It’s that time again. After three months in Rome we’re packing up and moving on. We’re tending to plan our travels around the seasons, so the next stop for us will be Sicily (bellissima in May apparently) and then in… Continue Reading →

A trip to an Italian Post Office is not to be taken lightly; in fact, it’s something best avoided if at all possible. But if you must go, it’s definitely an undertaking that requires planning and aforethought. And even with… Continue Reading →

This walled cemetery in the middle of a busy Roman suburb, contains the graves of some of the world’s most important scholars and artists. The English poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley are buried here, as are the Scottish… Continue Reading →

It’s been said the small city of Orvieto is everything an Italian hill town should be; well-preserved medieval history, treasured renaissance art, a thriving contemporary culture and excellent local cuisine. Orvieto has all of this and more. Whether you come… Continue Reading →

One of the things we enjoy about Italy is that generally things here are done on a much smaller scale than we’re used to. Take grocery stores, for example; even in major cities not many have actual shopping trolleys. That’s… Continue Reading →

Spring has well and truly arrived in Rome and with it, the trees and flowers have exploded into life. It’s hard to imagine that just eight weeks ago the city was covered with snow. We’ve been taking advantage of these… Continue Reading →

The southern-most part of Puglia, the narrow peninsular of land that is the ‘heel’ of Italy’s ‘boot’, is known as the Salento. This area of the country has it all; lovely towns, sandy beaches, dramatic rocky coastlines. You know those… Continue Reading →

There’s a place in Puglia where you can dine in a cave. But before you start conjuring up images of the Flintstones and brontosaurus burgers, let us say the Grotta Palazzese isn’t just any cave, it’s a posh restaurant in… Continue Reading →

According to the teaching of the Catholic church, Purgatory is where the souls of sinners go to be purified before they enter heaven. (There’s a common thought that the Catholics did away with the idea of Purgatory in the 1990s… Continue Reading →

From our base here in Monopoli, many of Puglia’s major towns are an easy day trip away. Bari, for example, is only about half an hour to the north. Puglia’s capital is a busy port city with a population of… Continue Reading →