Eighty cardinals stared at me as I walked alone down the Sistine Chapel. I tried not to think about Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino watching my every step or the two cameras I was told not […]
YACHATS, Ore. — As a native Oregonian, I always find myself drawn to Oregon lighthouses, kind of like an inland sailor. It isn’t a need for safe passage to land, as so many boat captains […]
Six years ago this Saturday I retired to Rome saying I wanted to live the last third of my life in the most beautiful city in the world. Of course, I could’ve been leaping into […]
SAN FRANCISCO — In eight days I’ll have been in Rome six years and a few signs indicate that I’ve gone native. I drink coffee on 95-degree days in July. I speak Italian before I […]
(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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
LONDON — One day recently I went from Iran to South Africa, from Senegal to Bhutan. The next day I journeyed from Bolivia to Belarus, from Cyprus to Pakistan. I gazed at beautiful beaches in […]
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Is the Burj Khalifa really the world’s tallest building or is it a giant middle finger to the rest of the world? Yes, Dubai, I now get it. You’re more […]
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — I don’t believe time machines will ever exist but I came the closest to experiencing one. I just traveled from one of the oldest cities in the world to […]
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 […]
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, […]
