Category Archives: Italian matters

Florence in winter is a delight. You can get even into the Uffizi without queuing. Stand quietly in front of your favourite paintings or frescos for as long as you like without crowds around you all the time.  And when … Continue reading →

Well, that isn’t supposed to happen. Heavy snow in Florence before Christmas. The city cut off. The airports closed. But there are far worse places to be forced to stay a couple more days than planned. The galleries and the … Continue reading →

This is fun. We’ve just got a small satellite dish installed and can now watch Italian TV (for free) while at home in Cambridge. The hope is that we pick up a little more of the language in a fairly … Continue reading →

Before it all becomes too distant, a few — ignorant and purely subjective! — wine memories from our Tuscany trip, mostly local wines from around Castelnuovo Beradenga. Quite a few of these wines are available from good merchants in the … Continue reading →

The meteo predicts that really good weather will start on Thursday. Since we are leaving on Wednesday, this is just a bit galling. This morning it was so cold we put the heating on again. And jazz last night in … Continue reading →

Here, everyone has to park outside the walls of the old part of the borgo. But that’s no hardship. There’s stone and gravel put down between the olive trees just under the house, and you park the car among them, … Continue reading →

It’s sunnier and warmer (for a while). This year the excellent restaurant just a few steps across the piazza has put a few tables outside, and will bring you a coffee and cornetto from when they open up in the … Continue reading →

We normally never watch breakfast TV, but here we have the excuse of trying to pick up more Italian: and actually it isn’t at all bad. The weekend show we watch has a nice slot visiting different places around Italy … Continue reading →

I need to reread Parsons’s next section before posting on that, as I’m not sure I have the measure of it (his book is evidently the distillation of a lot of thought over a long time, so it isn’t going … Continue reading →

Even in rainy first light, Tuscany is beautiful, and the views from our windows remain wonderful. But yesterday started bright and dry, and we set off over the hills via Asciano by backroads to Montalcino to meet up with a … Continue reading →