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.

Renting a villa in Tuscany gives you a unique opportunity to see lots of medieval reinactments as well as food festivals called sagre, the plural of sagra. Who doesn't enjoy eating fresh local food expertly prepared all'aperto (outside) in the summer?

Gloria over at At Home in Tuscany has been accumulating information on all the big festivals in Tuscany, so there's a few pages you might want to bookmark: July Medieval Festivals & July Sagre in Tuscany.

The mouth waters...

You see, the Guardia di Finanza, Italy's tax police, are allowed to carry guns, and often do. They are also allowed to stop you, flash a badge, and ask to see a receipt from a store you've recently exited. (They seldom shoot people over the lack of a receipt--but you never know. I just like talking about the tax police wielding weaponry. It seems excessive somehow.)

In any case, the reason I'm reminded of this is that my friend Frank has just been busted in Pontremoli over a lack of receipt for a 2 Euro slice of pizza:

...my server says due euro. I slap a 2 euro coin down and grab the pizza but don't take the cash register receipt, as I am fresh out of hands to grab it. I join my wife and dog outside and a tourist comes up to me and says something I can't quite hear. I ask him in English if I can help him and he shows me his identification FINANCIAL POLICE.

Frank played dumb and talked his way out of the fine. Frank could probably talk his way out of anything--in English. There's nothing like a barrage of several thousand words of English coming at you non-stop as a ploy to confound the constabulary--but taking the receipt is a whole lot easier in the end.

Last Friday the Temple of Romulus, located in the Forum of Vespasian, was open for viewing. Like the Pantheon, its interior was preserved when the pagan temple was converted to a Christian church in 527 known as the basilica of Santi Cosma e Damiano.

Eternally Cool has information on the program.

Another aspect of the Archeologia d'Estate is Moon over the Colosseum – Flavian Nights". Pay 15 Euros and you can take a night tour of the Colosseum.

Enjoy Rome at night, if only to avoid the heat.

Surely he jests! But no!

The Committee of Freedom, (an Orwellian moniker, doncha think?), has nominated Mr. Berlusconi to follow in the famous footsteps of the likes of Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner (née Countess Kinsky von Chinic und Tettau) and Yasser Arafat.

Evidently, Silvio Berlusconi had a key role in bringing peace to Israel and Palestine. Long may that peace hold.

If you read Italian, you can learn all of Mr. Berlusconi's key roles in promoting world peace and prosperity by going to the Silvio Berlusconi Nobel website. A couple of warnings are in order before you click on that link, however. First, there's loud and cheesy "music" you can't turn off. Second, you'll encounter frequent bolding of text, a trademark of Berlusconi nemesis (and nemesis of many) Beppe Grillo. (Or maybe bolding is an Italian political trait. I'll get back to you on that.)

Perchè Silvio Berlusconi? Perchè indeed.

We were passing through Fossombrone in the Marche region on our way to the Autostrada at Fano when we decided to stop for lunch. Passing a wine shop, we took a quick detour to see if they had anything local and interesting we could take home. The owner waxed poetic about the quality of the Marche's liquirizia, a black licorice digestivo. She then went on to tell us about the local specialty "cocktail", the: Moretta.

Moretta is one of those local coffee drinks. You could call it a type of Caffè corretto, coffee "corrected" with a few drops of liquor. But its way more complicated than that. Preparing a proper Moretta is a ritual, we found out after lunch.

After eating, we, like the rest of the locals, made our way to the little bar. I ordered a Moretta. Everything stopped while it was in production.

The barista took a metal steamer and put small but equal amounts of liquirizia, brandy and rum in it. Then she cut a hunk of lemon rind and dropped it in, along with a bit of sugar. She steamed the whole works until it was quite hot, then poured it into a small glass, which ended up half full. Then she removed the lemon and tilted the glass under the espresso spout and let fresh coffee gently slither down the sides of the glass; a proper Moretta is made in layers--liquor on the bottom, coffee on top.

By golly it was good. I suspect the strong steaming the booze got took some of the alcohol out of it, because it didn't have an overwhelming alcohol bite to it.

Ask for a Moretti if you're so inclined next time you're in the Marche near the coastal town of Fano. You won't regret it. Even Martha tried it, and she hates coffee.

The Italian blog Zoomata is featuring a incendiary article called "Financial Crisis Puts Italian Men to Work at Home." It turns out Italian men, even unemployed ones, don't help out with the housework very often. The statistics sound real bad. Did you know that " 90% (of them) have never, ever, ironed a shirt"?

Whoa! Those thugs! They should be shot, eh? Forget the fact that I've had two wives (at different times, thank you very much) and neither of them had ever ironed a shirt as far as I know. I figure it this way: you make busy work, you finish it yourself.

Ok, so I'll admit: I'm not one of those wimpy men who say, "awright, I'll share the housework with ya, 50-50. It's only fair."

Because, frankly, it's not.

I'd be willing to become less "Italian" and do some housework if women would sign up to some simple demands to even the playing field. Here they come.

Numero Uno: When you're driving home from work and your little Chrysler/Fiat is making some ear-splitting noise that wasn't there before and sounds expensive, you are heretofore forbidden to say, "Honey, the car is making a funny noise and I really need it tomorrow to go to Milano for a business meeting. Could you rebuild the engine tonight after you do the dishes and iron my taffeta business meeting gown?"

Numero Due: When the faucet is dripping, instead of crying out "Honey, water is dripping from the kitchen faucet" you get out the wrench and plan on 45 trips to the hardware store to get the correct fitting just like you'd expect him to do. Whoever is bothered by something fixes it. If there is no "women's work" then there can be no "man's work" either.

Numero Tre: If you want an olive from an unopened jar, you'll just have to crack the darn thing open using the edge of the marble sink. I'm watching the Giro d'Italia until laundry time.

I suspect there'll be comments. Have at it.

If you were in Italy right now, chances are a multicolored, undulating snake of a line of bicycles with professional riders is coming to a blocked-off country road near you soon.

It's the Giro d'Italia--where the leader wears pink. Proudly. The Giro started in 1909, and took off some war years, so this is the 100th anniversary for the race. (Find out more from an informative Transparent Language blog post)

The Giro is pretty much at the height of its modern popularity right now with the inclusion of Lance Armstrong in the bunch. Lance probably won't come close to winning the Giro this year, but if you really want to follow vicariously the life of a professional bike rider, you can sign up to twitter and follow @lancearmstrong.

Lance is racing for free, and has over 3/4 of a million people following him as he rides the Giro. He tells great stories of the journey, 140 typed characters at a time.

Yesterday, for example, while peddling along with the peloton, he spotted the owner of a pensione he had stayed in when he won the Settimana Bergamasca in 1991. Mamma Elena was standing by the side of the road watching the race and waving a sign. Later, she visited him in his hotel in Bergamo. She's now a spry 89 years of ago. Lance even left us a picture of her.

Imagine, these days you don't have to rely on traditional media to tell you second hand stories of personalities who tour the globe.

We'll be in the lovely Val Chisone when the gang comes through on Tuesday. You can follow us as we watch and interview some fans of Italian bike racing: @wanderingitaly and in this very blog, of course!

After a cold Tuscan winter, we've returned to our house in the Lunigiana. It was chilly last night. We turned on the heat, which heats the water in the taps and also provides warm water for the radiators.

Nothing happened. When I turned the knob to get pressure into the system like you always have to do upon returning, water poured out onto the floor.

What follows, although a true Italian miracle, is the reason our returns are so tense until we know everything is working. Try to find an Italian plumber at 5 pm on a Friday! You might was well start counting the number of days (or weeks) you'll have to shell out for a hotel before one is likely to make an appearance. It's chilly at night here, and the thought of cold showers wouldn't entice us to stay at any cost.

Luckily, our neighbor Francesca knows everyone. One phone call and some pleading was all it took to get a plumber to agree to take a look.

He had a fine look. He mumbled something about needing a technical expert. Then, then minutes later, he got the thing to work.

You can't always count on miracles. But it's safe to say that your vacation rental will be better maintained than a house that stands empty half the year.

Evolution is an interesting thing. Festivals, for example, evolve with time. They take a core idea and modify it through the years using whatever technology is available to make a point in the most dramatic way.

Take the Scoppio del carro for instance, a Florentine festival held on Easter morning. You see, Pazzino di Ranieri de' Pazzi declared Jerusalem a Christian city during the First Crusades by rasing a banner on the defensive walls. For this, Godfrey IV de Bouillon gifted him with three chips of stone from the Holy Sepulchre of Christ which he took to Florence in 1101 and used to light the "new fire"--Christ risen at Easter.

The fire was distributed to the citizens, first on foot, then on a cart. Eventually, the cart became the launching pad for some spectacular pyrotechnics:

During the early 1500s, the "colombina," a dove-shaped rocket holding an olive branch in its beak, was introduced; it is ignited by the holy fire, setting off the entire cart in a series of explosions.

Today you can see the festivities of the Scoppio del Carro in front of the Baptistry of St. John near the Duomo in Florence. There's will be flag throwing, holy water sprinkiling and...

...a sizzling cart that explodes with fireworks, the latest incarnation of this Easter celebration.

See: Italy Magazine: Scoppio del carro in Florence for a detailed look at the festival and some video of it. See Easter in Italy for more Easter events.

That's good news for sanity, both in law and on the highways. Driving in Italy has never been as sluggish as recently, and a law aimed at merely increasing revenue is not a good law.

Read more: Speed traps 'must be signposted'

No, I wasn't referring to the refrigerator of your villa rentals. It will be clean. The "fridge of horrors was a term evidently used by Italian Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia to describe an icebox full of counterfeit "Italian food."

''It will be a refrigerator chock-full of all the disgusting things we have confiscated in the last eight months,'' Zaia explained, stressing that only around one out of ten products with labels claiming to be Made in Italy are actually authentic. ~ 'Fridge of horrors' to be unveiled

The haul of disgusting goods includes: pasta produced in Arab countries, Chinese mozzarella and United States 'parmesan'.

Ok, I'm with the Italians on the one item with which I'm familiar. Parmesan is indeed disgusting. It is used as salt by us Americans to ad zip to intentionally undersalted food which we've been tricked into believing is good for the ol' ticker.

It is expensive when used as salt. It may even be expensive as cheese from Parma, since there's a glut of the stuff in Italy these days.

I've been thinking lately of some of my favorite places in Italy. I'm hooked on Perugia, and Umbria in general.

Perugia is the capital of Umbria, but the population is only 160,000 or so. The city is large enough to be interesting (I spent a month learning Italian there and wasn't bored a single minute) and small enough that you never feel the grit and crime of a big urban center.

I haven't yet found a bad restaurant in Perugia. Sitting in the courtyard of the Hotel La Rosetta when the waiter brings out the whole baker's pan of truffled lasagne and cuts a piece for you is one of life's great experiences. There's nothing like a cloud of truffled steam wafting toward your nostrils. Really. La Rosetta has a huge menu that changes daily.

There's lots of ancient stuff under Perugia. In fact, if you end up in the Piazza Partigiani (there's parking there), you get to the city center via escalators that whisk up through a castle and some medieval houses, now underground. How cool is that?

And even though panhandling reaches an apex during the Perugia Jazz festival, it's worth it. Yes, there are lots of concerts you'll have to pay for--but there's a whole lotta music for the popolo in the piazze too.

If you have a car and 25 friends, you can stay in the Castello di Magrano, too. That'd be a treat!

Here's an interactive map of Perugia.

Happy travels.

So, where indeed does God vacation? Of course you know. Italy. At least according to Jerry Springer, tabloid talk show host and once mayor of Cincinnati who was born in the East Finchley tube station in London.

So where does Jerry Springer vacation in God's country?

Every summer we go to Italy. We love the Tuscany area, Capri, Portofino, the Amalfi Coast. We love England and Cape Town in South Africa. We've been to Italy maybe 20 times. It's probably where God vacations—the people, the scenery, the food, the opera—to go and see Italian opera in Italy outdoors is really nice. ~ 'Where God vacations,' Italy never gets old

You can see opera in Verona "all'aperto", meaning outdtoors in the open air, and in this case in the Roman Arena. Many of the ancient monuments of Italy are given over to modern performances. I've even seen "Our Town" performed in Italian in a roman theater in Sardinia. God probably got more of the Italian than I did though.

Imagine--you're driving through your favorite Italian town when the light turns yellow. You've got time, so you head into the intersection and Wham! the light turns red so fast it makes your head spin.

Italy's T-Redspeed system uses three cameras to catch intersection miscreants in 3D detail and store their license plate numbers so they can be billed €150 for each infraction.

It's a high tech system that Stefano Arrighetti is responsible for programming. But alas, Stefano got greedy as Bernie Madoff and most of his victims.

He's accused of conspiring with 63 municipal police, 39 local government officials, and the managers of seven different companies in order to rig the system so that it would turn from yellow to red quicker, therefore catching more motorists. The scheme was uncovered by Lerici police chief Roberto Franzini, who noticed that the number of violations were too high for a period of months and, after some investigation, found that the lights were changing way sooner than usual. ~ Italian red-light cameras rigged with shorter yellow lights

So take care when approaching traffiic lights in Italy.

And I'm glad that all this was discovered by someone from Lerici. Lerici is a Ligurian coastal town on the gulf of poets that has a nice castle to visit. You can take a boat to the Cinque Terre from Lerici if you are so inclined, and there are no stop lights on that particular stretch of water...

If you've ever been to an Italian bank--maybe to change money--you are probably not surprised at the title of this blog post. You could spend that amount of time just making a withdrawal, or at least I feel that way sometimes. It's one of the things about Italy I'm not particularly fond of. Italians seem to take it in stride. Well, most of them anyway. It's probably always been like that.

But, the story here is that an 82 year old man went out the wrong door and ended up downstairs, next to the boiler. He was forced to stay there over the weekend, when the bank was locked up. No water. No food.

He survived--something he might not have done if he'd actually had to make a deposit.

I can't wait to return to Italy (in two months) to see what the reaction is to the new administration's fresh start. I'm sure my neighbors will be giddy with delight. I hope I have some money to spend.

Barack Obama's choice for U.S. Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, said a strong dollar is in the United States' interest.

"Geithner, in written response to questions from the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, said a strong dollar "is in America's national interest." ~ Obama's strong dollar policy may be for real

Yippee. Rent a house in Italy and celebrate with your Italian neighbors. They'll probably bring the Franciacorta, Italy's best sparkling wine. If not, go out and get a couple bottles. We travelers deserve it.

"Alitalia's seamless transition this week from being a national carrier to a private airline was a ''brilliant'' operation, according to the head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA)." ~ Alitalia transition 'brilliant', IATA chief says.

Italian bureaucratic ineptitude is legendary, at least if you read reports on the web. But somehow, things do get done. Sometimes even well.

New blood is changing the way the airline operates. And that's exactly what Alitalia needed.

I think about that as the US government considers throwing vast amounts of money at bankrupt car companies who have been making cars that nobody wants for quite some time now, all because those kinds of cars make a lot of profit when you happen to sell one to an unsuspecting owner. I'm driving one now. It's a rental. It's also the biggest piece of crap I've ever driven.

It's big, but inside they've managed to make it feel cramped. The glove box is right in your lap. The doors are the thickness of a bank vault, which is supposed to make you think you're safe, but are hard to get around when you try to exit the darned car. The horn honks when you try to lock the doors. It also honks at other times when it deems necessary. Who asked for this "feature"? Certainly not the neighbors.

So what does America do when the Big Auto Makers fall into an intellectual design coma? They throw out the life preserver! Here, more of the taxpayers money! For free! Just keep up what you're doing! But do more of it!

Why not let them die and let people who want to serve the public take over and make a better product that people actually want?

I'll take an Alfa Romeo any day. And as soon as Alitalia has a non stop flight from San Francisco to Rome, I'll take that, too.

But I did my part at our own neighborhood Festa di San Silvestro. Yes, we gathered for a communal meal. I made the traditional cotechino with lentils, a dish meant symbolize the dream of increased wealth, combining the "coin-like" appearance of the lentils with the "richness" of the pork sausage.

Well, it tasted darned good, so I'm just going to blurt out, "2009 is gonna be a heck of a year!"

I hope you're going to travel. It's important to get out into the world before someone figures out an easy way to ruin it (for profit or for religion). We need to make some friends out there, wherever "there" is.

So head over to the Lunigiana, my neck of the woods in northern Tuscany, for some panigacci. Heck, have a huge Fiorentina, a beefsteak bigger than the plate. There's lots to discover out there. I've spent lots of time in the Lunigiana and haven't even seen all of that, much less all of Italy.

Airlines are dropping their idiotic "fuel surcharges" and maybe that'll convince you to rent a villa with some of your friends (one of whom is a great cook) to explore Italy together. Life doesn't get much better.

You can quote me on that.

Italia Oggi has just released its ranking of Italian provinces for quality of life. This year, Siena topped the list, rising from 6th last year.

So, if you're thinking of a long term stay in Italy, you can do worse. Then again, top quality-of-life often tracks with price-of-food-in-a-restaurant.

Ravenna rose from 8th to 5th. Ravenna is often overlooked by travelers, but if you haven't seen the mosaics, you should.

The biggest rise was Rome, which zomed from 58th to 29th position on the hit charts.

Falling hard was Bologna, which remains one of my favorite cities to visit, which went from 4th to 21st.

Source: Siena tops quality-of-life charts

Mario Resca, who was head of McDonald's in Italy for 15 years, has been appointed as Italy's director general of museums and archeological sites. It is not such a popular appointment.

An online petition against the appointment has so far attracted more than 1,000 signatures from art curators and museum directors around the world.

Mr. Resca hopes to get more visitors into Italy's museums, as well as attract manufacturers to Italy's heritage sites as backdrops for product launches, according to the Telegraph.

Does Italy need to "sell" its heritage? Why, you'd think; after all, "the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, attracted 1.5 million visitors a year when the British Museum in London pulls in close to six million."

The thing is, the population of Florence is around 364,779, according to Wikipedia. London has 20 times the population. So, in light of the size of their respective cities, the Uffizi does quite well. What would happen to Florence if the number of visitors to the Uffizi quadrupled in a year? I wouldn't want to be there in the crush, I'm telling you.

Besides, the British Museum is free to all.

You could get a lot of people to chow down on Big Macs if they were free. There's no secret to that sauce in today's world.

Benzina is gas for the car to Americans, Petrol to Brits, and the price of it is going down. Yahoo reports that recent prices have dropped to 1,17 euro, the lowest in three years.

With the Euro falling, all those economic disasters might be converging to make a vacation to Italy reasonable again. Of course, it's all a wash if the recent downturn is affecting you as well, but hey, where would you rather be in miserable times, enjoying a decent 2 Euro bottle of wine in Tuscany, or paying $9 for a bottle of miserable sludge in America?

I'd go with Tuscany. Trust me on this.

Some folks from the US don't like getting questioned about their politics. It's easy in Italy, because the rejoinder to the question "how could you have elected Bush" is "how could you have elected Berlusconi?" In other countries it's not so easy.

Of course, we've just elected someone else. Someone, hopefully with some ideas of his own. We hope we can travel again freely, without fear of the dreaded question.

Mark Morford has a list of things Americans should do now that Bush is out of the way. Number one on that list?

Make new travel plans. Yes, the dollar has been gutted. Yes, a small espresso and a day-old sourdough baguette on the rue du Cherche-Midi will cost you 97 dollars. But if you can afford it, now is the time to plan a new European jaunt.

Why? Easy: No more foreigners scowling at you. No more shameful hiding of your nationality. No more telling that hot barista you're from Canada and instead confessing, with even a tiny hint of Obama-infused national pride, "I'm American," and then not apologizing and feeling that sickly sense of mortification. Incredible.

If you've never heard of Mark Morford, well, you should read his column. His prose is lively. He minces politicians, not words.

Here's the whole column: Sodomy and gratitude: Nine perfect ways to prepare for the End of Bush. Can you believe it?

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.

One of the great things about Italy is that you can hop an inexpensive train and be in a completely different environment in a few hours.

Yesterday we basked in the Tuscan Sun, today we're off for the watery Disneyland of Venice, where we've been invited to get our hands dirty in a mosaics workshop.

Tourists have many options for keeping arts alive. You don't have to be traveling every moment to have a meaningful European vacation, just stay put a while in your Italian villa and check out the painting classes or the fresco classes, or take part in a photography walk in a park. These are the things the fast travelers never see. It's a whole new world, a whole new way of travel. You can actually meet the locals, and complain about your politicians, or your health care or the lack of it.

When I was a boy scout, many eons ago, we had an exercise that was meant to demonstrate to us what we could see in a very small area if we looked hard enough. A yard square was marked off with string and we were to catalog whatever we saw while staring at that tiny patch of earth. It's really amazing what you will find if you stop a while and pay attention to detail. Bugs, mostly, but still...

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.

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.

But today I went to the other market, the one that actually works for folks instead of against them. The food market.

Here's what ticked me off about food markets and money. Until today I was under the distinct impression that only folks in the US were strickened with the disease that leaves a shopper so mesmerized by the sight of food merrily trundling down the conveyor belt that s/he forgets to get the money out or start writing the check to pay for all that stuff.

Data collected as recent as this morning shows that my assumptions were incorrect. This odd behavior is apparently not, as I had assumed, genetic.

For there before me with her 346 items piled high in front of her was an Italian woman who for all the world looked like she had been struck dumb by God, as if her blood had thickened and her limbs become clogged and perhaps she would, at a moments notice, start speaking in tongues. To the ceiling no less.

In short, her behavior, as her culinary choices passed by the red laser and were entered into the database, was quite similar to American politicians during a crisis; stand there and look completely idiotic.

In any case, by the time the last few gigabytes of her enormous number of items were safely stored in the database, a line had formed that threatened to extend to the trippa department, and hardly anyone wanted that.

It was at this moment that the women came out of her trance and finally began searching for her wallet. It is absolutely amazing the number of places it might have been but wasn't. People were talking. Some were playing chess. One had been removed with some sort of liver problem and was resting comfortably in (the) hospital.

I, of course was observing. I had had the foresight to purchase prosciutto, a cured meat which isn't likely to go bad in check-out lines.

You can't go wrong with prosciutto, salami, and some hard pasta. These are odd and disturbing times. You need things that last long and cost little. The prosciutto was on sale. €10 a kilo. It almost made it all worthwhile.

Americans tend to shun anchovies, especially the salted ones. But they're in there for sure, lurking sublimely in good Italian regional cuisine.

But now, elements of anchovies will start appearing in American orange juice, according to Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern (from a story in the NY Times).

Sure, you won't get the fishy taste (they say). But what will happen to the price of anchovies once they start using the oils in them for fad nutrition? Will the price of the flavorful little fishes skyrocket, as corn did when they started using it for biofuel?

Is it time to invest in anchovy futures? Will Italian cuisine suffer? Is this a US plot to punish Italy for its devotion to fine food in a time of declining living standards likely to crash further as normal, law abiding citizens are forced to bail out the failed mortgage schemes of greedy bankers around the world?

So many questions, so few pizzas.

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.

Then, like all addictions, mine grabbed me by the throat. I went to language school.

And eventually, I bought my own place, a rural hideout. An apartment that was once an attic where my downstairs neighbors once hid from the Nazis.

Then, slowly, I began to learn the ways of my neighbors. Good grief, they seemed self sufficient! After all, in my Palazzo there are men who produce both white and red wine, a woman whose salamis have won competitions far and wide, a man who makes honey, and several who make polenta.

No, I don't mean these guys sit and stir a copper pot of polenta for hours. I mean they plant little plots of corn, dry it, and mill it this time of year to have it for the winter. (They make their wives stir the polenta, I'm pretty sure.)

But what are the cannons that blast away day and night in my little Tuscan village this time of year? Well, I found out soon enough, but you'll have to view my video. (Yes, Fellini would roll over in his grave. Maybe twice.) It's about those cannons and their relation to the corn the locals make into polenta: Cannons and Corn.

One of the great things about staying a while at your destination, as you do when you rent a villa or have your own "casa vacanza", is that you have a chance to learn of all the weekend festivals in your immediate area.

Signs of them will be all over town. Some, like sagre, celebrate food. La Sagra di Porcini, for example, would likely consist of celebrating all the ways the local folks prepare funghi Porcini, or Porchini mushrooms. You'd sit down for a communal meal with all manner of Porcini dishes you might order at the little kiosk they've set up. It never costs much, and the wine will be local and cheap.

Other festivals celebrate the good times of the past. Lots of festivals, especially in Tuscany, include Renaissance-garbed Sbandieratori, the flag throwers. You see a young practitioner of the sport above, doing his thing in the city of Aulla in the Lunigiana.

Hotels are for businessmen who have no need for this interesting cultural manifestations, I figure.

There are lots of differences between the two countries, but one thing I've noticed: there's hardly any indication you've entered a German town. I mean there's no sign giving the name of the town when you enter, and no sign saying you're leaving, as you always find in Italy. Things get confusing at times.

And then there's the food, of course. I have to say, the food we've had in Germany this trip has been quite good, especially for the weather we've had, which is cool and drizzly. Venison stew with spetzel, rabbbit tenderloins with grilled quail and foie gras. Not bad stuff. But still, we can't wait to get to Italy, to get back a little lightness and freshness to the food.

I have, in fact, produced a short video about the bags Martha and I are taking to Frankfurt (and beyond) tomorrow, along with some information on why we pack them as we do. You can view it on YouTube.

Oh, and the suitcases are loaded with clothes that have been rolled rather than folded. They come out less wrinkled that way, we've found.

Most people with a four year old computer and a digital camera could make a web site that sucks for free.

The Italians paid €100,000 for the symbol of the web site. It was that red and black letter "i" with an oversized, green letter "T". I'd have done better for less than half of that.

Manfredi Ricca, business director at the Italian unit of Interbrand, says the government's renewed efforts should focus on clarity of vision and that an "orchestra conductor" should be hired to coordinate the ideas of all of Italy's government entities and regions.

I'd take the job, but I've had a hard enough time trying to get a residence permit, being a journalist and having the San Francisco consulate as my local consulate and all. I've never conducted an orchestra of web developers either, but if they're throwing money away, I can get nice oboe sounds from just about anyone.

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.

Later, of course, there came reports that some adulterated wine existed that actually could do you some harm, all sold in boxes costing less than two euros.

So how do you counter the bad vibes that wine in boxes has received? You put good wine in those boxes.

Italy’s Agriculture Ministry has recently stated that some fine Italian wines that receive government quality guarantees will be allowed to be sold in boxes. We're talking DOC wines here. DOCG wines will evidently be bottles only for a while.

You gotta admit, wine in boxes makes sense in a polluted world faced with dwindling and increasingly expensive fuel. According to a NYT op-ed piece, "A standard wine bottle holds 750 milliliters of wine and generates about 5.2 pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions when it travels from a vineyard in California to a store in New York. A 3-liter box generates about half the emissions per 750 milliliters. Switching to wine in a box for the 97 percent of wines that are made to be consumed within a year would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about two million tons, or the equivalent of retiring 400,000 cars."

Since every one of those 400,000 cars seemed to be at rest on the freeway today, I'll pledge to do my part. A box of vino is on the shopping list.

I'd head right on over to the local tourist office.

Tourist offices in Europe have become increasingly sophisticated over the years. A visit to one isn't limited to grabbing a map and a couple of brochures. Today you are likely to find that a reasonably sized tourist office maintains a list of local guides, who, for a fee, will take you wherever you want to go and explain it all to you.

Yes, you can be independent travelers and still go on a tour, except you're in charge of what you see and how deep you want to go into the details.

You're also likely to find a list of local festivals. In summer, there's a sagra celebration pretty much every weekend in rural areas. A sagra celebrates a particular food in season; it may, for example, celebrate watermelons or prosciutto, and a whole menu will be built around that food. You step up to the window and order whatever you want to eat (or point to random things on the printed menu if you don't know the language and you're not a squeamish eater).

Attending a sagra is a fine way to meet the locals and eat cheap. In the Lunigiana, where I have a house, it seldom costs us more than 15 or 20 Euro for a full Italian meal at a sagra, incuding, usually, a bottle of local wine. In America, I couldn't buy the wine for that price.

And the locals love it when I pull out my camera and start photographing the food. Well, they laugh anyway...

Now I've heard that a church in the Wyke Regis area of Weymouth, Dorset, which dates from 1172, has a 16th Century stone pulpit which is dangerous.

Why? Evidently because you might be an older person on drugs who approaches the pulpit in dim light and tries to climb the stairs to it--and then you might fall and crack your noggin. That's the part the government is interested in.

The church had to make a pledge that they won't allow persons like the one above to be tottering in the pulpit. It was that or adding an unsightly guard rail.

As a traveler, I'm outraged. It seems that if a monument isn't entombed in scaffolding then they've added something cheap and unsightly to something previously photogenic.

Don't government folks have better things to do?

See: Lord protect us! Now even the pulpit in a 836-year-old church falls victim to health and safety.

Hold on, those biometric passports are "fakeproof." Any government that's spent lots of money on them will tell you that. But...

New microchipped passports designed to be foolproof against identity theft can be cloned and manipulated in minutes and accepted as genuine by the computer software recommended for use at international airports. ~ ‘Fakeproof’ e-passport is cloned in minutes

Yep, when you try your darnedest to eliminate folks and their common sense from your security chain, technology trumps technology. Forever.

Here's the thing. There are three thousand passports in circulation that could be used to arm anyone willing to pay with a (machine) valid passport. That's because these 3000 passports were formerly in a van transporting them from a high security printing facility owned by 3M . The van's driver just had to stop for a candy bar. Meanwhile, his partner stayed in the unlocked van. Guarding the passports. He gets this visit from some armed dudes...

And the passports are gone. Poof.

So I take back what I said about common sense. Perhaps it's in recession. Heaven knows everything else is.

Anyway, 3000 passports are out there ready to be cloned.

Have a nice day.

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?

We used to have to send letters to a hotel and hope they spoke enough English to write our names in the reservation book (and hope they actually received the letters in time). Not any more.

In any case, did you know that if you stayed at a place like La Rocca, you can hire someone with a falcon and a few hawks, and he'd come over and start slinging meat into the air so that you could photograph the hawks' agility in picking it from the ether before it hit the ground?

Or you can hire a group of Sbandieratori, those flag throwing dudes who perform in Medieval costume with drums and flags and even do a show with cross-bows aimed at a candle.

There are so many possibilities for interesting travel these days. And just think, your contribution to the free spirits who do these kinds of activities not only keeps good people gainfully employed, but keeps the old traditions alive as well.

As a tourist, you have responsibilities you know.

Yes, they get you in airports, poking through your undies for liquids in excess and wanding your body like Tinkerbell unfettered. But what happens on the mean streets when you're not looking?

"THE FOREIGN Office have admitted a `serious breach of security' after thousands of blank passports and visas were stolen from an unlocked white van in Greater Manchester when the driver nipped into a shop to buy a chocolate bar." ~ 3,000 blank passports stolen

Meanwhile, we take off our shoes before boarding an aircraft for "security."

Usually, when we're looking for a culture's take on food, we look at what the top restaurants serve. We get a good idea of the evolution of the local cuisine that way. "Garden Snail foam on Frozen Peach Coulis" the menu says, and we know we're not just eating, but about to have an out-of-palate experience, a deconstructed, reconstructed walk in the garden--with pests.

But I figure that what a culture feeds its young-uns says a lot more about how they view and value particular foods. I was thinking this very thought his morning after What Babies in Italy Eat appeared in the blogosphere. Here's the menu a pediatrician offered for a babies first non-milk meal:

-vegetable broth prepared with one carrot and one zucchini -a few spoonfuls of powdered rice cereal

AND

- one teaspoon of olive oil

Ok, we're back to Ferran Adrià, or at least David Scabin over at combal.zero. What the baby is clearly eating is deconstructed risotto primavera.

Mothers elsewhere probably wouldn't think of adding a dollop of olive oil to their child's menu. Especially in the US. Especially in the very center of the US, where I'll be off to next week, where the food is always fried and the butter is always fake. You don't want to overdo the cholesterol, you know.

American babies could do with a little olive oil. Maybe they'd grow up to cook right.

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

I'm grouchy. You see, I'm preparing for a trip--so I went out and bought a few things.

Actually, I didn't go out, I just ordered from my computer. Smart, no?

Well, today the stuff came. A spare battery and tiny SD card for my camera, and a bluetooth mouse. You can see it in the picture--if you have good eyes I mean.

Let me help you. The stuff on the left represents the shining goodness of what I bought. The stuff on the left is dwarfed by the crap on the right. That's the impenetrable crap that the stuff on the left came in.

You will remember I said I ordered mail order. What is the use of all that crap on the right if I don't need a fancy display case to come wrapped around my stuff?

Does anyone know? I mean really, it sort of sucks the giddy feeling right out of you when you open your box of travel goodies, thinking of how they're going to make this trip better than the last, and then you realize the chain saw is outta fuel and you'll have to make a run to the gas (petrol) station and pay an arm and a leg for the liquid that powers the chain saw, which is the only way to get the enormous plastic package off the memory card that's the size of a postage stamp.

And just think, all that packaging crap is likely made of petroleum, too.

I could do without it. Know what I'm sayin'?

These are odd times. Americans are strapped for cash, no more so when they decide to go on a European vacation in the Euro zone, where US money is worth a fraction of what it should be worth.

I travel anyway. It's my job. What really strikes me about this period of financial unrest is how inexpensive Europe was before. For example, I've leased a car for my fall trip, fully understanding that diesel fuel is about twice the price in Italy as it is in the states, mostly due to various taxes. But the car I've chosen is supposed to get 68 miles to the gallon. So I'm paying the same as I would if I were traveling in the US with a car that gets a decent 34 miles to the gallon. Today I'm even, a few years ago I'd be way ahead.

Another aspect of the current "crisis," as some are calling it, is that folks are moving from hotels to reantal properties. They're often cheaper per person than hotels, and you usually have to stay a week in a place. It just so happens that a week is just about right for that trip to a big city like Rome and Paris. But a week in Tuscany or Provence isn't enough. Instead of moving from hotel to hotel every few days, you just visit the places a short drive away. Bingo, more savings! Even in my little corner of Tuscany, the Lunigiana, I can stay for months at a time and never see (or consume, as is the case with my favorite restaurants) what I've planned.

Here's some food for thought on the topic of vacation rentals vs. hotels. Travel writer Lara Dunston writing in the Cool Travel Guide asks a couple of questions: Are hotels going out of fashion? and Hotels or apartments: what you'll be choosing when you next travel.

Venerable Arthur Frommer even weighed in on the issue recently in his blog: "If you are three or more persons traveling together, the rental of European apartments is the way to go. You not only spend less than at hotels of a similar quality, but you enjoy far more comfort and space, and the ability to prepare an occasional meal at low cost (spaghetti-and-meatballs, anybody?). Your only "disadvantage"? The need to spend at least a week per city, which is probably the smartest decision in any event for a trip to Rome, London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, and the like."

So there you have it. Happy travel planning. Ready to check out some villas?

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.

I suppose by now you've heard that the Reggia di Caserta, a Bourbon palace outside of Naples, will be gussied up to look like the Vatican for the upcoming film "Angels & Demons."

Caserta Palace is qualified. It has played the Vatican before, in Mission Impossible III.

The Vatican bunch didn't much like the idea of a Dan Brown inspired movie being shot on their property, so they nixed the idea of inside filming of the Vatican and various church locations in Rome.

The move has garnered a great deal of negative comments from the internet crowd on the side of "free speech." But hey, it's their property, they can do with it what they want. That's freedom too, no?

(Read Vatican Flips Off Tom Hanks for a strong affirmation of my position from a person who's a friendly basis with neither side, and you won't be left wondering why.)

In any case, the Vatican's move is undoubtedly good news for the economically ravaged Campania region of Italy, where garbage is still an issue.

The 18th century Caserta Palace is imposing, not only for its 1200 rooms (When you visit you can't see all of them, of course), but for its lush grounds and waterworks designed by Luigi Vanvitelli. There's also a huge Presepe, what we would call a "nativity scene" or really an "extended nativity scene" complete with folks chowing down on spaghetti.

If you look closely enough, you'll also see some "faux" work. For example there are tiles that resemble marble or other stone that saved some the builders big money on a project that would always threaten to break the bank.

If you've rented a place in Campania on your vacation, make sure you take a trip out to Caserta; the Palace is a short walk from the train station.

Here is the link for visitor information: Guide to the Royal Palace and Park of Caserta

I spend a great deal of my time traveling, writing and photographing the amazing things I witness on the road. Let me tell you--when you can't tell if you're working or playing, then you've discovered a fantastic way to make a living. I write and edit Europe Travel for About.com and blog at Wandering Italy.

I've been traveling in Europe since the early 70s. I've done archaeological work in Puglia, Sardinia, and ancient Corinth as well as on Ometepe Island in Nicaragua. I've cooked at Italian restaurants in Sardinia and in the Napa Valley.

5 years ago, while looking at property in Umbria and feeling the big pinch, I turned around and bought a much less expensive house in darkest Tuscany, the Lunigiana. Not many tourists know it. When you see one, it's likely he's lost on his way to the Cinque Terre.

The bottom line: I couldn't be happier. My neighbors are wonderful, the house didn't cost an arm and a leg (just the leg actually), and it's inspiring for an American with a laptop to live in a 16th century building in rural Italy with gardens, streams (well, raging torrents these days) and...wi-fi.

What are my hopes for this blog? Well, here's where you come in, gentle reader. This focus of this blog can change with your comments. I'd like the blog to function as a meeting house for a community of folks anxious to see the European side of the earth and participate in its culture, festivals, and rejoice in the incredible diversity of its food.

So your comments will determine to a great extent which direction this blog takes in the months to come. In the mean time I'll talk about food and give you some recipes for dishes easy to make in a rental house kitchen and I'll let you know what's likely to be available in local markets. I'll talk about the most interesting festivals you might want to attend while you're on the continent. I'll give you some idea of what it's like to live in Italy on a half-time basis--and if you prod me enough, I'll even tell you why I think driving in Italy is far more enjoyable than driving in the US. (I've heard some people are even afraid of driving the Amalfi Coast. C'mon!)

So leave a comment, even if it's just to say "hi." Let's get this thing rolling!