Beach reading 2020
As everyone in the world has certainly realized during the first months of 2020, this is not a normal year … Usually I scramble for a free Saturday or Sunday in March to hit the beach, and to enjoy the annual tradition of cracking open a paperback while I breathe in the fresh, sea air…
Read MorePre-lockdown travel
It’s been a tough few months around the world, and I haven’t really felt up to keeping a travel blog going when the farthest one could travel in Rome was 200 meters from home. We’re cautiously optimistic here in Rome, and while we are not back to pre-pandemic rhythms, it’s good to be returning to…
Read MoreHappy first day of spring! Celebrating with beach reading. Or not
The sun is growing warmer, the birds filling the morning air with their chirping, and the flowers are beginning to bloom. It’s all gearing up to be a beautiful spring season. What I usually do at this time of year is grab my kids and make our first beach outing, usually going for a day…
Read MoreA Rome ghost town in Lockdown
I’ve been living in Rome for years, and I’ve never seen it a deserted as it’s been the past week. For just over a week now, we’ve been in lockdown from the corona virus. Lockdown was gradual. First it was school kids at home, then most workers were shifted to teleworking. Soon restaurants, shops, theatres,…
Read MoreLove (& life) in the time of Corona virus
With a nod to the brilliant Gabriel Garcia-Marquez whose title I shamefully borrowed and updated for our troubling times. But history (and literature) repeat themselves. Today’s Italy is beginning to feel like Florentino and Fermina’s unnamed city (Cartagena) in their unnamed Latin American country (Colombia). The lock-down has moved from Italy’s north to the whole…
Read MoreAt the heart of it all in Guayaquil’s Malecón
It didn’t take long to discover that the life of the Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil all unfolds along the Malecón 2000. This is the name given to an ambitious urban development project, a large and pleasant is the name given to boardwalk skirting along the wide Guayas River. This project to revitalize central Guayaquil…
Read MoreCongrats to the 2020 PEN/ Faulkner Award Finalists
I always follow the major literary awards shortlists (and sometimes longlists) as I’m looking for new reading material. That’s why I was happy to see that the finalists for the 2020 PEN/ Faulkner Award for Fisction have just been announced. Congratulations to all the finalists. the final award will be announced in early May. In…
Read MoreMilan’s Renaissance castle – Castello Sforzesco
Smack dab in the middle of Milan is an imposing reminder of its past. As a tourist wandering Milan’s compact historic center, you’d be remiss to not notice its Castello Sforzesco, Milan’s most importnat Reniassance monument. Completely restored at the start of the 20th century, the Sforza Castle was once the headquarters of the noble…
Read MoreQuarantine – a word comes full circle
I’ve always loved history and etymology, so not surprising I was attracted to both elements with the word quarantine. The English word quarantine comes from the Italian term ‘quarantena’. The term derives from the number ‘quaranta’ – meaning forty. During the period of the Bubonic Plague, or Black Death, that spread around Europe from the…
Read MoreDreaming of white beaches and warm waves … in the Maldives
This has become a bit of a February tradition for me. Every February, I like to write some travel post that allows me to dream of warmer climes. So I’m reaching back to reminisce about a trip almost five years ago to the Indian Ocean paradise of the Maldives. This has been a mild winter…
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