by Lucy Gordan | Feb 18, 2025 | Travel, Travel blog
Since New York is nicknamed “The Big Apple”; Chicago “The Windy City”; Paris “The City of Lights”; Venice “La Serenissima”; Ravenna on Italy’s Adriatic coast should be “The City of Mosaics”. Ravenna’s heyday was during the Middle Ages when it became the capital of the...
by Lucy Gordan | Feb 14, 2025 | Travel, Travel blog
Numerous (at least 11) early Christian martyrs were named Valentine, which derives from the Latin valens meaning strong, worthy and powerful. Of these the Valentines honored in Western Christianity on February 14th are possibly two: Valentine of Rome (Valentinus...
by Lucy Gordan | Feb 7, 2025 | Travel, Travel blog
Rome is nicknamed “The Eternal City” thanks to her monuments from all periods of her history from the legendary kings to the present. They begin with the 7th century BC Temple of Vesta in the Forum and end with MAXXI, her Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by the...
by Lucy Gordan | Jan 19, 2025 | Travel, Travel blog
In 2004 Egeria di Nallo, a prolific author and professor of anthropology, political science, sociology, and marketing at the University of Bologna with a group of committed citizens founded the Association for the Protection and Enhancement of Italy’s Culinary...
by Lucy Gordan | Dec 8, 2024 | Travel, Travel blog
TREVISO’S RADICCHIO ROSSO: THE VENETO’S WINTER VEGETABLE Treviso isn’t a destination on a traveler’s first itinerary to Italy, but only a half-hour train ride from La Serenissima it’s definitely worth a day-trip especially enjoyable for medievalists, poets, and...
by Lucy Gordan | Dec 7, 2024 | Travel, Travel blog
Traditionally every holiday season the Morgan Library displays Charles Dickens’s only original manuscript of his novella A Christmas Carol. In drastic financial straits Dickens wrote the five “staves” or chapters of this iconic tale over six weeks at the end of...
by Lucy Gordan | Oct 18, 2024 | Travel, Travel blog
In 1300 Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed the first ordinary Jubilee or Holy Year, with the Papal Bull, “Antiquorum Habet Fida Relatio.” Since then, they have taken place either every 50 or every 25 years. 2025’s Holy Year is the 27th. It will begin on Christmas...
by Lucy Gordan | Sep 2, 2024 | Travel, Travel blog
THE APPIAN WAY: DIRECTIONS, SIGHTS, and GASTRONOMYOn July 31 UNESCO proclaimed the Via Appia or Appian Way Italy’s 60th World Heritage Site. Running about 300 miles south to Brindisi, originally paved with large lozenge-shaped basalt cobblestones, and lined with...
by Lucy Gordan | Jul 6, 2024 | Travel, Travel blog
Today, Rome’s Jewish population counts some 15,000 people and a dozen Orthodox synagogues. The liturgy of the largest and ornate Il Tempio Maggiore follows the Orthodox Italki rite as practiced by Italian Jews since early Roman times. In fact, Jews have lived in...
by Lucy Gordan | Apr 18, 2024 | Travel, Travel blog
On March 19 Sergio Mattarella, The President of Italy, inaugurated the new headquarters of the Foreign Press Association in what had been the Roman residence of former Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi. Some three weeks later the key speaker at the Foreign...
by Jan Ross | Oct 23, 2023 | Travel, Travel blog
My sister in law and I entered our wonderful hotel room at the luxurious Hyatt Virginia Beach and walked over to the beach view from the window. The curtain were closed so we opened them and our mouths literally dropped open at the fabulous view. We knew our room was...
by Scott W. Clemens | May 29, 2023 | Travel, Travel blog
Travel, even Epicurean travel, will inevitably lead you to some somber places. I have been to Normandy in search of Calvados and cheese only to find myself visiting World War II battlefields and cemeteries. I explored Manila and came upon another sobering military...
