Category Archives: Italy

I’ve said it before – and probably more than once: I love Europe! I love how you can wake up in Switzerland, explore and have lunch in Italy, and be back in Switzerland – and in a different region and city! – in time for dinner. My husband and I were enjoying a long sight-seeing […]

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Late summer last year, my husband and I were in central Italy enjoying the sun – and the sun-drenched olives and tomatoes and grapes – that Italy is known for. We were holidaying Italian style: we rented a wonderful villa in the tiny town of Gioiella, Umbria (Villa Gioiella), practically on the border of Tuscany, and packed the rooms with three generations of friends and family. […]

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Masks and marionettes… In the street stalls and in the shops: elaborately sequinned and feathered masks of all sizes and shapes, and Pinocchio marionettes, pencils, pictures and paraphernalia. Apparently, Florence was the birth- and resting-place of Carlo Lorenzini (1826 – 1890), who (as Carlo Collodi) wrote the original stories of the woodcarver Geppetto and the marionette he crafted and […]

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