Archaeologists always fight the idea that they are mere treasure hunters. Archaeology, they want to believe, is a science. Yet you know more about the elite of any country's past than you do about the working class; you know more about the grand temples and wide streets than you do of the houses and kitchens of the people.

So it wasn't suprising that 500 wooden cases (some marked as cases of matches) came to light from excavations in Rome that took place in 1939. Much of the haul was of "instrumentum domesticum", or objects from the domestic life of Romans, things they used daily. You can see what I'm talking about in a picture gallery from la Repubblica.

I always recommend folks go to Ostia Antica. Unlike Pompeii or Herculaneum, Ostia was a port city and the excavations reveal apartments, a fire station, and other architecture of folks that toiled for a living. Ostia is also more lightly touristed, You can get there by taking the Metro at Piramide. Look for Roma-Lido. Get out at the Ostia Antica stop.

Next week is a big week. Tomorrow, the 25th of April, is Liberation Day in Italy. Our local market town, Sarzana has already had its solemn celebration, a small gathering with lots of big speaches.

After a stop in Panzano for a book signing, we'll be off for Puglia.

I love Pulia. I did a 7 week archaeological survey there. I'll never forget the olive groves. In summer, each tree was treated with great care, the ground below swept of living things, each tree sitting in the center of a raked sand zen garden.

The constant and droning song of the cicadas reminded us that it was summer.

Then there was the wine. Primitivo, a relative of Zinfandel, was a favorite. The owners of many restaurants served carafes of it at a ridiculously low price for something so incredibly flavorful. It was like the spirit of the land itself.

As we walked along the land making up the heel of Italy's boot, we were amazed at the cultural artifacts that had surfaced. You'll find evidence of Greek settlement, Roman coins, clay pipes and other treasures underfoot. It was hard to make sense of though--after wondering why artifacts appeared in profusion on one side of a stone wall while nothing at all showed up on the other, we started to pay attention to modern culture--and found it was common practice to sell soil so that olive trees could be grown just about anywhere you could get a truck to. That meant you'd find Roman coins in beach sand on a hill 30 km from the nearest beach. Hmmm.

So the trip should be very interesting. We'll be staying at the Masseria Li Mennuli. We'll have a great time making videos and pictures; letting you know what to expect from a villa rental--and how much more rewarding it is compared to staying in a hotel. Join us for the trip.

For real time updates, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm @wanderingitaly.

Yes, according to the latest poll, Sicily has been awarded the 2009 BIT Award for being the best destination for Italian tourists.

I'm not an Italian tourist, but I like Sicily, too. Despite my usual loathing of Baroque architecture, I really found myself liking the Sicilian version, which you'll find expressed in the city of Ragusa, shown in the picture, a stunning hillside package of narrow lanes, unusual balconies, and some darned fine restaurants.

Someday I'll return to further explore the Val di Noto in the southeast, especially the oddly named town of Scicli.

That's right, Ancient Rome is getting cleaned up. There will be new lighting. They will clear away the scaffolding, the fences, the open digs.

It will again be easy to snap a picture in the forum. You won't have to find the odd angle for your shot that doesn't feature modern metal gleaming in the Roman sun.

They're even thinking about an "integrated" illumination system for the entire area. I suspect that means that during an outage, there will be blackness for as far as you can't see.

In any case, it seems to me that they're taking the Rome out of Roman. To me, Rome has always been a bubbling cauldron steaming with life, some of it ancient. I'm actually afraid that cleaning it up will make it all seem so sterile, so unreal.

Rome, unlike other capitals of culture, is based upon the working stiff. The cuisine comes from low off the hog. In fact, most of it comes from inside the hog. Get yourself over to the Testacchio district to find the "real" Roman cuisine.

So if follows (if you're still with me) that the archaeological sites should feature ferile cats, open digs, overgrown pathways and grumpy guards.

Heck, it's Rome for Pete sakes.

(Read more: Improvements to Ancient Rome)

Where do you buy your nativity scene characters? One of the most famous markets is found on a narrow, medieval street in Naples known as Via San Gregorio Armeno. Police shut the place down recently, after a battle with unlicensed vendors. All is well now.

You know what the favorite characters are at the moment? Obama is in. So are Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy.

Yes, Italians have been known to add recent characters to their presepe. The photo above shows a section of the enormous 19th century nativity scene found at Caserta's royal palace, which includes Italians of the day sitting down for a meal of pasta.

You can visit Caserta as a day trip from Naples.

I miss real milk. You know, the kind the milkman put on your doorstep. It had the cream floating on top. In winter, if you forgot it, a gush of milk, captured as if part of an ice sculpture, rose majestically out of the bottle top.

We don't get that anymore. Despite the legendary, mythological reproductive powers of the milkman, he's gone. What we get when we drive our SUVs to the supermarket has the cream taken out and other noxious chemicals put in.

But slowly, insidiously, there have been appearing fresh milk kiosks in the north of Italy.

Dang, it's what I like about Italy. When the economy tanks, people look for even better things to put in their mouths instead of cheap, industrial diluted things.

Anyway, the picture above is of a fresh milk stand in Brisighella, in the Emilia Romagna, a nice place to visit.

Pinerolo has just got one too, according to the Bella Baita Blog, and it dispenses the real thing.

Did you know that humans are pretty much the only animal that partakes of other animal's milk? Strange, eh?

Two groups make up the interesting parts of Pitigilano's history: the Etruscans who left interesting cuts in the soft tuff or tufa in the woods around Pitigliano, and the Jews, who were trying to escape the brutality of the Papal State to the south and who left a legacy underground.

You can visit the caverns cut underground near the Synagogue, which was restored in 1995, which includes cisterns, baking ovens, wine cellars and narrow, ancient passageways.

You can also take a drive in the country and see the strange "roads" called "Vie Cave" on the signs (although they're almost certainly not roads) that are cut through the soft rock by Etruscans. These aren't far from Pitigliano.

You'll also want to taste the wine of the region, especially the Bianco di Pitigliano, a dry white and one of my favorites in Italy. It goes quite well with fish.

Take a look at the picture above. Doesn't it make you want to be there right now? It was taken in November.

The medieval core, on the side of a hill facing the harbor, with its winding, narrow streets, is still a compelling and exhausting walk. At the top is the chapel dedicated to sailors all over the world. Take the kids. There are plenty of statues inside with featuring folks holding the severed heads of saints and sinners alike.

And the day, finally, was warm and beautiful, with threatening skies that just hung a in the sky, deep gray-blue, to enhance the photos. Travel in the off season can be a challenge, but for me a usually rewarding one.

There's a lot to be said about the country life in northern Tuscany, especially in the fall. People are generous with their hand-made products. Yesterday, in fact, a neighbor gave me a bottle of his wine. It was quite good.

But it's hunting season here in northern Tuscany. Aha, not so good. Well, at least it's noisy. The weapons seem sort of semi automatic. Lots of lead is getting burried in the fertile soil around here by the sound of it.

So heck, we're going to take off to southern Tuscany tomorrow. Monte Argentario to be exact. We're going to be staying at La Trappola.

Monte Argentario looks a whole lot like an island on the map. But if the map is detailed enough, you'll see that there are little bits of land that attach it to the mainland of Italy. Sea currents and the Albegna river conspired to produce silt that became what the Italians call tomboli. So now Monte Argentario is attached, and between the tomboli is a marsh, a protected home to lots of animals you can frolic with photographically if you have a long enough lens.

The place has been occupied for a long time. First mention of it dates back to 24 AD, but there are prehistoric caves as well. It's in the sea lanes, so ownership of the bit of land has passed through a lot of hands. It should be a great place to discover.

Plus, I'm looking forward to staying in a villa just like some celebrity from Roma. We'll have reports, photos, and even some video of the place for you. Stay tuned.

On a trip from Altopascio, a town along the Via Francigena pilgrimage route and famous for its bread, through Pescia and over to Montacatini Terme, we discovered Vellano, pictured above.

I'm not saying we were the first people ever to see Vellano. I mean, there's a rental property and one of those perfect trattorias beside the road that passes by. By perfect I mean a place to eat that has simple wooden tables and traditional chairs and overlooks the valley and the monastery that sits along the edge of town. You know the food is simple and good, like all the food in Italy that's not gussied up for foodies.

So I thought I'd take a few pictures and find out what's going on in town by checking the web when I got home.

And so far I've found nothing of the town's history or attractions. Nada. Zilch.

But it's beautiful, no?

So now I know we'll have to go back some time and eat at the trattoria and ask some questions. Or, better yet, you can hop in your rental car and see for yourself, and tell us all about it on your personal web page or in the comments below.

After all, this morning a Euro can be had for $1.28. Just this spring a Euro would have cost you $1.60 or so. That's quite a decline in a short time.

There were plenty of porcini up north in the street markets of Torino yesterday. We spent a day at the recently remodeled Reggia di Venaria Reale, north of Turin. The royal residence was built in the mid 1600’s and had fallen into disrepair. I can report to you that the restoration is wonderful. But...you know, there's just so much glorious excess your eyes can take in a day, and if you see everything, they say you've hoofed it for 1.5 kilometers.

The day itself was fabulous, and ended with a glass of wine sipped slowly in the main piazza of the town of Venaria Reale. What surprised me was that the town outside the palace was a very interesting place to stroll, with restaurants and cafes that featured decent food and drink for a reasonable price in excellent surroundings. A stroll down the main street was better than a stroll in the Palace gardens in fact, at least this time of year.

Don't hesitate to came to Italy in the fall. It really is the best time to visit. Rent a villa, bring a great book, buy a good bottle of Barolo and you won't mind being stuck inside when it rains.

Until the Barolo runs out that is.

I like this city. It's not as expensive as other large Italian cities. You can get a big lunch for under 10 Euros.

The variety of cheeses here is incredible. Piemonte region produces over 160 different versions.

The spine of the city starts at the train station and goes north until you reach Piazza Castello. There are lots of arcades to duck under if the weather turns inclement.

But what I really like are the huge piazzas lined with some of Torino's best architecture, where people stroll or sit on a bench and people-watch, or go to a bar for an aperativo and a bite to eat before dinner time rolls around at about 8.

I'm staying in the Lingotto center's new Meridian Art+Tech Hotel, designed by Renzo Piano. It fits the original idea of Lingotto as a high-tech manufacturing facility perfectly; lots of steel, glass, and enough odd-looking lights in my room alone to brighten up a city the size of Cleveland.

It's hard to find a town that's noted throughout the world for not one but two of its food specialties: In this case Parmiggiano Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma, cheese and ham.

Everyone knows them. Every country capable of making cheese from cow's milk tries to make Parmigiano Reggiano, usually under a name that suggests the real Italian name, like Argentina's Reggianito, but doesn't shout it for fear stiring up the ire of the Italian discoverers.

What got me started on this topic was today's lunch. I made risotto with sausage. It took a while to cook and I was starving, so, while I had the Parmigiano on the cutting board, I thought "now's the time to break off a chunk..."

So I did. I ate a bit, then thought lustily about the slices of prosciutto in the fridge.

Now the prosciutto is another story. There was a special on it at the market, making the price a tad less than €10 per kilo. So my etto, or tenth of a kilo, cost a single Euro. That's darn near a quarter pound of something that usually costs upwards of $30 a pound in the states.

For me, this might be enough reason to come to Italy and stay in a vacation house for oh, maybe a year. Ever few days I'd sit on my sun-drenched terrace with my chunks of Parmigiano Reggiano and my slices of prosciutto and my glass of wine from the €2 bottle and thank my lucky stars I was here. Every third or fourth time I'd drizzle some (real) balsamic vinegar (from nearby Modena) over the cheese and eat it with good, forno a legno bread and that ham...

But did you know there's another ham that's even more refined than Prosciutto di Parma? It's called Culatello di Zibello because it comes from Zibello, a town near Parma (so close that it's sometimes called Culatello di Parma).Culatello is essentially the inner muscle of the leg from which prosciutto is made. It's "lightly salted, stuffed into a pig's bladder, tied to give it a pear-like shape, and then hung 8-12 months to cure in farm buildings in the Bassa Parmense," according to Kyle Phillips, About.com's Italian food guru.

What I like is the story of how Culatello came about. Seems this guy was making typical prosciutto. The aim when you're curing prosciutto is to salt it as little as possible so that the flavors of the meat dominate, not the saltiness. Well, he used too little for the conditions, and the ham started to go bad. Since he knew it went bad from the outside, where the bacteria get in, he "saved" his ham by cutting off the outer meat and salting and curing the inner muscle. He aged it in a cave and when it was done a whole new taste and texture of prosciutto was discovered, which we now call Culatello, or "little backside."

The sardine can of an elevator whisks you and many others up to dizzying heights in seconds, then lets you out on the roof of Milan's vaunted Gothic cathedral, where you can wander amongst the Gargoyles, statues and carvings for as long as you can stand it.

It's not as easy as being taken up high on an elevator and dropped off though. You're actually walking on the roof tiles in many places, and there's more stairs to climb and uneven surfaces to walk upon. Yet it's worth the trouble. Walking on a cathedral roof is not something you get to do every day. And hardly anyone falls off...

The last time I visited the Duomo it was shrouded in scaffolding for restoration and cleaning. Now only advertisements mar the view of the front of the cathedral. How long they'll stay there is anyone's guess. Filthy corporate lucre and the modern church seem to have a darn close relationship these days.

Spaghetti all'Amatriciana is easy enough to make. In the US we have to substitute pancetta for the guanciale unless you happen to live in a big city where you can get lots of international raw ingredients.

Eternallycool sends notice that Italy has released a stamp celebrating the Sagra degli Spaghetti all'Amatriciana, the feast day in Amatrice celebrated at the end of August. I'm sorry I missed it.

I can't wait to get my hands on one of these stamps though. It'll be one of the few I've heard of that I'm anxious to lick.

I don't either. The interior of Sardinia is filled with countless treasures, including the people who carve out a living there. Unlike Berlusconi's fake Roman baths, there are actually working Roman Baths in the Sardinian countryside, still fed by hot springs, that you can be awed by without having to spend 10 Euros for a beer if you get thirsty.

As I grow older I find myself more and more attracted to the countryside (all the more reason to rent a house, apartment, or villa there). Here is where traditions are upheld. Here is where the McDonalds and Starbucks aren't.

A recent trip to Sicily, we visited the workshop of a master Sicilian cart builder who lives just outside Agrigento. He's trying to maintain the Siciilian cart tradition while the government pleads it has no money for a museum to house these icons of rural Sicilian life.

While big business gets the government money, the little things that show the true colors of a place get pushed to the back burner. E sempre cosi, the Italians say, "It's always like that."

The purpose of this ramble is to tell you to get out into that wild place and dig hard for treasure. Like the winter truffle, they don't come easy but they're worth a fortune. Whether it's the interior of Sardinia or the coast of Sicily, or the hidden treasures of Campania or the Lunigiana, seek them out before they put in a starbucks to replace the barista who knows the location of the Etruscan tomb that nobody visits.

And by all means take a virtual visit (at least) to Is Cannoneris forest, Sardinia.

Sometimes I really don't understand folks who think they can "do" Florence (or Rome, or Paris, or Piano di Collecchia) in a small fraction of a day.

Florence is a beautiful small city, and has a lot to see. I made a mistake by not staying one or two nights there. I thought I could visit and see everything in a few hours. Wrong !!

Thus speaks Mr. Apa Kabar. Yes, Apa, wrong indeed. You see, not only didn't you see much, you forgot to take a minute (or an hour) to let it all soak in, like those guys in the picture. Sometimes a destination requires a particular state of relaxation to do it justice.

Last year we spent some time in a wonderful villa in the hills above Florence. A downhill walk took us down through narrow country lanes, pleasant and leafy, sometimes with stacked rock walls alongside--arriving at the Ponte Vecchio, pictured in the distance above, in a half hour or so. What a glorious walk!

I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm not much for Florence in the summertime. I didn't come to Italy to hear English spoken with the same frequency you might experience in, say, Chicago. I didn't come for the sweltering heat.

But in the off-season, Florence can rock. In a villa looking down on it, Florence can be the twinkling light on the horizon that makes your wanderlust seem like less of a disease.

Take time; see Florence right. Rent a villa. Take a look at a map of Florence's major attractions.Go to the Mercato di San Lorenzo, Florence's central market (it's near the train station) and get yourself something to eat at a trattoria (or something to take home to your villa).

Don't be like Mr. Kabar and think you can "do" Florence in a couple hours. Sheesh, Italians take that long just to eat.

High on a hill, Cortona is surrounded by the underground tombs of the Etruscans, who built a great society in Italy by the 6th century BC.

It is widely believed that the Etruscans were fun loving folks who lived in great joy amongst a plethora of fine art. Of course, most of what we know of them comes from fantasies derived from their funereal art, so you can come to your own conclusions.

Here's what the Heritage says about their Italian collections.

Here's more information on the MAEC: The Etruscan Academy Museum of the City of Cortona

While you're there, take the short walk out of town and visit the hermitage of Le Celle.

In Italy, lots of stores and services are shuttered in August, including restaurants. We Americans can't fathom why this is. Heavens, we'd be out there capturing the tourist dollars that flow in, then (forced to) take our two days of vacation in January.

Ok, so which culture is wackiest? My money is on the country with the high murder rate.

In any case, August is also the time that the great cathedrals are pretty much emptied of folks who support them. I don't mean the folks that gawk at the art and leave. I'm talking, of course, of the (mostly women) who attend and participate in mass and confession in the impressively huge structures.

Yes, cathedrals have always been bulwarks, rocks of salvation and all that, their towering steeples and bell towers reaching toward the heavens...

Well now they're making blow-up churches for the beachgoers of August. Italians have tried it once before, but Sardinian winds deflated expectations.

So if you're planning on vacationing along the Adriatic coast in the Molise region and see a big, rubber church anchored in the midst of those carefully arranged lounge chairs that mark Italian beaches, send a picture, won't you?

I cast my vote for scaffolding. You travel tens of thousands of miles to see some exquisite monument built 800 years ago and you expect to be able to click the shutter on your little pocket camera and get an accurate representation of its ageless beauty.

Instead you get scaffolding.

Take the Milan Duomo. Per favore. It's been swathed in my favorite skin since 2003. But the good news is that the restoration of its facade is 90 percent complete. Your camera might focus on a gleaming, white facade in six months time. Mark your calendar.

But then...they'll move all that scaffolding to the Bridge of Sighs (Ponte dei Sospiri) in Venice. Yes, the scaffolding they're working on now should be in place by September. The project is expected to take three years.

Sometimes, grimy is beautiful, don't you think? It sure beats scaffolding.

Imagine, 35,000 spectators crowding the stands, snorting horses awaiting the lash, dashing riders hot in armor glaring lasciviously at the queen.

Imagine the carnage as carts overturn.

Half of the 35,000 people in the stands will be rowdy animal rights activists protesting the work chariot horses have to do to pull a modern-day, pumped-up gladiator around the sharp turns of the Circus.

What I didn't realize though was that this whole deal is going on in other countries. France and Jordan have hosted races. Evidently there are specialists who make chariots and hulks who drive them.

If it goes on in Rome, it'll happen no sooner than October of 2009. But then there's the famous Italian bureaucracy to consider. And if Berlusconi's immunity from prosecution wears off and the head of state ends up in the hoosegow, who knows?

Don't buy tickets just yet. Do read: Chariot racing could return to Rome

Salt and Tobacco were once state monopolies in Italy, hence special stores for them.

Today you're unlikely to find salt, but you will find tobacco and associated products. What's important for the tourist is that local bus tickets will also be sold "at the tabacchi" in Italy, as well as other things that might be needed for a journey, like a local map for instance.

The picture above is from an old Sale e Tabacchi in Montespertoli, in the heart of Florentine Hills (Colli Fiorentini ) Chiani country.

Mantua is one of my favorite cities in Italy. Hardly anyone gets off the Rome to Florence to Venice beaten track to see it. It's too bad.

Three lakes surround Mantua; the approach by car into the city is dreamlike. If you want your destination to send you back in time, this is the place.

But once inside the old city, there's plenty of diversions, from great food to street music to historic monuments. The area of interest--Piazza delle Erbe to Piazza Sordello--is compact and flat, easy for strolling, with plenty of bars to stop at for that "happy hour" glass of wine when the mood strikes.

Like Palaces? Palazzo Ducale, the home of the Gonzaga family from the late 13th to early 17th centuries, is worth a long visit; there are over 500 rooms.

Like linear journeys? Parm, Montua, Verona, and Vincenza are almost in a straight line, and close enough to make a great itinerary of northern Italy's smaller gems. Of couse, the road doesn't link them in a straight line--but a traveler can't have everything, right?

I loved being in this verdant countryside, loaded with festivals. So, I bought a house there. A small apartment really. And no matter how long I stay there I never tire of the absolute beauty of the place. The Lunigiana is a walker's paradise.

The picture above is of Bastia Castle. I took this picture after exiting my house and walking down a gravel road for about ten minutes.

Bastia castle one of 160 castles that were built in the Lunigiana when it was a major player along the trade routes into the port at La Spezia in Liguria. The Via Francigena from Canturbury to Rome runs straight through the Lunigiana, too. Look for a confluence of rivers, and I'll bet you'll find a monastery or castle--or at least the ruins of one.

The picture was taken in spring. There was lots of snow this year, some of it quite late in the year.

The Lunigiana is located on a narrow bit of land with three valleys in the Apennine mountains in far northern Tuscany. Very few tourists set foot here. It is a bit remote. But the Lunigiana includes the marble towns of Massa and Cararra, and a visit to the mines above Cararra, combined with a scenic drive out to southern Lunigiana--perhaps to the castle town of Fosdinovo, where Eric Newby bought a house long after his imprisonment in the Lunigiana by the Germans recounted in his book "Love and War in the Apennines."

Sometimes I hesitate to recommend the Lunigiana to travelers; you'll probably have to learn a little Italian to get the best out of the experience, but it's worth it if you like natural beauty, castles and hill towns, and great food at inexpensive prices.

For a map and overview of Bastia Castle see: Bastia Castle Map.