Posts Tagged ‘Italy’
History of St Joseph’s Day: Why not more popular?
HISTORY OF ST JOSEPH Today, March 19, is Saint Joseph’s Day, or the Feast of St Joseph. It is celebrated by the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran Churches worldwide. The terms feast and festival are often used interchangeably and often refer to a religious holiday. What is the history of the holiday and Joseph himself?…
Read MoreItaly Tour: Pisa in a Day
ITALY TOUR: PISA IN A DAY Can you visit Pisa on an Italy Tour in a single day? Yes, a day trip will do it quite easily. Cruise ships regularly dock at the nearby Port of Livorno. Pisa is a Tuscan city passed through by the Arno River, which also passes through Florence further…
Read MoreItaly Tour: Naples in a Day? Pizza!
ITALY TOUR: NAPLES IN A DAY Can you visit Naples on an Italy Tour in a single day? Yes, but you are required by law to eat pizza while there. I went to Naples by mistake (see my funny story here), but while there, I had some pizza; it was invented there. Very popular there…
Read MoreItaly Tour: Venice in a Day
ITALY TOUR: VENICE IN A DAY Can you visit the major sites of Venice on an Italy Tour in a single day? It is quite doable; “Venezia” is a smallish island.
Read MoreItaly Tour: Florence in a Day
ITALY TOUR: FLORENCE IN A DAY (OR TWO) Can you visit the major Florence sites on an Italy Tour in a single day? If you’re fast or have a bit more than a day. Think of Florence as “Renaissance with a capital R.” Thanks in part to the patronage of the Medici family, the city…
Read MoreItaly Tour: Rome in a Day
ITALY TOUR: ROME IN A DAY (OR TWO) A friend of mine is going on an Italy cruise and asked me to suggest some places for the cities where he has a day or two. I was going to put together a spreadsheet, but I didn’t have enough time, so I wrote this Italy Tour…
Read MoreMovie Review: No Time To Die
MOVIE REVIEW: NO TIME TO DIE This James Bond film is the 25th in the Eon Productions canon and the last for the actor Daniel Craig. But this is not the end of the almost 60-year film franchise. It is an above-average James Bond flick and an immensely satisfying conclusion to Daniel Craig’s tenure as…
Read MoreHistory of Quarantine
HISTORY OF QUARANTINE The word we use for restricting the movement of an individual or group of people to prevent the further spread of a disease is often, though mistakenly, used synonymously with the word isolation. Isolation, particularly medical isolation, is the separation of people who are sick with a contagious illness from those who…
Read MoreFlorence Galleria – Michelangelo’s David
FLORENCE GALLERIA – MICHELANGELO’S DAVID To see the statue of David for the first time takes your breath away. In the tribune at the end of a long gallery lit naturally from above by a glass cupola, this statue is the most beautiful man-made thing I’ve ever seen. You know the familiar story from the Bible…
Read MoreDriving In Italy
DRIVING IN ITALY It has been said that you have to be CRAZY to drive in Italy, but I tell you that you MUST be crazy to drive in Italy — preferably homicidal. Drivers here are assertive and aggressive, believing it is more blessed to take the right of way than to give it. Indeed,…
Read MoreSerendipity
SERENDIPITY I believe travel should be like a well-oiled machine. The saying goes that Mussolini “made the trains run on time” in Italy and I figured I should take advantage of that. Upon our arrival in Rome, I navigated us on the Airport Express train to Rome‘s main train station, the Termini. It is named…
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