Italy has 20 regions. Each one could qualify as its own country. They have their geography, customs, cuisine, history and dialect. I’ve been to 19 of them. If you’re dreaming of an Italian vacation but don’t know where to go, use this as a guide. This is the first 10 regions in alphabetical order. I’ll post the other 10 next week.
So through this long, oppressive year, has that picture of the Amalfi Coast remained on your computer or is it bent beyond recognition from too much fondling? Is the postcard of a Tuscan vineyard at sunset still on your refrigerator, teasing you daily as you mark another “X” on your lockdown calendar? Relax. Rejoice. […]
FREGENE, Italy — The scene is always the same. We park Marina’s car on a quiet, narrow side street and walk down the short driveway to Il Capanno dei Pescatori, the little beach-side restaurant that sells us lanais chairs for only 7 euros. A young cabana boy plops them down on an empty beach, pulling […]
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My girlfriend, Marina, finally started working from home Monday. I could hear her exhale as she left her office near the Vatican two miles from my apartment. She no longer works around elderly men, the favorite target of the coronavirus that has laid waste to much of the world. Nowhere has it run more roughshod […]
(Editor’s note: I was planning on posting this Monday but yesterday was meant for remembering Kobe Bryant and not a relatively meaningless soccer game in Rome.Riposa in pace, Kobe.) It was a terrific idea to celebrate a birthday. Alessandro Castellani, my best Italian friend in Rome and veteran sportswriter, had gathered seven of his male […]
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 […]
BAGNOREGIO, Italy — It didn’t all start with Frances Mayes. Yes, her 1996 blockbuster “Under the Tuscan Sun” made owning a house in the Italian countryside seem like Nirvana with better food. But mankind has sought Italy’s rolling green hills, vast meadows and sunny skies ever since the Ancient Roman aristocracy built villas in the […]
I’m pretty sure no one has ever written thank you to Mussolini, at least not in the last 70 years or so. Yes, he is a big reason Marina and I don’t have to board a plane or boat to relax on some of the best beaches in Europe. Papardo’ Beach is 85 miles south of Rome in an underrated part of the Lazio region that is sprinkled with cute towns and beaches that get more gorgeous with every kilometer you drive. Foreigners don’t come here much. Italians do. They know the convenience and pleasure of this area known as Agro Pontino, particularly now during Rome’s driest summer in the last 60 years. Where else in Europe can you get a tan and swim in a crystal-blue sea then eat a seafood feast for two with a bottle of local white wine for under 70 euros? Italians also appreciate this area for another reason.
They know in the 1930s this whole area was a swamp.
(To read more, click here.)
I arrived on a cool, cloudy day which means I saw the lake different than nearly every Roman who has visited it. It was practically empty. Normally, its sliver-narrow beach is lined with umbrellas from Romans escaping the heat. Yesterday, the 22-square-mile lake had only a couple of passersby. One middle-aged man in a heavy coat stood on the bank and held his head up to the sky with his eyes closed, trying to will some glimpse of sun onto his face. The lake isn’t massive but is so close to Rome it looks like the Pacific Ocean. It’s cobalt blue and surrounded by the rolling hills of the rugged northern Lazio countryside.
