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