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Beautiful, Busy Bassano del Grappa
On the way home from Trento (well, sort of on the way) we made a quick stop in Bassano del Grappa. I wanted to see the place because I have a family connection. My 12th great-grandfather was Jeronimo...
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48 Hours in Bolzano
The next stop on our Epic Road Trip was Bolzano, Italy (AKA Bozen). It didn’t start out very well. We stayed at a big hotel on the outskirts of the city that was basically an Austrian (or Bavarian)...
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48 Hours in Bologna
The next stop on the Road Trip was thoroughly Italian. We stayed in a really lovely B&B, just a few blocks from all the tourist sites, with an in-room air conditioner, for much less than the awful...
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The Amazing Mosaics of Ravenna
Ravenna is just about an hour from Bologna. Located near the Adriatic beaches, it is a small, sleepy city with a glorious history. It was the capital of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century....
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48 Hours In Trieste
The last stop on our epic road trip was Trieste, an Italian outpost of the former Austro-Hungarian empire. I was expecting another “Austrian” city, like Bolzano, but aside from Hapsburg architecture,...
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Milan: Frescoes at San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore
I’ve joined my daughter on her doctoral research trip to Milan and Bergamo, Italy for a couple of weeks. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it! I just had one day in Milan before hopping on a...
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Bergamo: The Citta Alta
Bergamo is like many Italian hill towns in that there is a cittá alta (high city) and cittá bassa (low city). The former is always the original fortified settlement, usually dating back many centuries....
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The Impossible Village: Cornello dei Tasso
My daughter’s research takes her (and me) to some really off-the-beaten track places! Yesterday, we took a local bus to a tiny village that clings to a mountainside about an hour north of Bergamo, not...
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Bergamo: Cimitero Monumentale
Today was yet another sunny day in Italy. So, I pulled up Google Maps and located the nearest large green space to our apartment in Bergamo. It turned out to be a cemetery. No problem! Nothing like a...
View ArticleWhat if We Just Up and Went?
The ex-FSO and I have often discussed the idea of a “gap year” after he for-real retires. While we love our little house, we now understand (thanks in part to pandemic telecommuting) that we are going...
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