Fantastic Fall Festivals in Tuscany Tuscany brims with abundance in Autumn, with the grape harvest in the early part of the season and the new olive oil pressed in the later part of the season. For the updated version of this post go to my Substack.
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Exploring Italy
A Special Monastery in Tuscany
La Verna: a contemplative Tuscan sanctuary For the updated version of this post, go to my Substack
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Christmas Festivals in Florence
As someone who grew up without religion in a California beach town, I was intrigued when I moved to Italy by the length of the Christmas season and I was confused by some of the festivals. I learned that the season starts on December 8, with the Festival of the Immaculate Conception, and ends on January 6 with Epiphany. I assumed the conception being referred to was the one
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House Hunters Episode Prompts a Move to Lucca
I am pleased to add this interview to my Taking the Plunge series Why did this family move from the US to Lucca? Where do you come from and when did you first have a connection with Italy in your life? I was born in the Philippines but have spent most of my life in Southern California. My first connection to Italy was food. For as long as I can remember, Spaghetti al Ragu has
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The Best Local Piazza in Florence (And it’s Organic Market)
Piazza Santo Spirito: Come here to hang out in the best local piazza in Florence. This piazza is in the Oltrarno which means “across the Arno” (the other side of the river from civic and religious centers where the cathedral and town hall are.) If you feel overwhelmed by the crowds on the main side of the river, come over to the Oltrarno and hang out in Piazza Santo
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Italy’s Prettiest Coastline
Liguria is my favorite region after Tuscany and it may have Italy's prettiest coastline. I usually go there to hike and swim but this time the draw is what my friends say are the best fireworks in Italy. My friends who come yearly to their ancestral home in Lucca's mountains, head to Rapallo every July to see the famous fireworks and I'm spontaneously going with them
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Mystical Solstice Event in Florence
"The information was lost, we didn't know..." The monk tells me from behind the counter of the monastic shop. "No one had noticed the solstice sun illuminating the zodiac?" "No, we didn't notice." The monk smiles. "It was figured out by Simone Bartolini." Simone Bartolini is an astronomer and cartographer who recently (around 2011) figured out that the marble zodiac on the
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Wild Tuscany, A Visit to Magical Maremma
The Maremma, a region on the southern Tuscan coast, is the wild side of Tuscany. With a rough reputation as a place of bandits and malarial swamps a few hundred years ago, it has become a fashionable place in the last twenty years, while still remaining unspoiled. It gives me a wild, expansive, anything-is-possible feel. The Etruscans were the first settlers of this area and
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Paddle boarding in Tuscany
SUP in Tuscany at Lido di Camaiore If you love SUP, and the Italian sea, as I do, you'll be glad to know that it's now common to find SUP at Italy's beach towns. After five months of cold it suddenly turned warm enough on April 15 to switch to summer clothes and by April 21 I was paddle boarding in the sea, out of Lido di Camaiore (a beach town on the part of the northern
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Epicurean Italy Giveaway– Enter to Win
Got a passion for Italian food, Rome, and cocktails? I'm offering an Epicurean Italy book giveaway for the anniversary of the publication of my book. Win two fabulous foodie-focused books! Scroll down below the text to find the place to enter the giveaway. Must have an address in the USA to enter. After entering you will be shown ways to share the info, for more
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Tuscan Chocolate Festivals
March is Italian chocolate madness month and I’ve become a chocolate devotee in Italy. I went racing over to Florence in early March simply because a chocolate festival was happening there, in the lovely Piazza Santissima Annuziata. Toward the end of March we had one here in Lucca, in charming Piazza San Frediano. At these festivals you will find Italian artisanal chocolate
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Why I Risked Everything to Buy an Apartment in Florence
A personal essay Not long ago I woke up and was fifty years old, with more than half my life already lived. Divorced, and without kids, essentially alone, I decided to follow my lifelong dream of living in Italy, but to do so, I had to “dare greatly” as Dr. Brené Brown calls it. I’d been in love with the city of Florence since age nineteen when I backpacked around
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