Chilly and rainy outside but warm and bright inside, Caffe Club was a beacon of happiness on an otherwise miserably wet Sunday afternoon.  And we got to see first hand how tramezzini are made at this delightful neighborhood bar owned by lovely Lorella and her charming husband Giorgio. Tramezzini (or tramezzino, singular) are the most […]

I looked at the waiter with utter confusion- I had no idea what he just said to me. Was he telling me the specials? Or that they were out of the chicken? Maybe that they only took cash? I had a pretty decent handle on a couple of languages…but Italian wasn’t one of them.  And […]

On my first visit to Desenzano, I didn’t know it was on Lake Garda because I never saw the lake. A group of us had been traveling for several days for a factory tour in Germany, a three day meeting and another factory tour near Venice and now we had one more visit the following […]

If there was a vote as to the best city for a tourist in any type of weather, mine would go to Bologna. Even in a pouring, drenching rain or the sultry heat of summer, one can remain nice and comfy because of more than 23 miles of porticos throughout the city of Bologna. Porticos were […]

In the middle of Lake Garda, there’s an island – actually, not surprisingly there are a number of islands but Isola del Garda is the largest and most spectacular one. Located off of the western shore near San Felice del Benaco, the only arrival mode of transportation is by boat. And only recently the Borghese-Cavazza […]

Cue Barbara Streisand singing “On a Clear Day”…in Italian…and that’s what pops into my head while gazing out from the roof of the magnificent Duomo in Milan (although I seem to relate many things in life to a Broadway show tune but that’s a whole other story).  Every major Italian city and many smaller ones […]

It was like a top secret mission – we were told to be at Sant’Agnese, the 14th century church located outside the ancient walls of Montepulciano at 5:30 pm and a driver would meet us. When we arrived at the church a man was standing there.  He glanced furtively at us and after a few […]

The day was gorgeous – sunny, blue sky with a few puffy clouds and my friend Deborah from the Strada dei Vini e dei Sapori del Garda and I were headed to La Torre Vineyards in the province of Brescia (Brescia is the province in Italy that borders the western end of Lake Garda and […]