Tag Archives: Italy

Licensed to Ill: driving your teenage roads, twelve years on.

Posted on November 27, 2016 by

Unlike many of my peers, I wasn’t given a car as a birthday present when I turned 18. Publicly I was saying I didn’t want it but I knew it was a case of fox and grapes with a numberplate, … Continue reading →

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Modern art

Posted on July 14, 2016 by

I don’t often go to modern art fairs, mainly because I don’t get it at all, and I have a tendency to express scorn and not-so-educated scathing comments  out loud when everyone else is silent (it’s a family gift, Dad … Continue reading →

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Where the woods are returning.

Posted on May 16, 2016 by

On paper, it was an easy ride. About 9 klicks, roughly 600 meters in elevation, and a smooth return to the waiting car, through the woods, up the ridge and then back again into the woods. The signs at the … Continue reading →

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“It’s all they’re asking these days”.

Posted on April 24, 2016 by

“Is it organic?” The scorn, on Alberto’s face, was evident. “These days they don’t even check if the wine’s good or not, if it isn’t organic no one wants to give a euro for it”. We scanned the view from … Continue reading →

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A rowing regatta

Posted on November 10, 2015 by

The stretch of the Po river that flows past the city of Turin, in Northwest Italy, is normally quiet: a few rowers, two boats doing a sort of public shuttle service, countless ducks and swans. This weekend, though, things were … Continue reading →

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Bologna people watching

Posted on April 30, 2015 by

People watching in Bologna was refreshing. Renowned for their frank, no-nonsense attitude, I found the Bolognese a nice, unassuming, welcoming bunch. Our permanence was short, but it gave me the distinct impression of a city fundamentally at ease with itself, … Continue reading →

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Red roofs and ochre arcades

Posted on April 27, 2015 by

It is often said that Bologna is la dotta, la grassa e la rossa or the erudite, the fat and the red. Erudite, for its university had been established in 1088 AD, making it the oldest in the world. The fat, … Continue reading →

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Where the vita isn’t dolce.

Posted on April 23, 2015 by

There are, in every country, in every language, words that have a deeper, more profound meaning than the mere concept they define. Take, for instance, Balaclava: in British English, might be a garment used by bank robbers or motorbikers, but … Continue reading →

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The alpine tunnel for the afterlife.

Posted on April 21, 2015 by

It wasn’t supposed to be dug this high. The idea, originally, was for the tunnel to be at least 400 meters lower, at an easier 1000 meters of altitude, where it could’ve been used almost all year round, but that … Continue reading →

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Out of season, again.

Posted on April 16, 2015 by

This is the second and last post of a series that I dedicated to mountain villages caught in the ‘low season’, when tourists have already gone or aren’t there yet. In the first post I visited Gaby, a village in the Lys … Continue reading →

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