Favorite Chocolate Shops in Italy With Valentine’s Day, thoughts turn to chocolate. Here’s an excerpt from “100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go” to help you find the best places for chocolate in Italy… “Let them eat chocolate,” was the kind proclamation of Madama Reale. The year was 1678…

The Legend of La Befana Sweep Away the Old Year, Italian Style According to Italian tradition, La Befana flies through the night sky on January 5 to sweep away all the troubles of the old year, and clear the way for a fresh start, the Epiphany on January 6. …

Bologna: Discovering the Secrets of Real Ragu It smells good in here: high note of nose-tingling parmigiano, base of salty cured salumi, and centering it all is rich meaty ragu, the sauce this city of Bologna is famous for. Here in Bologna’s Quadrilatero (market area), I’ve entered the Tamburini shop…

A Golden Day at 300 Gradini Beach, Gaeta Where HBO’s “My Brilliant Friend” was filmed… 300 Gradini, means 300 steps, which is how you get from the road, Via Flacca, to this dreamy stretch of beach clubs. …

One of my favorite June in Italy times was a Golden Day in Sperlonga, a beach town in Lazio, easily reached from Rome. My dear Roman friend Gioia, first told me about Sperlonga: “It’s where we all had our first boyfriends,” she said, with a dreamy look in her eyes…With…

April Reflections Looking out the door to the porch of my Hollywood bungalow, blooming jasmine perfumes the air, the sky is bluest blue, birds chirp. I can feel it from the desk: Spring. Finally. The happiest spring in two long years. …

When in Rome, See This Treasure: Saint Cecilia in Trastevere: Patron Saint of Singers, Composers, and Musicians A quiet Trastevere via opens to a large landscaped courtyard, which fronts this Basilica that was built over the home where Cecilia lived and died. The courtyard is a lovely neighborhood playground —…

So much of the fun of Italian travel is Anticipation… In a few days I’ll discover someplace in Italy I’ve never been before…the Franciacorta wine region, north of Milan. Just a few weeks ago, back in Los Angeles, I was dreaming about it with my friend Pam, and wrote this: …

Bologna’s Three T’s Discovering Pleasures of this City of Towers, Tortellini, and Tette Whenever I’m in Italy I find myself standing next to a stranger, admiring a naked woman. Such as when I stood in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore with a scholarly-looking signor, gasping over a naked nymph who was spouting…