When you’re traveling and unsure of where to eat, where do you go? First, you go to restaurant reviews. However, how do you know which are authentic or as fake as the food they write about? Here’s a guest blog to give you some helpful tips.
(Director’s note: Due to illness, I took Monday and Tuesday off. With the U.S. election in full throttle rhetoric, I am re-running I blog I posted in late October 2020 to show the mood of Ameri can expats overseas with Donald Trump seeking re-election. Read it. Much of it remains fresh.) I saw my old friend, Tom Leitner, last week. I don’t have many American […]
I love Bologna, not just because of its luscious spaghetti bolognese but for its porticoes. Those are the graceful arches that cover 40 miles of Bologna streets. UNESCO awarded them with a World Heritage Site three years ago and they remain one of the most distinct architectural styles in Italy. I visited last month and came away with this report.
Summer is almost over. If you’re hot and tired and short of time, your ideal island vacation isn’t far away. Why fly to the Caribbean when you can stay in your own country? Here’s a short list of idyllic islands in the U.S.
During our 11-day trip to the U.S. last month, Marina and I did some wine tastings in Paso Robles, a growing California wine center that is rivaling Sonoma and Napa counties in popularity if not price. Indeed, I suffered some sticker shock but the wines were worth it and so were the settings at Halter Ranch and Justin. For a guide, I had an old sportswriting colleague, John Schumacher, who is retired and now works part time in a tasting room near his native Sacramento.
During my 40-year sportswriting career, I covered six Olympics. With the Paris Olympics opening Friday, I thought I’d share memories of the three Summer Olympics I covered in Sydney, Beijing and London. They range from covering Michael Phelps’ eight gold medals to riding on the back of a monk’s motorcycle to his hilltop monastery for tea.
It’s July, the worst time to travel anywhere in the world. But if time restraints limit you to visiting Italy in July, I’m here to help. After living here 10 years, I’ve been to a lot of Italian islands. Here are some of my favorite. They will be crowded. But they will be hot, and they will be clean. They will also be beautiful if you can ignore all the bodies. This is a repost of a blog I wrote in 2017 as I’m trying in the United States.
I’ve taken food tours all over the world and I highly recommend them. In Rome I recommend the 10 Tastes of Rome. It sprinkles in history with the food. It starts in Campo de’ Fiori and finishes in Trastevere. Along the way I learned why they burned a philosopher at the stake and how a spout of oil the day Jesus was born inspired the construction of Chiesa di Santa Maria in Trastevere. Along the way I tasted some good pizza, gelato and Sicilian cassatina.
If you ever wanted to know what it’s like to live in Rome as a retired expat, read my new book that is now out on Amazon. “The Cappuccino Chronicles: An American Journalist’s Decade in Rome” takes people inside the life of one of the world’s most glamorous cities. But it’s not the dream many burned-out people imagine when they look at retirement. The streets are filthy. The public services are lousy. Relationshios are difficult. But the food, wine and beauty meet the hype and I hope I found a balance that peels the veneer off the city to show what’s really inside while still showing what has kept me around for 10 years. I will soon announce a Zoom call for anyone interested in hearing about the book and to answer any questions about life in this crazy city.
Despite not writing about it much during my career, I remain a closet track nut. The European Championships are in Rome through Wednesday and attendance hasn’t been great. Combined with bad attendance for major meets in my hometown of Eugene, Oregon, the “Track Capital of the World,” I wonder if this sport is beginning to wither in popularity.
What’s your favorite pizza style in Italy? Neapolitan, with its thick, chewy crust, is the most famous. I prefer Roman style’s thin, crispy crust. After 10 years in Rome, I have updated my Five Favorite Pizzerias in Rome but this time limited it to Roman style.
My Rome neighborhood of Monteverde had a food fair featuring more than two dozen food stands filling my local piazza over the weekend. Hare wraps (meaning WILD hare), pizza in fried bread, tiramisu. It was all there. So good I went twice. Here’s my juicy report.
