easy hikes and city walks in Italy
Locals always tell visitors of Northern Sicily to do three things during their stay: go to Palermo and visit at least one of the city’s markets (been there, done that), take a swim at a coastal beach resort and to visit one of the region’s colourful villages and small towns. And since these picturesque small…
The Italian South is not all of one piece, contrary to what visitors from the North (folks like us) may assume. Rather than having been cut from the same cloth, it is a coat of many colours. Think of the American South, if you will: Tennessee is not like Louisiana, and Texas is another story…
We have just returned from a trip to the northern coast of Sicily and will tell you all about it in a three-part series of posts starting next week. As usual, we will tell you where to go for scenic “easy hikes” but also how to discover some off-the-wall sites and where to go for…
The end of the year is a time not only to look at Christmases and Holidays Past but also at Christmases and Holidays Future. It is a time both to review experiences and to look ahead. The Ghost of Holidays Past encourages us specifically to take a close look at what went well in days…
Genoa, “La Superba”, proudly stands apart from the rest of the country – and, in many ways, does not feel like an Italian city at all. It is neither elegant (like Milan) nor full of joie de vivre (like Naples), and it is certainly not an open-air museum where everything has been neatly arranged for…
For today’s post, we are going to climb the Vomero, the other hill of Naples, the one that does not have smoke coming out of its ears. Or rather, I should say, we were going to climb the Vomero, because that was the original scenario. We wanted to tell you all about the Salita del…
If you have seen a Bible movie at any time in the last few decades that was shot on a proper location rather than a soundstage, there is a good chance that Matera was in it. In fact, Matera – located in the southern Italian region of Basilicata – stood in so frequently for the…
Despite the sassi, the rock churches and all the other fascinating things that you can see in Matera, the highlights of any walk around the town are the magnificent views across the Murgia landscape. But this landscape is not only there to be marveled at. After all, all those bright lines that are zigzagging up…
Matera is the ugly caterpillar on the tree of international travel destinations. 70 years ago, the town was the epitome of the backward, benighted Italian South, so poor and neglected that it was officially designated a national disgrace – la vergogna nazionale – by the country’s first post-WWII government. Today, it is one of Europe’s…
Last week, I said that Bari was not a mandatory stop on the Great Italian Tourist Tour. Today, I would like to qualify that a little. It is true that most printed travel guides refer to Bari only in passing, but they do recommend it as a convenient stopover to a place which has become…