Day trips or more to Italian location (and sometimes our neighboring EU states). Exploring the cities and their art and cultures, plus food obviously.
Venice is a set of islands but is still defined today as an “island” by the Venetians to distinguish it from the “mainland” town of Mestre. Venice also has a very unique topographic system. Therefore, as soon as you arrive in Venice, you look for some reference point that will allow you to find your […]
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Torino deserves to be on that “bucket list” of things to see among the many beautiful Italian cities. It is “Torino” for us and “Turin” in English, even if it is unnecessary to change that pronounceable name. I visited Torino a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to see the Egyptian Museum, which is second to […]
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I visited Villa “La Rotonda,” Palladio‘s most charming Villa, many times over, but never inside. The estate is still privately owned, and the owner was a relatively private person. Therefore the visits were permitted only the outside and to walk around the four identical facades. Nevertheless, it was still a lovely sight and worth seeing. […]
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Mantua kept a lot of its old looks. There are cobblestone streets, narrow alleys, old taverns, and foggy waters (in winter). Francesco Maria Piave was Giuseppe Verdi’s librettist, and when Verdi asked him to work on Rigoletto, they had to find a suitable city for the story. For Piave, a Venetian, Mantova was just the […]
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When planning a visit to Tuscany; Firenze, Siena, San Geminiano and others come to mind, but often in Italy, small provincial cities are true jewels and deserve our attention. Lucca in one such cities. I did visit Lucca many years ago, I had wonderful memories, and I just wanted to see it again. Lucca is […]
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A Fantastic Way to Visit Italy There is more and more enthusiasm for alternatives ways to visit Italy. eBikes made it even easier for everybody to take up long tours along off-the-beaten paths of Italian landscapes. My most recent trip was from Mantova to Peschiera on the Garda Lake with an eBike. 45km (about 38 […]
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Lago di Braies in Italian, and Pragser Wildsee in German Made famous by the fiction “One Step From Heaven,” a TV fiction by RAI and also because of the numerous Instagram shots, Lake Braies now attracts millions of travelers from all over the world every year. But do not make any effort whatsoever to speak […]
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Finally the time for travel is back. I had Pisa on my list for quite sometime and I was glad we could finally travel although with mask on entering all public places. Starting August we (the vaccinated population), shall have a QR code on our devices, or, for the traditional type, printed on paper, called […]
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Italy has a great number of small provincial towns, often overlooked in favor of other major destination. Quite understandable though; the big five (Rome, Naples, Florence, Venice and Milan), are a must see in anybody’s travel list. But for the habituee, or the discerning art lover, there are small “sleepy” provincial towns that are worth […]
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The COVID pandemic has been a 24+ months of anguish; Italy without tourists seems incomplete. There is so much art and beauty to share, it is a pity to keep it only for us. The past years were also spent in thinking what can be done better once things get back to normal again. Italy […]
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St. Theodor He was the original patron of Venice. He is in fact that guy on one of the two columns in Piazza San Marco, next to Palazzo Ducale. One is the Saint Mark’s Lion and the other San Todaro (in Venitian), having killed a dragon. The dragon is nothing like Viserion—the scaring dragon of […]
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Scala Contarini del Bovolo, it is a spiral staircase (or like a “snail” which in Venetian translates a “bovolo”), is part of Palazzo Contarini, a secluded corner of Venice a little off the tourists’ trails. It is actually not too far from the famous Rialto Bridge. Palazzo Contarini has known several owners. There were many […]
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Life in Italy 