SAN GIMIGNANO, Italy – In the brisk air of a November night, I sit with friends and sip a glass of wine. My eyes wander, looking out as the sun sets over the green Italian countryside.
There’s a certain charm to a walled city sitting atop a Tuscan hill. It’s a feeling that cannot be matched.
It’s [...]

ROME, Italy – Visitors don’t need days to see the major sites to gain a new respect for the capital of Italy. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but you can see it in one. From aqueducts to roads, the Romans were ahead of their time and their influence can still be felt on society [...]

FLORENCE, Italy – For a spell, it seemed like the climbing would never end. Step after step, I wound higher and higher inside the great cathedral.Four hundred seventy or so steps higher, I had reached my destination and our reward – a magnificent view of the city from the roof of the Duomo Santa Maria [...]

PISA — It was late in the evening as we walked across the River Arno. The sun was beginning to set, and the evening sky was filled with all sorts of colors — yellows and reds and everything in between.
The evening commuter train from Florence dumped us off maybe a mile from the leaning tower, [...]

From my seat on the Airbus, I can’t say I felt like I was in Italy. Really, other than the fact that the stewardesses gave the safety instructions in Italian, I might as well have been in Schenectady, New York. Well, Italian safety instructions and the Alpha Romeo they were giving away. That’s not something [...]

I think it’s fair to judge the success of a trip by how sad you are to go home. I think this as I stand on a bus that will take me across the tarmac of Florence’s airport to the airplane that is waiting for me. And, I don’t want to go home, but go [...]

ROME, Italy – You don’t have to be a history major to understand the impact Rome has had on the world. From aqueducts to roads, the Romans were ahead of their time and their influence can still be felt on society today.But, the best part about a trip to Rome is that you don’t need [...]

This is Chapter One of my forthcoming book, Ten Days In Italy.
My eyes focused on the clock; I knew I was short on time. The Boeing 767 was still in the air, flying high somewhere over southern France.
At long last, Milan appeared on the video screen in the airplane’s cabin that displayed our plane’s location [...]

ROME, Italy – You don’t have to be a history major to understand the impact Rome has had on the world. From aqueducts to roads, the Romans were ahead of their time and their influence can still be felt on society today.
But, the best part about a trip to Rome is that you don’t need [...]

We went to Siena and San Gimignano today — a pair of smaller cities, but both very old.
The main church in Siena — known as the Duomo — is absolutely amazing. It’s huge, but they actually planned to increase the size of the church and you can see where they planned on [...]