Italy

posts about travel and life in Italy

Pici, delicious Tuscan pasta

Italy trip highlights: Eating Tuscany

After Rome, we rented a car and headed north to Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tarot Garden (a definite highlight) and then continued on to Tuscany. While I’d been to Siena and Florence before, this was actually my first time out into the small hill towns of Tuscany. Now that I’ve had a taste, I can’t … Read more

Italy trip highlights: Eating Rome

We had no specific goals for our 1.5 days in Rome, except to eat well and relax. My last several trips to Rome were on business, so it was nice to reestablish this city as a place of leisure. There wasn’t any advanced planning involved beyond the hotel. It was nice. Especially the food. All … Read more

A taste of Italy

Whee, what a fabulous week in Italy we had. Where to begin with the stories? Every meal could be the subject of its own post. We squeezed a ridiculous amount into our 8 days, from Rome to Tuscany to Venice, with a few other stops in between. Normally I wouldn’t advocate such a ridiculously quick … Read more

I get cultured in Padua

OK, so where was I? A couple weeks ago I spent a few days in Italy, staying at my favorite hotel and spa in the whole world (which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the manager is a good friend of mine, I swear), which is in a small town just outside of Padua (Padova). I can’t go to Padua without feeling an intense urge to move back to Italy, and this trip was no different. It’s just so…. Italian. The cobblestones, the cathedrals, the art, the public humiliation of graduates… and of course the food. Why am I not there right now?

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Buona Pasqua

Easter in Italy is always marked by the omnipresent giant chocolate eggs. No bunnies, no peeps, just big chocolate eggs. If you’re lucky, there’s an exciting surprise awaiting you inside your giant chocolate egg. These surprises can range from cheap plastic toys to fine jewelry, depending on where your egg came from. They’re kind of like giant Kinder Surprise eggs.*

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Graduation, Italian style

Walking around Padua (Padova in Italian) last week, Ali and I happened across the graduation celebrations of a few university students. The first indication that something was up this day were the big signs plastered up along one side of a piazza. These each displayed a crude caricature of one of the graduates, along with a long and detailed narrative written by the grad’s so-called friends. 

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Mud and other Italian-style fun in Abano Terme

After spending a long weekend in Milan with Scott and our friends, I headed off alone to visit a friend in Abano Terme, a small spa town near Padua (Padova in Italian). Abano is relatively new for an Italian town, as it was mainly built up in the 50s and 60s, when having oneself wrapped in mud was the hip thing to do.

My friend happens to own one of the many spa hotels in the town, the Hotel Universal Terme. It’s a grand, old-fashioned place that makes you feel like you’ve gone back in time from the second you walk through the door (this is what the clients want, he tells me).

Read moreMud and other Italian-style fun in Abano Terme