When our friend Melissa, who also told us about the Nowhere Beach, invited us to go camping at Tramonti di Sopra on the same night the Perseid meteor shower was supposed to be the strongest, we couldn’t resist. I even had to convince Tim we should camp out, which meant we should have not only […]
A Foodie’s Dream: The Italian Sagra
One of my favorite festivals, which I have written about before, is the Fiera dell’Aglio in Voghiera. This sagra of all things garlic showcases one of the most renowned varieties of garlic, a gastronomic treasure that even has the status PDO (Protected Denomination of Origin). So what is a sagra anyway? If you’ve driven around […]
The Deserted Island in the Venetian Lagoon
A string of islands waits to be discovered by the intrepid traveler, just a boat ride away from the hustle and bustle of Venice. Having been to only a handful of the islands in the Venetian lagoon, I was excited to join a Private Venetian Lagoon Discovery Tour. As our guide pulled up in a […]
Emma’s Favorite Dog Friendly Beaches
When I lived in Phoenix, AZ, I didn’t have to worry about dog friendly beaches. I had my very own swimming pool right in my backyard. From the day my mom and dad declared the new pool officially open, I loved to swim. Ask me if I wanted to go for a W-A-L-K or a […]
Strolling Through Hemingway’s Stresa
In 1918, a then 19-year old Ernest Hemingway was volunteering with the Red Cross in Italy. After being injured and hospitalized in Milan, he visited Stresa on Lago Maggiore. Hemingway stayed in room 106 of the Hotel des Iles Borromees, where he was known to drink martinis while overlooking the beautiful islands beyond. It was […]
The Borromean Islands: Where Nature and Art Meet
The Borromean islands are the jewels of Lago Maggiore and the perfect way to spend a day relaxing and strolling amongst their famed sights, which the Princess of Wales herself, Caroline of Brunswick, fell in love with. It is said Caroline did her best to convince the Borromeo family to sell her Isola Madre; her request […]
Giro d’ombra: Venice Carnival Pub Crawl
The Carnival of Venice is known for the elaborate costumes and the even more lavish masquerade balls. Those balls can cost hundreds of dollars per person to attend, and honestly just weren’t ever any interest to us. We much preferred to enjoy the free Carnevale events during the day, and to wrap up one of […]
The Frozen Waterfalls of Serrai di Sottoguda
Unimaginable walls of blue ice surrounded us as we walked down the narrow, long gorge of Serrai di Sottoguda, at the base of Marmolada mountain. Only reached on foot, the gorge was created long ago by an earthquake and then water erosion from the Pettorina stream, which still flows through it. In winter, the waterfalls […]
Little Venice: Chioggia
There are 117 islands in the Venice Lagoon. Only about 32 are inhabited and we’d only been to a handful like Murano, Burano, San Francesco del Deserto and Poveglia. So when Tim asked what I wanted to do this weekend, I thought we’d stay a little closer to home and visit the island of Chioggia […]
Ice Art: Italy’s International Snow Sculpture Festival
Each January, artists from around the world gather with their shovels, ladders, buckets and axes to sculpt unique forms from snow. The competition lasts three days in which teams of artists from Italy, Germany, Romania and Canada work to transform their gigantic cubes of pressed snow and ice into masterpieces. On the third day, judges […]
