One of those defining facts of life that I learned early on in Italy, was that everyone loves gelato. Rain or shine, tough bikers and housewives alike, winter or summer, havign a gelato is just part of everyday life, a unifying ritual of sorts. This creamy heaven was invented by a member of the Medici court, using milk, honey and egg yolks and nothing has been the same since. It seems almost a divine right of sorts, to deny someone...

  This brief history of Florence takes a look at one of the most influential cities of Northern Italy. Located in the central Italian region of Tuscany, Florence is one of the most breathtaking cities in Europe. Celebrated as the birthplace of the Renaissance, The city is home to many of its most famous artistic treasures. Consequently, it’s a popular destination for tourists and students of art and culture. Beginnings...

Originally published in the NY Times In the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy, Lake Como deserves its reputation as a playground for the wealthy. Virtually deserted during the winter, the wishbone-shaped lake awakens from its slumber in mid-March when glamorous crowds begin flocking to the pretty towns clustered around its midsection: Bellagio, Menaggio, Tremezzo, Varenna. But in recent years, the city of Como, on the lake’s...

Marsala Image courtesy of centurion-magazine.com Sicily’s most famous wine, Marsala, was first made in the city of that name on the western coast by the Woodhouse firm, which also sold Port. Like its sisters Port and Sherry, Marsala is a fortified wine with an alcohol content of around twenty percent. It is usually made from native Grillo, Catarratto, or Inzolia grapes. John Woodhouse established his winery at Marsala in 1796....

Quiet, cultured, and ever-so-slightly rough around the edges, the Cilento Coast may not have the polish of its Amalfi neighbour—but that, Maria Shollenbarger discovers, is precisely its allure. Image courtesy of europa.eu I’m riding shotgun in a BMW X5 that’s barreling down a coastal dirt road in southern Campania; at the wheel is Angelo Granito Pignatelli, the 13th prince of Belmonte. On one side, wheat-coloured bluffs ascend to the...

  The ingredients used to make gelato – water, milk, eggs, cream, sugar, cocoa, fruit, nuts and more – determine its high nutritional value. Those ingredients provide proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals, making gelato a wholesome food. Milk provides high-quality proteins and calcium; lactose and saccharose, the sugars used in gelato, provide a good source of energy, as do fats. Gelato also contains vitamins A and...

If you are visiting Tuscany for the first time you will quickly realise that it is no ordinary holiday area, but a total escape into a timeless way of life. Tuscany is largely rural and the landscape of cypresses, olive groves and vineyards are renowned throughout the world. For centuries Tuscans have preserved their surroundings, culture and traditions making this one of the most fascinating regions of Italy.   The climate in...

Tuscany is one of the most beautiful regions in Italy, with medieval villages sitting atop hilltops, rolling hills covered in vineyards producing some of the best wines in the world and farmhouses and villas at the end of cypress-lined lanes. There are many things to see and do in the region, the hard part is really deciding how to fit everything into the days you have at your disposal! Seven days is right about the perfect amount of...