Search Results for: Puglia

November 12, 2020

Future of travel: Experts hope sustainability will make it even better

One disease will be gone soon. What about Covid-19? Seriously, folks … its effects on travel have been devastating. According to Elizabeth Becker, author of “Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism,” the tourism industry worldwide already has lost $8 trillion. Restrictions are everywhere. From the United States, where the pandemic is reaching new […]

October 13, 2020

COVID second wave hits Italy and the government and I make new plans

The world has turned off the neon lights on Italy. The glow has become a fog that clouds our future. Italy’s model strategy in flattening the Covid-19 curve lasted all of about three months. I no longer chortle about the World Health Organization pointing to my adopted country as Example A of fighting the virus. […]

October 7, 2020

Bucket list 2021: Africa, axed trips top list

I was a sports writer in the U.S. for 40 years and sometimes football imitates life — like my life now. It’s October, less than three months remain in the year and the world is no better off than it was when the pandemic began. I’m facing 3rd-and-long from near my own end zone. It’s […]

September 1, 2020

Covid-19 making a slight comeback in Italy and officials are clamping down again

Rome police are fining an average of 10 people a night over Covid-19 violations. They aren’t starting fistfights over masks. They’re not starting riots in front of government buildings. They’re merely not wearing a mask in public at night. Five hundred guests at a resort in Sardinia are in quarantine after a staff member tested […]

June 30, 2020

Stay away, Americans! EU says you and your coronavirus are not wanted here in Europe

EU won’t allow the U.S. among its 14 countries permitted to visit.

April 29, 2020

Trump vs. Conte: Here in Italy our pasta isn’t the only thing that’s better than in U.S.

Both came from nowhere to lead their countries. Both lead the countries with the most Covid-19 deaths in the world. Both address their nations on TV. Both have a pulse — although I’m not sure both have hearts. The similarities between Italy prime minister Giuseppe Conte and U.S. president Fuckface von Clownstick pretty much end […]

April 21, 2020

Italy’s coronavirus lockdown for expats: Tears, loneliness and loved ones far away

The sidewalk cafes tempt you like the Sirens from a nearby shore. You can feel the sun’s warmth on your balcony but you can’t feel the sea. The last time you did the Italian double-cheek kiss was with your cat. Welcome to Porto Quarantina. Life in Italian lockdown is harder than most places. We live […]

October 17, 2019

An Italian wedding: Like American weddings but with more romance and … do you have a red suit?

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 […]

September 19, 2019

My five favorite wine bars in Rome: The perfect Roman-tic evening

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 […]

February 25, 2019

The heart of Umbrian wine country reveals a rising star: Sagrantino

Me at my start of the Anteprima Sagrantino wine fair in Montefalco.

MONTEFALCO, Italy — One of my pleasant surprises after retiring to Rome with a taste for wine and no car is I never have to leave the city to taste the best wines in the world. I never even have to visit a restaurant or wine bar. All I have to do is wait for […]

January 26, 2019

Owning a winery in Italy not as easy as toast but this couple is toasting now in the land of St. Francis

Fabrizio Bizzarri, Ev Thomas and Claudia Rizza stand in front of Thomas' and Rizza's 800-year-old house in Umbria.

TODI, Italy — So you want to have a winery in Italy, huh? Sit on your porch looking out at your vineyard on the hill, sipping the fruits of your labor under a warm sun, a plate of pasta in front of you as the church bells peal from a nearby village? Getting thirsty? Getting […]

November 20, 2018

Monteverde: My new Rome neighborhood on a hill is shedding its fascist past

In Mercato Gianicolense, one of the oldest public markets in Rome, they still sell table wine in bulk. Photo by Marina Pascucci

When I first saw it, I had to take a step back, as if a ghost had gut punched me. Did I see what I thought I saw? It was April 30 and I had just moved into my new apartment. It’s a dream home for a retiree. Bigger. Brighter. Big balcony. It’s the same […]

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