big history and a big personality. It deserves some planning and it deserves some time, but it won’t be offended if you don’t have either. Here time runs slower and the days longer. And though the stereotypes of carefree islanders doesn’t always work here – unemployment and corruption… Read more »

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 »