Those of you who know Suzy and me know that we agree on just about everything.

OK, it’s fine to stop laughing. Continue reading Bill and Suzy’s Adventure →

We decided to start our month long trip to Italy with a few days on the island of Ischia for one reason. To relax. And our day at the Negombo spa was just what the doctor ordered. Now if we could only get the bill to picked up by Obamacare. . . Continue reading Negombo Matata – Perfect Relax →

We travel to Italy three or four times a year and do quite a bit of other travelling in between. It’s safe to say that we are pretty seasoned when it comes to the travel department. Especially on our transatlantic trips we’ve tried a number of different approaches to avoiding or reducing jetlag. Continue reading How I Avoided Jetlag on My Summer Vacation →

I’ve got some catching up to do. It’s not exactly ‘splainin’, just catching up.

It has been more than a week since we last posted, having taken the prior week “off” during our six week series of tours here in Italy. It was hardly a week’s vacation, though, instead a real whirlwind of travel. Planes, trains and automobiles. Continue reading Cellars Market →

Those of you who read this blog and our monthly newsletter Dolce Vita know that I often reminisce about Italian trips past with my parents.  In fact, these stories come from just a handful of visits we made to this country together, back in the 1990s.  But those memorable trips provided much to write about.  Our weeklong visit to Chiusi, on the Tuscany-Umbria border in the fall of 2002 is one such story. Continue reading Echoes in the Garden →

Apologies for the time away from posting.  It must have been very hard on both of you.  But you must certainly be able to understand our brief absence.  For a week we have splashed in the sun warmed saline sea off the island of Ponza, a tiny rock of an island a little over an hour’s hydrofoil ride from Anzio.  There’s not much to tell about our visit here.  Just a little swimming, a little breathing in the clean, cool salt air, a little seafood here and there and a little chilled white wine.  Just normal stuff. Continue reading Ponza in Pictures →

We’ve been on Ponza for a number of days now, having left Sicily in our rearview mirror but saving a special place for it in our hearts.  This is our fifth visit to this little known island and our days are filled with sun, sand, water, seafood and wine.  It is, truth be told, a little slice of heaven. Continue reading Sounds of Ponza →

Some time between bedtime on January 14 and the morning of January 15, 1968, while Americans crowded around their black and white television sets watching Bart Starr and the Green Bay Packers dismantle the Oakland Raiders in just the second installation of a new, exciting professional [American] football championship that would come to be known as the “Super Bowl,” the inhabitants of the Belice Valley, a poor, rural area in southwestern Sicily were being jostled from their sleep by a magnitude 6.1 earthquake. That earthquake leveled a number of towns, among them Salaparuta, Poggioreale and Gibillina, claiming 380 lives, displacing over 70,000 people and shattering a rural lifestyle that tied these people to their land, their villages and their past, a way of life that was ingrained in villagers from their birth until their death. Continue reading Salapalooza →

So goodbye Bevagna. Farewell Umbria. Arrivederci to my little friends in the Piazza Garibaldi. On our Friday, the second day of our trip, we do spend a glorious day in and around Bevagna – running errands, visiting a new and intriguing winery that is built to resemble a turtle shell, having lunch with Marco and Chiara and their two beautiful children, dining at Simone’s amid the hubbub of another night of the Mercato del Gaite. But perhaps our minds have already transported us to Sicily, our destination the following day, where we will spend the next seven nights. Continue reading Open Sicily →