Last week I was invited by Eating Italy Food Tours to take part in their new guided tour, The Other Side of Florence. The tour covers two quarters of the Oltrarno area, San Frediano and Santo Spirito on the southern side of the river, and area not usually visited by tourists despite their proximity […]
The Other Face of Florence: Review Read More »
Located only 27km as the crow flies from Venice, Treviso has always lived in the shadow of the campanile of San Marco. For most of its life, that was a good thing. Its proximity to the capital of the great Venetian Republic meant that the government ringed it with a great defensive wall and
Pick me up in Treviso Read More »
Well, it’s almost Easter and time to break free of the restrictions of Lent and celebrate with all the wonderful Easter food we’ve been dreaming of. Here in the Tuscan Valtiberina, Easter is of particular importance, especially in the town of Sansepolcro, whose name means Holy Sepulchre, referring to the tomb of Christ. In
Easter in the Valtiberina Read More »
This recipe is from Veneto. As promised in the last post, here is a recipe for azime dolci, the Venetian jewish cookies I tried in the ghetto at the weekend. Pane azzimo, is the Italian for unleavened bread and these are called azime because they too are unleavened. And like pane azzimo, they are traditionally
Azime dolci: Venetian passover cookies (recipe) Read More »
The 15th and 16th centuries saw a shameful period of what would now be called ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Europe. In 1492, all jews were expelled from Spain and soon other southern European states followed suit. Similar expulsions from England and France in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had concentrated Europe’s jewish communities in Spain, Portugal, the
Dolci ebraici veneziani: Venetian jewish pastries Read More »
The magic of Florence is legendary. The city, with its red-tiled roofs fills the wide valley of the river Arno, straddled by the ponte vecchio, literally paved with gold shops. The enormous cupola of the duomo, also red-tiled, has given Florence one of the most recognized skylines in the world, to rival, Paris, London, New York, but
Florence at Christmas: a photo essay Read More »
