Doug Cumming
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Good Lord, we beseech thee
We see more walking companions, resting in small groups chatting in Italian on breaks in the shade of olive trees. One group of young women leaves a stone booth with a Virgin Mary altar (one crosses herself, kissing her hand)… Continue reading
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Under the Tuscan Sun
Wayfaring through the old towns and narrow footpaths of Tuscany. We are two pelligrini, daypacks on backs, knitting the ground with adjustable walking poles bought outside Lucca. Fueled by a hotel breakfast and two cappuccinos each. CaminoWays, a service company… Continue reading
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On a train and the Lucca wall
On a passenger train, the living things passing by can strike you with a poignancy like nothing else. A child on a bike, that geranium on a window sill, green hills in April cloud shadows. Their brief appearances, and disappearance,… Continue reading
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Sic transit!
Germans display their orderliness even in a labor strike. The pilots of Lufthansa joined their fellow workers by holding a two-day strike, April 13 and 14. Danke schön, I picture management negotiators saying, and promptly informing us by email that… Continue reading
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Pilgrims-in-training
We are getting our legs in shape for an eight-day pilgrimage through rural Tuscany. It’s a small part of the 2,000 km route that an obscure Archbishop of Canterbury logged by foot or horseback in 990 A.D. from his English… Continue reading
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Learning Italian
The language we learn from infancy to childhood, from classrooms to books, becomes the water we swim in. That’s a good metaphor. We swim in our language, not caring how it keeps us afloat. Like fish, we don’t need to… Continue reading
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Photo Album from Lecce
I thought that, by leaving my country for a few weeks, it would improve. I was wrong. Oh well. At least Italy is still Italy. Continue reading
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The Story of Time
Of several museums we have seen in our three weeks in Italy, none moved me so much as the one with the least variety or clutter. The Museo Provincial Sigismondo Castromediano, or simply, the Provincial Museum of Lecce, is a… Continue reading
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The Disappeared Diaspora
The first stop on our tour of Lecce yesterday was the underground Jewish Museum. It is underground because a private palace and the huge Baroque complex of the Basilica of Santa Croce were built over what was believed to be… Continue reading
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A dream of blue, a New Year
The Adriatic comes thrashing into a canyon of high rock walls at Polignano a Mare. What is so beautiful about it, so Italian, is how the little city has accommodated this natural glory with designs for lovers to enjoy it.… Continue reading
An American journalist heads for Italy to see his country changing from afar. 