My route into old Bologna is Via Stalingrado. At the rental car desk some years back, in the pre-cellphone era, I asked the guy handing me car keys the best way into the city. Following his advice, from the tangenziale, which cruises through town next to the A-14 toll road, I took the Via Stalingrado…More
Monthly Archives: March 2022
How to Correct Your Coffee
“Did you drink my coffee?” Tizi asks. “Yes, by accident.” We’ve just finished a satisfying lunch. In Italy a post-prandial blast of espresso adds an exclamation mark to the experience. Lately she’s been taking her coffee “corrected.” With a dash of “mistra,” the local anise flavored grappa. Typically my wine intake at the table is…More
The Road Signs of Italy–What??
Driving into Rimini the other night, I saw a road sign that made no sense. To me the sign said, like, Do something. Or possibly, Don’t do something. And do it, or don’t do it, soon after you see this sign. Maybe right way. I didn’t do anything. In so not doing, I figured I…More
Feeling at Home in San Marino
All these years I don’t know how I missed it. Almost fifty years we’ve been coming together to this apartment in San Marino. Mornings I open a cupboard door, take down the stainless steel espresso pot, and make coffee. There are half a dozen cups from my mother-in-law’s China. Not the good stuff in the…More
The Mountain Moves Us: San Marino Days
“You can’t hear that?” Tizi says. “No.” She rolls on her side, facing me in bed. “Try.” “Try,” I say. “You either hear something or you don’t.” It’s 4:00 a.m. She wants me to hear a bird. I want to hear the bird. I get up and walk to the foot of the bed where…More
When Images Speak, and We Listen
The reminders come. We see Nicola, the son of one of Tizi’s cousins. He’s in the travel business. I ask him how things are, if work is picking up since Covid. He says, Yes, and now there is the war. Later, his sister’s husband, Tomaso, who is in the food business, when I ask how…More
Carnivale–Right Next Door
Carnivale continues. Yesterday was Fat Sunday. As a small-town guy raised Protestant, I grew up thinking a carnival (“a carnival,” not “carnival”) was 3-4 trucks that came to town, driven by ruffians who set up a Ferris Wheel, the Tilt-a-Whirl, a House of Mirrors, and a few games like Ring Toss, Milk Bottle Pyramid, and…More
A Perfect Day in Venice–Carnevale, an empty church, and feet
We’re short on time, not sure we can see both Murano and Burano, and make it to the train station on time. We decide on Burano. Which you reach by getting on one of Venice’s water buses, also known as a traghetto, roaring away from the main islands, past the floating cemetery, past Murano and…More
How to Learn Venice–Early
Venice is a conundrum. For many, it’s a torture. For some, it’s an ethereal mysterious place that repays repeated visits. In the summer it’s hot and humid. And in the summer it’s crowded, horribly so. And in the summer, rising from the canals, there can be a smell. Unlike American cities we love, take New…More