europe
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What made Italians?
Near the end of the 1969 movie “The Secret of Santa Vittoria,” the psychological battle between the Nazi captain and the slyly submissive mayor of the Italian town (played lovably by Anthony Quinn) reaches a tense climax. The two men… Continue reading
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Vitruvian treasure
When the city of Fano wanted to restore the Piazza Costa in the middle of the old city, it invited a team of engineers and archeologists to check underneath the cobblestones. This is a common requirement in any old city… Continue reading
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Sabato marcheto
I am not a fan of shopping in America. Unlike those who enjoy it, I am a snorkel diver, swimming through my search or shopping list as if I might run out of oxygen before I reach checkout. Street markets… Continue reading
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An evening stroll, senza fretta
We went out at dusk to look for the moon. “Sunset” in Italian is tramonto, “between” and “mountain,” and we imagine the sun somewhere between the Apennines and the sky behind us far to our west. We were walking east… Continue reading
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Cities upon hills
Walking from town to town would be very different if this were Kansas, or Tennessee. It’s Tuscany, and we’re on the antique Via Francigena (or occasionally off it, mixing up the varied trail markings with the Google maps of our… Continue reading
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What can you say?
Should parents apologize in public for a child’s behavior? Should we two Americans apologize for our President? If so, how, across a language barrier? We thought we would have a quiet, private dinner at the table in the empty back… 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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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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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
An American journalist heads for Italy to see his country changing from afar. 