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Once spring is near, I start dreaming about Rome…and artichoke season. Here’s an excerpt from “Hungry for Italy”: “Order carciofi,” (pronounced car-CHO-fee), is what I tell travelers who ask for advice about Rome. Sure, you can run around oohing and aahing over the Forum, Colosseum, and Sistine Chapel, but for the True Roman Experience, you have to stop and taste the artichokes. From late February to early May, overflowing crates of these green and purple-tinged beauties from surrounding farmlands begin to appear in the Eternal City. Signoras in smocks sit in the open air Campo dei Fiori market, peeling Carciofi Romaneschi with their tiny knives, as if they’re made of butter. InRead More →

Happy International Women’s Day! All over Italy on March 8, this holiday is celebrated with mimosa flowers, given by men to the women in their life, or by women to their friends… It’s a global day to celebrate all female achievements–past, present, and future. Courageous women began it in the early 1900s, holding demonstrations for the right to vote and for equal pay and working conditions.  The Union of Italian Women officially declared March 8 Women’s Day in 1945.The scent of mimosas is everywhere, reminding us that spring is near… Girlfriends get together and have fun…and maybe get a little wild…with Mimosa cocktails… AND Mimosa cake… Every State-Owned Museum in Italy offersRead More →

With Valentine’s Day, thoughts turn to chocolate. Here’s an excerpt from “100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go” to help you find the best places for chocolate in Italy… “Let them eat chocolate,” was the kind proclamation of Madama Reale. The year was 1678. Madama Reale was thirty years old, widowed, with a boy to raise, and had become the ruler of the Piedmont region in northern Italy. She took her job seriously and carried on major beautiful changes to the city during her reign , continuing in the tradition her husband had began, remodeling the Palazzo Madama into pretty French style. In Madame Reale’s dayRead More →

It wasn’t my idea to design and host For Women Only Tours to Italy. Yes, I loved traveling there for decades, writing about Italy, going to Italy with family and girlfriends, arranging everything so we’d certainly have the most marvelous time. And I always loved meeting female travelers along the way, who, like me, were swept up in that fabulous magic Italy gives us women.All those women travelers and my own experiences inspired my first book, 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go. Then came The Surprise. During my book tour, after my presentations,  hands would fly up, and woman would ask: “Can we go withRead More →

The Legend of La Befana Sweep Away the Old Year, Italian Style According to Italian tradition, La Befana flies through the night sky on January 5 to sweep away all the troubles of the old year, and clear the way for a fresh start, the Epiphany on January 6. I’ll go along for that ride! Here’s an excerpt from my book of essays, Letters from Italy, about my experience of celebrating La Befana in Rome, years ago… Postcard from Rome: The Legend of La Befana* “There is no Santa Claus in Italy,” my Nana told me when I was a kid.I had nightmares of how awfulRead More →

Author in Bologna Cooking Class

It smells good in here: high note of nose-tingling parmigiano, base of salty cured salumi, and centering it all is rich meaty ragu, the sauce this city of Bologna is famous for. Here in Bologna’s Quadrilatero (market area), I’ve entered the Tamburini shop — a temple of deliciousness that’s been beloved and family run since 1932. I was lured in by window displays of humongous hanging prosciutto, balsamic vinegar in curvy bottles, honey-colored rounds of cheese. I line up behind a gang of teenagers on their school lunch break, grab a plastic tray to slide along the counter and order what everybody else is having: aRead More →

Where HBO’s “My Brilliant Friend” was filmed… 300 Gradini, means 300 steps, which is how you get from the road, Via Flacca, to this dreamy stretch of beach clubs. It’s part of a beautiful coastline south of Rome, named The Riviera of Ulisse, as it is said that Circe lured Ulysses and his crew here… and they stayed an entire year. I was lured to 300 Gradini, by Eleanore Ferrante’s “Neapolitan Novels” — that led to HBO making an extraordinary series of the first three books — with more to come. In the story, scenes take place at the beach of Cetara in Ischia, but for theRead More →

Happy International Women’s Day! All over Italy on March 8, this holiday is celebrated with mimosa flowers, given by men to the women in their life, or by women to their friends… It’s a global day to celebrate all female achievements–past, present, and future.Courageous women began it in the early 1900s, holding demonstrations for the right to vote and for equal pay and working conditions.  The Union of Italian Women officially declared March 8 Women’s Day in 1945.The scent of mimosas is everywhere, reminding us that spring is near…The flower is all aspects of womanhood — delicate looking, and strong to withstand storms. Girlfriends get together and have fun…and maybe get aRead More →

So much of the fun of Italian travel is Anticipation… In a few days I’ll discover someplace in Italy I’ve never been before…the Franciacorta wine region, north of Milan. Just a few weeks ago, back in Los Angeles, I was dreaming about it with my friend Pam, and wrote this: The cork pops, my heart leaps. My friend Pam and I clink glasses. “Salute” I say, just like my grandparents always toasted at childhood dinners. Of course, these days, toasting “To Health” carries a lot more weight. “Buon Viaggio!” toasts Pam. That lightens things up. This celebration is making it real. I’ve been watching Italy’s caseRead More →

Discovering Pleasures of this City of Towers, Tortellini, and Tette Whenever I’m in Italy I find myself standing next to a stranger, admiring a naked woman. Such as when I stood in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore with a scholarly-looking signor, gasping over a naked nymph who was spouting water from her breasts. The sculpture, (accompanied by three sister nymphs), forms the base of the Fountain of Neptune. The stranger, Claudio Cento, is a local guide who I’d just met. Claudio is a serious type, but laughed as we circled the nymphs and I asked, “So is this why Bologna is famous for Three “T”s: Torre, Toretellini, and Tette?”. Claudio noddedRead More →