europe
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Last stop, Venice
And so, finally, Venice! A full day here is like one of those Italian meals where you realize you’ve eaten too much. And then you have a dolce, and a shot of limoncello. One full day in Venice between two… Continue reading
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A cup of coffee
Italians don’t just drink coffee. They administer it. A barista like Daniele, the man who runs Caffè Dell’Arco in Fano, administers what we call espresso – the drink they call un caffè. Some regular customers stand at the counter and… Continue reading
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The human factor
Here is continual spring, and summer in unseasonable months,the herds breed twice, the trees are good, twice, for fruit.And raging tigers are absent, and lions’ savage young,no aconite deceives unlucky foragers,no scaly serpent slides his huge segments over the ground,or… Continue reading
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Statue of Limitations
Do you know about the Lisippo statue? I didn’t. Luca tried to explain this object of local pride. No, not just local. Italian! No, bigger than that. European pride. The Lisippo statue was sold from here for almost nothing, Luca… Continue reading
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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
An American journalist heads for Italy to see his country changing from afar. 