(Editor’s note. While I’m away for the holidays, I am re-running my blog on Christmas in Rome from four years ago.) I grew up in the capital of the commercial world and now live in the capital of the Catholic world. It is Christmas time, a time when capitalism and religion merge into a big, […]
Did you know Santa Claus lives in Italy? It’s true. His real name is Santa Clausini. He anglicized it to be accepted in more of the world’s chimneys. He and his elves (actually a self-loathing freelance writer from Oregon) have a workshop in Rome’s Monteverde neighborhood where we think up the perfect Christmas gifts for […]
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Conde Nast came out with its annual Readers Choice list for the world’s best countries and Italy came out ninth. Italy appearing in a top 10 list is like Alabama football, U.S. billionaires and Harvard. Conde Nast called Italy the “evergreen country.” It’s always there. It’s why I’m here. And I’m not leaving. Next month […]
I’m often asked if I’d ever live anywhere in Italy besides Rome. I know what they’re getting at. If it’s a woman, she read “Under the Tuscan Sun” and thinks life in rural Italy is all Italian poetry and glasses of Chianti in gardens. If it’s a man, they hated Rome’s filth and have a […]
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I sipped Prosecco Saturday in the same piazza where Benito Mussolini worked his fascist throng into a froth. I stood in Piazza Venezia, in the shadow of the gargantuan white confectionery monument called Il Vittoriano, in suit and tie, and celebrated the most Italian of Italian traditions. The Italian wedding. No, not mine. It was […]
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Living in Rome is like living in a big city with a small town right across the street. Can’t believe you can get a small-town feel from a city of 2.8 million people who drive like they’re escaping a coming earthquake? Just walk down a street. In fact, walk down many of them. Walk down […]
I’ve always told people wanting to party in Rome that this city isn’t a bar town. It’s a restaurant town. However, it is the world’s greatest bar town in one specific genre: wine bars. Called enotecas in Italian, they enjoyed a renaissance in the 1990s and now are my preferred destination on any night out […]
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L’AQUILA, Italy — Jamie Abbott learned it’s pretty easy to sell a slice of heaven. Now he wants to sell another. The line has already formed to the right. Remember my March blog on the Englishman who raffled off a house in rural Italy for 50 English pounds (about $65)? Well, he easily sold all […]
This off season I changed my greeting at my local coffee bar. Every time I walked into Romagnani Caffe across the street from my Rome apartment I greeted the Romanisti coffee jockeys with “FORZA ROMA!” the long-time mantra of every AS Roma fan, meaning “GO ROMA!” They, in turn, greeted me with the simultaneous, seemingly […]
FRASCATI, Italy — Daniele Cernilli remembers when he was a little boy in Rome 50 years ago, back when Italian cinema was booming and so was the economy. His father used to send him to the local osteria, a small, very traditional family run restaurant, to get a big jug of wine. Through most of […]
Sandro Ferri, my old friend at my corner edicola, walked out of his small newsstand to show me something on the ground near his window. It was a small circle of what looked like new concrete. It was once a home — for mice. They used to come up through the hole and head to […]
The island of Procida doesn’t get much play outside Europe. The way it’s overshadowed by Capri 10 miles to the south, Capri might as well be Australia. But Procida (pronounced PRO-chee-duh) holds its own with Italians who see Capri as I do: an Italian theme park with better wine. Procida doesn’t have Capri’s vistas — and Capri’s do meet the hype — but it does have an Italian soul. It’s why I took my girlfriend, the lovely and talented Marina Pascucci, to Procida for our two-year anniversary.
(To read more, click here.)
