(Click on each image to enlarge it.) 17 May 2013, 3:03 p.m. – Milano The nightingale is singing in my courtyard and the sun is shining. The air is fresh after yesterday’s downpour and wind. The sound of the canalside traffic comes in through my courtyard windows as the city bustles. I’m waiting for the [...]

Having spent the morning walking all over old-town Nice, on the jewel-toned Riviera coast of France, it was time to eat a bite… or maybe a hundred. Miriam and I passed many little cafés with people sitting in front of grand, black buckets of just-steamed mussels. It was an enticing choice that we didn’t resist. [...]

Who can identify this birdsong? Granted, the video’s not great; it’s not intended to be. Just close your eyes and listen to the sounds I hear in my courtyard, most of all, that wonderful, lyrical birdsong that thrills me. There can be sirens and trucks, and conversations between canalside revelers. Kids can be playing nearby, [...]

WHERE are these being grown right now?! The tomatoes are like sugar candy and the nespole are exotic after apples and pears alone. And they’re so beautiful together! The food alone could keep me here…

After sitting inside all day working, by 6:00 p.m. I had to get out and take a walk from here to my beloved Duomo. I had arrived late Tuesday evening, spent Wednesday getting settled and hadn’t yet been to my favorite landmark in town, 2 miles away from my apartment. I must always go to [...]

CAN ANYONE HELP ME IDENTIFY THIS STONE? Weighs 2 lbs., 3 oz. and is 5.75″ long. Botryoidal in formation. Overall deep blue-green in color. Central, circularly-radiating ochre-colored cores within each sphere. Found on Haida Gwaii, (Queen Charlotte Islands), off the coast of British Columbia. Doesn’t seem to be scratched by steel. (Click on each image for [...]

Today, under sunny, blue skies, 34 foragers showed up at Seahurst Beach for the Urban Foraging Walk organized by Sustainable Burien. We browsed for edibles between the shore and the woods with master forager, Melany Vorass and hadn’t gone even two feet before the first few edible “weeds” presented themselves for our sampling: horsetail, salmonberry, [...]

The alarm went off at 4:15 a.m. so I could get up on a cold night and watch the moon and its light on the water change with the lunar eclipse. The sky started out pretty crystal clear, but advanced into thin clouds. I was just shooting with my old, little Canon G9, so I [...]

Ignite an early enthusiasm for being on two wheels. Teach “bike sense” and street smarts to little ones. Gather people from the community for fun, conversation, fresh air and healthful exercise. These are the goals of Burien’s Bike “SaFaRis” – Safe Family Rides, launched by the enthusiastic, former Burien City Councilmember, Sue Blazak. The first [...]

Visitors to the show were required to sign a release form. They might become quite disturbed (read: freak out!) when walking through the pitch-black tunnel titled “Dirty Corner”. Milan is hosting the work of internationally-renowned artist, Anish Kapoor, at the city’s newly opened “La Fabbrica del Vapore” – The Steam Factory – and also at [...]

The next time you eat sausage, thick pork chop, sauerkraut, polenta, hot mustard and horseradish, think northeastern Italy. Delicious and nothing like what Americans think of as “Italian Food”. Rovereto is not far from both Austria and Switzerland and the influence is clear in the food. Certainly, the buildings have more painted, decorative facings, but [...]

Milano is a fashion maven’s paradise: Prada. Dolce & Gabbana. Armani… etc. But dresses and handbags don’t interest me much. I’d rather have knives and scissors. I’d rather have tools for making things. I’d rather have a well-crafted implement. A girlfriend wrote to me last night and mentioned G. Lorenzi Coltellinaio on Via Montenapoleone, and [...]

A few months ago, I heard for the first time about the “trulli” of Alberobello, in the Puglia region at “the heel of the boot” of Italy. After my initial glance at images, I knew that the town had to be added to the itinerary of my South Italy Tour. The trulli are a photographer [...]

It’s no joke that I’m in the “presidential suite” at the Palace Hotel, in the region of Calabria, the town of Catanzaro Lido. The waves of the Ionian Sea are rolling in just off my private balcony. I could throw a stone (hard) and it would land in the water, on the other side of [...]

Haven’t you always heard of “the straits of Messina”? Today I took a train from Taormina, about halfway down the east coast of Sicily, up to the northeastern point of the large island, at Messina. I wondered how this would work, since my train ticket included going up the northwest-facing shoreline of Italy. There was [...]

It’s the layering of history, so pervasive throughout Italy, that stuns me every time I make a turn and come upon some incredible, very old site/sight. It usually leaves me speechless. From Wikipedia entry: “The Ancient Theatre of Taormina (“Teatro Antico di Taormina” in italian language) is an ancient greek theatre, in Taormina, southern Italy, built early in the seventh [...]

Along the eastern shore of the large island of Sicily, south of Messina, in view of Mt. Etna to the west, lies Taormina high above the shore of the Ionian Sea. It offers ancient Greek history and contemporary souvenir shopping. Mediaeval stone buildings and current luxuries. Whether one walks behind the tour groups along the heavily-trod [...]

“Contrasts”. That word describes Palermo best of all. (Probably in more ways than I’ve yet discovered.) Contrasts in style, in degree of polish and repair, in level of “refinement”. The juxtapositions are jarring at times in Palermo. The “Quattro Canti“, the Four Corners were “laid out on the orders of the Viceroy the Duke of Maqueda between 1608-1620 [...]

In short, I love Palermo, and look forward another visit. It offers plenty of dazzling sights to wow any visitor. But it remains “unpolished” (to my eye). It is genuine and without pretense, as were the people I was fortunate to chat with. I traveled in the south of Italy having heard many comments about [...]

Veal guts were caught in my teeth. Coming back from a day trip up the hill to Monreale, I got off the bus at Piazza Indipendenza and started walking home to my B&B. Off on a low side road, I saw smoke and smelled grilling meat. “Milza“? (Sicilian, cooked organ meats.) No. It was skewered [...]