Living in Florence has its appeal, but Tommaso and I have always had a thing for Maremma, an area of Tuscany that remains “off the beaten track” due to its apparent lack of much to …

I can’t remember what my comfort food was before I moved to Italy, but I think the main characteristics of comfort food have been the same my whole life long: warm, starchy, and mushy. I …

I don’t know if it is because I’m getting old, or because of my job I’m becoming better attuned to good quality clothing, but I find that most of the stuff in stores these days …

It’s not easy to do street art in Florence. And there’s not a lot of it. Keep your eyes open and you get to know the few players there are. There’s Clet and his modified …

Book review and giveaway of Pamela Sheldon Johns “Cucina Povera Tuscan Peasant Cooking”. In which I describe a day out with the author to talk about research and writing, and a fabulous lunch in the Crete Senese area.

This post illustrates the two main museum discount cards available in Florence. The information is up to date (October 2011) and replaces information I published already when the card was first announced and when it …

The Uffizi Gallery is perhaps the number one attraction in Florence. I get a lot of requests from friends of friends to take them on a tour of the museum because you can enjoy it …

If you’re willing to take fashion advice from a Canadian whose concept of Fall before moving to Italy was “that one pleasant day between summer and winter,” and whose main shoe supplier is Asics, listen …

Dear Mom,
You must worry about me living in Italy at times like these. It’s hard to have a daughter in the place that is the object of international ridicule, for it’s hard to justify being here at all. It looks really bad from the outside. I must say that right now, it looks pretty bad from the inside too. The only thing that holds it together is the whole insieme of what put this country together in the first place…

I am really looking forward to the 2011 edition of Lo Schermo dell’Arte, the art film part of the 50 giorni di cinema internazionale, a series of thematic film festivals that take place each Fall …

You’d have to have been dropped on the head when young to not notice the fortuitous timeliness of this Fall’s exhibits at Palazzo Strozzi – upstairs “Money and Beauty: Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities” and downstairs “Declining Democracy”. Both exhibits are equally contemporary, and they will make you reflect upon our current, collective situation whether you’re an Italian resident or a visitor from abroad.

From September 28 2011, the city of Florence will be adding 14 new wifi hotspots to the existing network. Beyond the wifi provided free by “Firenze wifi”, there are a few other places in the …