Venice
In the past I’d never had a burning desire to see Venice, having heard it called Disneyland and a shopping mall with a river running through it. But once my sister and I booked a cruise to the Greek Islands Read More …
Category: Towns and cities
Florence and Fiesole, parte due
This post is based mainly on my time in Firenze during late September, early October 2017 when I took a two week course in Italian. I took the course through a special 50+ program at the Michelangelo Institute. It also includes Read More …
Five Days in Verona and Padua
As I was planning this trip, I knew that I would be in Firenze for 2 weeks, attending Istituto Michelangelo, after which my sister was meeting me to go to Venice for a cruise to the Greek Islands. We had Read More …
Ostuni and the Puglia
This post will overlap somewhat with my Flying Solo post since my experience in this area came through a volunteer trip helping teach English in Ostuni. According to the travel guides, summer in the Puglia region of southern Italy is Read More …
Rome
This will be a fairly short article, at least for me. In 2016 my sister and I took a walking tour of Tuscany (see Thoughts on choosing a tour group, airline or place to stay, Montecatini Terme and Siena to St. Gimignano posts,) that Read More …
The Towns of Chianti
Bella Toscana The region of Tuscany (Toscana) has an amazing degree of diversity in terms of the landscapes and towns. From Lucca and Pisa in the northwest (see Lucca and the Garfagnana post) to Montalcino in the south (see Five Days in Read More …
Siena to St. Gimignano
The cities in this post—Siena, San Gimignano, Monteriggioni and Colle di Val d’Elsa—are within a relatively short distance of each other; e. g. 47 km from Siena to San Gimignano. If you’re staying in the Tuscan countryside, as we usually Read More …
Florence and Fiesole
It’s difficult to know where to start when writing about Florence (Firenze) and Fiesole. I fell in love with the city the first time I came, following a bike trip, and have returned 10 times since then. One of my Read More …
Montalcino and Southern Tuscany
I have been fortunate to visit Montalcino and surrounding towns five times between 2000 and 2021; staying, all but one of those times, for 2-4 days. I’ve divided this post by towns (borghi) and then by years with separate sections Read More …