In our little village of Citta Sant’Angelo, signs of Easter began springing up weeks ago. Shop owners hung pastel construction-paper bunnies in their windows; grocery aisles overflowed with large chocolate eggs wrapped in foil; and bakeries started selling packages of colomba (a dove-shaped cake kind...
When buying a home in Italy, it seems you either find a skeleton of a house without so much as a kitchen sink, or you inherit the previous owner’s old life. For Luke and me, it was the latter. And yesterday was spent doing a...
Snowflakes the size of golf balls are falling outside the windows, and Luke, Charlie and I are huddled on the couch in front of the electric radiator. It’s been a month since we moved into our Abruzzo apartment, and the best decision I’ve made is...
Before my parents came to visit us in Abruzzo, I spent hours trying to research what we should do. I’d found lists of the best things to see, but got overwhelmed when looking at the map. There was just so much —and no suggested itineraries. Abruzzo...
Ever since I was a kid and saw the “I Love Lucy” episode where she stomps grapes, I’ve dreamt about climbing into a wooden wine barrel and doing the same—dancing and stomping with the Italian countryside as my background. And a few weeks ago, my dream...
It’s 7:30 on a Sunday night and Luke and I are the first customers to arrive at Perilli Arrosticini: a family-run restaurant famous for its lamb skewers. The staff are still in their pre-shift meeting, but one of the cooks waves us in, yelling “Benvenuto! Buonasera!...
Sitting on the terrace of our friends’ country house in Abruzzo, the morning sun hangs lower than it did two weeks ago. The last of the figs have fallen to the ground and the pomegranates have turned from green to pink. The cactus plants that...
It’s 8am in Atri, and Luke and I are sitting outside a cafe enjoying capuccini and a bomba: Abruzzo’s answer to the custard-filled donut. It’s market day, and it seems the entire patio of patrons is there to people-watch. ...
I’m on the brink of tears, looking up at the hilltop town of Orvieto. The sun is hanging above the honey-colored houses. A large church juts up from the old center. And I’m in a medical parking lot in the valley below.
I had driven 45 minutes to get here—my first time driving our stick-shift car alone, in Italy. I had traversed steep hills, downshifting and upshifting. I had gotten in and out of 5th gear and avoided the tiny Fiats whizzing past me on the highway. I had even figured out how to pay the tolls, and how to take off from a toll booth located on a slant, with the dreaded e-brake start.
Admittedly, I had never heard of Italy’s Patron Saint Francis until a few days ago.
The reason millions of pilgrims visit Assisi each year, Francis was the founder of the Franciscan Order, and a man who inspired thousands of followers to live a life of poverty, based on Jesus’s teachings. When he died in 1226, Pope Gregory IX quickly canonized him; and soon after, the Basilica of St. Francis (seen in the picture above) was erected in his honor.