Roman neighborhood market guide

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In Ragazzi di Vita, Pier Paolo Pasolini describes the life of a group of Roman street kids in the years directly after the second world war.  The first part of the book takes place around the grattacieli of Via Donna Olimpia, the tall (for…

places to eat in Rome (an updated list)

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This is an updated version of my original A paper tablecloth guide to dining in Rome written for friends, friends of friends, friends of instagram pals and anyone else who happens to ask 'where should we eat?'. Rome has a veritable wealth…

Artisans & Antiques: PUGLIA trips 2022

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At the heel of the Italian boot, Puglia is a land of wild beauty where the stark rocky coastline seems to fall into the sea; a land of ancient olive groves and carpets of flowers,  where the light dazzles against whitewashed walls and pale…

Day trips from Rome: dipping toes into the Mediterranean at Santa Marinella

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  If a football stadium is a kind of open air temple to human passion; a place where barriers come down and for 90 minutes everyman is united, then beaches too are arenas to the egalitarian gods of sun and sea.  I am Australian,…

roads less travelled and unique places to stay

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May 2018.  It is mid afternoon when we pull into the farm hotel.  A deep calm blankets the property and there is no sign of anyone apart from a French couple that pad across the courtyard toward the pool.  The tractors have been shut down…

when in Rome: tips for travelers

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Since I started writing here back in 2014, I have noticed that readers like information.  So here I am at the start of a new year, and a new decade, with some practical pointers for Rome (and some free opinion). This year I will turn fifty. …

Rome, where to lay your head in the eternal city

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Alice, where should we stay in Rome? This city, like most capitals, is a jungle of where to sleep options, trickier to navigate than Piazza Venezia at rush hour, so I generally try to avoid this question. The accommodation landscape has…

an Italian reading list

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Sometimes I think about my final year history teacher, and how nice it would be to bump into him in a random piazza somewhere in Italy. Russel Staiff was one of those stand out teachers who take their students far beyond the standard textbook.…

a rome list for hunters and gatherers

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I've been asked quite often recently about whether a Roman version of a charity shop actually exists.  The answer is no, kind of, in a way, yes. Charity shops are my idea of the perfect equation.  Old things are handed on, making room in…

Itineraries. Ceramics and the South: a pilgrimage to Grottaglie

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The sun climbs as we leave the soft olive hillsides of the Valle D'Itria, where we are staying, for the red plains of the alto-Salento, and the road cuts through carpets of primitivo vines as it reaches out toward the almost irresistible waters…

itineraries. around the vinyards of alto -Lazio

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The Greeks that settled in southern Italy during the period between the 8th and the 6th century BC called the fertile land with its happy climate Oenotria; land of the trained vines.  They most probably brought with them cuttings to plant,…

itineraries. treasure hunting in the Tuscia

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La Tuscia is the ancient land of the Etruscans that stretches between southern Tuscany, northern Lazio and Umbria; a volcanic landscape of rolling hillsides, vines, olives and towns crumbling from their cliff-top perches.  The Etruscans were…