Category: Vacation

  • On the Street

    On the Street

    Hear Ye! Hear Ye!  The latest in street performers in Rome. What are these people looking at?         This is a street performer unlike any I have ever seen on the street. Perhaps this pediatric attraction has been around for awhile, but not in my experience.  I happened upon little big blue…

  • Hurry Up and Wait

    Hurry Up and Wait

    I have often said, the Italy of my dreams is the Centro Storico.  Not necessarily the real Italy. Here I am smack dab in the middle of the train station in Milan. Just one of the Great Unwashed. Oh yeah: fair Italy — where is the goddam romance now.  The plan seemed pretty solid. To…

  • Riding the Rails

    Riding the Rails

    I admit, I have a romantic view of riding trains. Perhaps because the paternal grandfather I never met was a train man, or the fact that Dad would seek out some vintage train on an unused track and take my brother and me on a Choo-Choo train ride (old whistle and all), or that my…

  • Winter Wondering-Land

    Winter Wondering-Land

    The Mohonk Mountain House invites you to enjoy the icy solitude of frozen trails traversed only with snow shoes and skis.  The sun startingly clear and nighttime silent. The Mohonk Mountain House outside of New Paltz, New York is one of my favorite getaway destinations. It is a resort built on Quaker principles of quiet…

  • Musings on Getting Lost

    Musings on Getting Lost

    Getting lost is a sore subject with me. I do it easily and often. It causes me anxiety.  So, what do you do when you find yourself someplace unfamiliar? What else — you get lost. There is this chocolate shop in Rome that I adore. It’s called Moriondo & Gariglio. I try to visit it every…

  • American in Roma

    American in Roma

      Having missed my annual trek to Italy in ’05, I gave myself two full weeks this year for much needed R&R in my adopted città.  So many missions: study, shop, mangia bene and explore my neighborhood. My first day in Rome, I wandered from my apartment near the Colosseum to explore another ancient site: the Roman Forum.…

  • Il Mio Appartamento

    Il Mio Appartamento

    Some very quick impressions about my little apartment — il mio appartamento piccolo. Things will be different, not because this is another time — but another neighborhood. I am staying in a tiny little apartment. Full of beams and slanted ceilings. Most of my attention has been focused on navigating my head around those beams, a…

  • I Miei Amici Italiani

    I Miei Amici Italiani

    My Italian Friends. Walking around the familiar cobblestone streets of Rome for the first time upon my return, I felt like I was back among old friends. Ah, Roma. I ran into these little guys in one of my favorite piazzas in Rome. They were giggling and running together around the base of a circular…