Italy

  Story and photos by Julie Maris/Semel The music of cowbells, the sweet smells of mountain grass, the gentle breezes, and the crystalline vistas of spiky peaks overwhelmed my senses. I was fully awake but living a dream in the Alps. Unlike summer excursions, September randonnees or rambling walks in

By Bobbie Leigh How can an exceptionally charming Italian town have an inferiority complex? It seems odd, but that’s definitely the case for Lucca, a former ancient Roman  colony founded in 180 BC  that’s about a half hour’s drive from Pisa. “We have such a low profile,” complains one Lucchese. 

By Everett Potter After two days in Cortina, Italy’s chicest ski resort, I had chalked up many firsts. I had enjoyed the craggy beauty and challenges of the snow-covered Dolomites, skiing between jagged pink rock spires under ever-changing Alpine skies. I marveled as Italian skiers forsook alcohol apres ski, indulging

I had lunch yesterday with 12 ski resorts from the Swiss, French, Italian, German, and Austrian Alps. Travel to the Alps from America was up a whopping 50 percent this past summer and 30 percent last winter.

Fred Plotkin. Fred Plotkin is a self-styled “pleasure activist.” But that playful term doesn’t begin to encapsulate his extraordinarily accomplished and diverse background. Fred is one of the world’s leading authorities on Italian food and cooking, the author of Italy for the Gourmet Traveler, which has just been released in

National Museum of Capodimonte in Naples. By Bobbie Leigh Add an extra day to your visit to Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast and spend it in Naples at one of the most fascinating museums in Italy. Rivaling Florence's Uffizi, the National Museum of Capodimonte, located in a  park dotted with

  Erik Blachford I first met Erik Blachford at a dinner in Whistler a couple of years ago, when we got into an extended discussion about the merits of the Burning Man Project. He is a devoted attendee while the jury is till out as far as I'm concerned. No

By Suzy Gershman I am afraid of the dark. I am afraid of heights. And I am really terrified of Italian highways that go over viaducts and leave you hanging out there in the breeze while Enzo in his Fiat is soaring past you at 150kph. So Sarah, the Editorial

This view for $99 a night via craigslist? Photo by Karen Glenn. Interested in renting a one-bedroom cottage with a pool in West Palm Beach for $85 per night? Or maybe a two-bedroom apartment in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco for $150 a night? Or perhaps a studio

Andy Levine says that he created DuVine Adventures at his kitchen table with a website and a glass of wine in 1996. Fifteen years later, Levine has built the Boston-based DuVine into one of the leading biking companies in the US, offering wine-infused cycling trips to Italy and France, the