July 27, 2025
The Most Beautiful Race in the World
Behind the scenes at the storied Mille Miglia race of historic cars. Take a deep breath, forget your surroundings for a moment, and imagine yourself at...
LIVE
- Sort Blog:
- All
- Lingua
July 8, 2025
Will I Ever Really Be Italian?
I don't know if I am crafty enough for this. Siena gets a lot of attention for its annual horse-racing palio, but every June 29th the village...
June 22, 2025
My Italy Is Changing
The attempted taming of my slightly feral village. The feral nature of life in our Italian village is changing. At least there are some attempts at...
May 25, 2025
Do You Really Want to Live in Italy?
Take The Onion Test to see if you would be the US couple living "a nightmare" in France. I was looking at the onion I’d recently...
March 10, 2025
Buying a Car in Italy
When we first arrived in Italy, one of the things I dreaded was buying a car. It’s so awful in the United States, with all...
February 15, 2025
In an Italian Hospital
(Don’t worry, everything is fine. Explanation of the photo above is for those intrepid readers who make it to the end.) Like so many aspects of...
February 2, 2025
The Moment I Knew I Had to Leave the US
(I often get asked “So, how did you decide to move to Italy?” This is an excerpt of something I’ve been working on that begins...
January 6, 2025
Witches and Wise Men
Just when I think I can't take it anymore, there's one more Italian holiday. When American friends complain about the intensity of the holidays, I scoff....
December 14, 2024
What a Decade in Italy Does to You
A few reasons why we are still here after twelve years. Community is inescapable, in a way that is different from what I experienced in America....
November 25, 2024
How to Move to Italy
I would have imagined an Epiphany would be loud. A moment accompanied by a flash of bright light that might leave a permanent mark on...
November 10, 2024
The Truth of Olives
Pliny the Elder had olive trees in this valley. Our trees’ long-ago ancestors were tended, harvested, and their oil savored on this land. So, we...
October 20, 2024
The Joy of Being L’Intrepida
When was the last time you felt pure, unadulterated joy? In our village, we can schedule it for a Sunday in October, when L'Intrepida, a...
October 8, 2024
Getting to the Bottom of Italian Wine
"Don't worry, I wash really well before I get into the barrel to crush the grapes," Filippo told me. My visit to Filippo Volpi's winery—note that...
September 22, 2024
The Joys of Autumn
One day, everything is different. Growing up in Florida, then living most of my adult life in California, I'm used to a more gradual shift...
December 26, 2023
What the Italians Don’t Get About the Holidays
Being in a mild state of panic seems to be obligatory around the holidays to us Americans, and we wondered if the Italians feel the...
November 5, 2023
Pregnanxiety
I love my village. And what I love the most is not the food, or the wine, or the rolling Tuscan hills, or the thousand...
July 23, 2023
Is it getting hot in here?
Yep, it’s hot. And here’s how I am coping in a land with almost no air conditioning and heat into the 100 degrees. Although we...
April 30, 2023
The Mediterranean diet
I'm doing something next weekend that really scares me. I am joining a hike from La Verna back to our village. Ten miles a day,...
March 19, 2023
Six things that are different in Italy
Observations from my recent, quick trip to the States. After ten years of living in Italy I am often amused by the cultural differences between...
March 19, 2023
Finding a castle out my kitchen window
Certain windows of our house, including the one over the kitchen sink, look out over the Valtiberina, or upper Tiber river valley. We are partway...
February 19, 2023
Life is good
The week of San Valentino has made me think of those moments when you get slapped upside the head by someone's kindness, humor or grace...