If you’re heading toward Venice (Venezia), veer a little north to the charming town of Treviso (Tray-vee-zo). A canal-town much like Venice, inland and smaller scale, Treviso is not overrun with tourists so you get more of the flavor of small-town Italy. Wander around the walled historic center, grab a bite to eat on the [...]

“Affamata di Sapere” – “Hungry to Know”. That seemed like a meaty phrase around which to create a letterpress printing project. It was last year, in conversation with a friend here, that I had first heard that phrase and it leapt back off the pages of my notebook just two days ago. I knew I wanted to [...]

Mention a trip to the “Italian Riviera” and one envisions palm trees, beaches, hot sun and relaxation. In fact, Russia had a heat wave that forced the cold polar air south to Italy, so it was very mixed and generally chilly weather along the Ligurian Sea in Italy over the weekend. When I was living [...]

In this neighborhood, Saturday is market day. A string of city blocks nearby is blocked off and filled to the brim with produce, fish, cheese, flowers, housewares, clothing… and people. It seems to be when everyone does their big marketing for the week, going home and filling their tiny fridges and cupboards with Italian veggies, [...]

(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 [...]

It’s been a pause, a respite from one endeavor so I could shift energies and surge headlong into others. I took a break from documentation so that participation could be intense and entire. And it has been. After the visual lushness of Prague last July, I returned to Milano for just a few days before [...]

  After a time of their love wrapping halfway around the world, about 7 months ago Jan moved back to the Czech Republic to marry and be with his dear Petula. Jan had become a much-loved “Burien Boy”, so I gathered mementoes from friends into a “juju bag” of good wishes and hopped a plane [...]

Saturday morning, 11:30. The church bell just tolled. Birds in the courtyard. A lovely, fresh breeze through the open windows. Sunny and warm. And someone in the neighboring building has been playing scales on a synthesizer keyboard creating the kind of repetitious, monotonous sound that makes me “fuori di testa” – out of my head. [...]

At 10:15 last night, I stepped out the front gate from the public courtyard of my apartment complex and headed north along the canal for a couple-mile walk. I crossed over the small foot bridge near my place, then glanced over and noticed a couple of older women sitting out on their second floor balcony, [...]

As a designer, artist and photographer, I can’t go anywhere without seeing Design, Art and Photography. Nice, France, complies wonderfully by providing a fabulous draw to my eye. The sights are inspiring and stirring. The things that catch my eye are: the signs of former times, contrasts, lush details, old/new, the hand of the maker, classicism/modernism, typographic [...]

Imagine making a cheesy pouch out of fresh mozzarella, then filling it with cream and mozzarella strands. That’s “Burrata“. “Burro” means “butter”, so it gives you an idea of the fatty, smooth deliciousness of this cheese! Burrata is a fist-sized, creamy cheese ball, and for those that don’t dare indulge themselves with a whole burrata, [...]

Happy Father’s Day to my own “Pop”, and to the other men that I know that get to say that they are “Dad”. Sunday morning, 10:00 a.m. Father’s Day. The sun is bright in my courtyard and I’m out enjoying a CUP of coffee (not a two-sip Italian shot). Since construction workers have been rebuilding [...]

Fresh figs are in at the Saturday street market just a couple of blocks away, and they share the display with the magenta-splashed Borlotti bean pods! I bought some of both green figs and black, and enough borlottis to make a pot of something. (I also bought some picadilli tomatoes, slender green beans, pickled onions, [...]

Mary was sitting there at her desk when I stepped into the little back room adjoining the chapel at Milano’s Cimitero Monumentale – the Monumental Cemetery. Now 87, she’s given her time for close to 20 years, assisting Padre Francesco with the mass, altar flowers and little details. We spent close to 2 hours chatting [...]

A bunch of friends and I met up for a lecture at 9:15 pm at the Design Library. I walked almost a mile along the canals and side streets to meet them there. Afterwards, we all went out for a bite to eat at 11:00, walking to the restaurant. We each ordered our own pizza [...]

Warmest congratulations to Glenda and Massimo! Congratulazioni! The two were wed on Saturday, June 9, 2012 on the hill of Cimiez, in the city of Nice, France, along the jewel-toned Côte d’Azur of the French Riviera. It was a fairytale wedding with a nuptial mass at the Monastery at Cimiez, during which the bride laid a special bouquet [...]

This is real Italian food. They’re not over here just eating pizza and spaghetti. And they’re NOT eating “Fettucine Alfredo”! (If you see it on a menu, it’s only there for the tourists.) The range of Italian food is so vast. It truly does change every hundred kilometers. And most of it is nothing like [...]

Standing in my skinny kitchen, washing the dishes, I heard a couple of women talking. I looked out my kitchen window and its security bars, across the long, common courtyard and saw two women chatting, five floors up, at the corner elbow of the building. This must be the Italian city equivalent of “talking over [...]

I was sitting in my room typing today and heard “snip, snip, snip.” I looked out my window into the little private courtyards to see a woman in her 60s, trimming in her garden which neighbors mine. I said “buongiorno”, and we started politely talking. We exchanged names, and after chatting a little bit, I [...]

When going into a new town, seek out the highest point from which to get the most sweeping overview. This will quite often guide your further exploration. In this case, I was back in Florence – Firenze – and planned to head back up to the top of the Duomo for my second time. It [...]