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Categories
Category Archives: Italy
Celebrating the life of an old friend
The leaves are just turning this autumn in Italy, but with the sun shining, there was a steady procession through the village, over the canal to the old church for a commemoration of the life of a distinguished local man, … Continue reading
Posted in Italy
Tagged celebration, feast, friendship, life, memorial, prosecco, serprino, talent
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La Vendemmia: Harvesting prosecco grapes
It’s September and wherever you go the roads are full of tractors with trailers full to overflowing with grapes. I arrived at 8am, equipped myself with a wheelbarrow, a plastic bucket, plastic gloves and a pair of secateurs, and set … Continue reading
The Phenomenon of the ‘Dinner in White’
It seems that all over Italy there are glamorous picnics being organised for balmy summer evenings where everyone wears white and brings food to share. (Nobody explained why it has to be a cena in bianco -dinner in white.) But … Continue reading
Posted in Italy
Tagged candles, Dinner in white, Italian phenomenon, picnic, Star gazing in Italy
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Keeping Cool in the Furnace that is an Italian Summer
In my last post I wrote about the dreadful grey weather in Italy, but now it is the opposite and the question is always how to keep cool. In fact, for the first time ever, I’m quite looking forward to … Continue reading
Posted in Italy
Tagged Breezes, excessive heat in Italy, high temperatures, Keeping cool, thermal water
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A Dismal May in Italy
The first of May was a miracle in retrospect because it was warm and sunny all day. That meant that my little stall of Cose Inglesi did good business and I enjoyed myself for a full 12 hours chatting and … Continue reading
The Long Drive to Italy 2019
Over recent years it has saddened me to see how much the rural France I loved has grown shabbier and more abandoned. We drove though mile upon mile of La France Profonde where there were old agricultural buildings with collapsed … Continue reading
Posted in Great Thoughts, Italy
Tagged art nouveau, Bavaria, Design Museum, Drive to Italy, France Profonde, Rural France, Vosges
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A Pirates’ Den in an Italian Village
Having been away from Italy for the whole of winter, it was a pleasure to return to familiar haunts. We swept up the accumulated drifts of dead insects and cobwebs, noting with relief that the flat had survived another winter, … Continue reading
Posted in Italy
Tagged Italian food, parrots, pirates, trattoria
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Lunch with Venetian Nobility
If you were to drive through the tiny village of Vanzo and blinked, you would miss one of the most beautiful villas in the Veneto. It is the home of Count and Countess Giustiniani who are descended from a 17th … Continue reading
Posted in Italy
Tagged Doge of Venice, Giustiniani family, historic Italian gardens, Palladian villa, Venetian nobility
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Torrential Storm stops Padova Shakespeare Festival
We’d learned our lines (from The Merry Wives of Windsor) and Falstaff had bought a very bushy beard from a joke shop. Just as two years ago we were performing an excerpt from Shakespeare in his own language amongst lots … Continue reading
Posted in Italy
Tagged Falstaff, Padova, Shakespeare, storms
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Able was I ere I saw Elba!
I remembered this palindrome from my school days as we caught the ferry from Piombino to Portoferraio. It had been a long rail journey, not made any easier by the ticket inspector admonishing us for having a ticket for Piombino … Continue reading
Posted in Italy
Tagged beaches, Elba, mountain cable car, Napoleon, rail travel
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