Want to know all the good stuff about rural Northern Italy? Are you ready for a vacation that includes caves, ziplines, pilgrimage and bike trails, over a hundred castles, and great food? I’ve had a house in the historic territory of La Lunigiana for 20 years. It occurred to me that is was about time to create a travel app of the best food, lodging...

Once upon a time… beautiful Siena, in Tuscany, was a very important city. Let’s go back in time… Imagine being in 1300. Siena was rich, powerful, and heavily populated. It was also constantly battling against Firenze (Florence), in competition with the neighboring city for almost anything you can think of. In order to show the world its power, Sien...

If you're looking to follow in the footsteps of Amanda Holden and Alan Carr by buying a property in Italy, there are a few key things you need to know in advance. The celebrity pair were seen buying an older property in Tuscany and renovating it as part of the second series of their BBC One TV show, Amanda and Alan's Italian Job. Whether you want t...

Lucca stands out in Tuscany. It’s old, pretty, wrapped in Renaissance walls. It’s kept its old town center. Etruscans, Ligurians, and then Romans from 180 BCE laid its roots. Roman layouts and ruins pepper the place. Ancient roads boosted Lucca's spot, making it a Lombard duchy powerhouse. Goths, Byzantines, Lombards all had their time ruling. In t...

Some days we want to have lunch in Rome and dinner in Milan, for that we’re grateful for the three-hour Alta Velocità. But then there are other days we want to slow down, peel our eyes from our screens, and really just enjoy the ride. These three train lines call attention to bygone eras of travel, and they’re more about the journey than the destin...

La Dolce Vita Orient Express announced that it will soon be ready for guests to book tickets for what could arguably be called the most luxurious train journey in the world. In a press release shared with Travel + Leisure, the train operator shared it will open its virtual ticket window in April, with the train's specific run dates coming later thi...

It's quite likely that the aboriginal Etruscans may have evolved from the earlier Villanovan Culture. There is always a continuum. But why, amongst all the people who've wandered in and out of Italy, should we be concerned with the Etruscans? Just visit any one of the many museums and then head for an Etruscan tomb (easily done in the Etruscan town...

One can only imagine the splendor of Florence that was once pristine and untainted, where vines were cultivated from Chianti to Santa Maria Novella, when agriculture and urbanism shared the same soil. Images that live suggestive to this day only in the toponymy from Via della Vigna Vecchia to Via della Vigna Nuova to Via Il Prato, once rich in gree...

The Tuscan town of Leccio is best known for The Mall, a fashion outlet behemoth featuring luxury brands such as Prada, Ermanno Scervino, Roberto Cavalli, and the like, on sale at popular prices. Buses departing regularly from Florence city center ferry tourists to and fro this glorified strip mall, which gets a similar number of yearly visitors as...

Fiorentina general manager Italian American Joe Barone has died following a cardiac arrest, the club said Tuesday. He was 57. Barone fell ill on Sunday at the team hotel, shortly before Fiorentina’s match at Atalanta, and was rushed to a hospital in Milan. The Serie A match was subsequently postponed. Barone died at San Raffaele Hospital. “It is wi...