The historic Vasari Corridor, a 750-metre elevated passageway that runs above the Ponte Vecchio linking the Uffizi Museum and the Boboli gardens, welcomes visitors again. After eig ...
Several years ago, I booked a winery tour in Montalcino that turned out to be as entertaining as it was enlightening. Laura R. Gray, an Oxford literature graduate turned wine exper ...
Hiro Shikata arrived in Italy in 1995, after working in kitchens in Japan and an Italian restaurant in Singapore. After a stage in Sicily, he travelled up the boot and soon found h ...
When in Maremma, I often stop in Grosseto for a quick lunch or a bit of shopping. On my last visit, I noticed many ‘for rent’ signs stuck on empty storefronts in the town centr ...
Psst, I am working on the restoration of a very exciting villa in the Bolgheri area. I can’t tell you more for the time being, but the history and the location are really excitin ...
A model railway museum in Florence? A friend took her grandchildren and can’t recommend the new HZero museum enough. ...
I finally visited the isle of Montecristo, the tiny Mediterranean island where Alexandre Dumas’ count got his name and treasure. ...
Art, theater, film – who doesn’t love a peak behind the scenes? Which is exactly what the Florentine museum Casa Buonarroti provides during the Artemisia Svelata (Artemisia Unv ...
Tuscany’s unsalted bread is not for everybody – some love it, some don’t. A new mill and bakery south of Siena is making everybody happy. The Mulinum Buonconvento encourages ...
Have you ever noticed strange animal tracks on a Mediterranean beach? Along Italy’s shore, the sightings of sea turtles have become more regular in recent years. Caretta caretta, ...
I am very excited about the launch of our Trust&Travel-Inside Italy app. The travel app takes our blog one step further and allows us to share all the Italy insight we have dis ...
Halfway between Siena and Florence, there is a little farm that seems to have been sitting on its hill forever. Fattoria Corzano e Paterno produces excellent wine and olive oil, an ...
The Italian coastline does not need an introduction. But have you ever explored one of the country’s rivers? After 30 years in Italy, I finally ventured onto the Ombrone River in ...
In March 2022, the most important Donatello exhibition ever opens its doors in Florence. Over 50 museums from all over the world have lent works by the famous Renaissance master. T ...
Last autumn, I took a little detour in Maremma. I had been at Il Priorato, one of excellence.villas’ high-end properties in southern Tuscany. Before heading back to Rome, I stopp ...
Have you watched Succession yet? The HBO series about the powerful but dysfunctional Roy family has kept many of us up late. Season 3 has just been released and part of it was film ...
Look what I’ve just found! A website about the 14 UNESCO heritage Medici villas and gardens in northern Tuscany. In the past, I visited many of them, but finding these properties ...
On October 5 of the year 1554, more than 250 orphans were bluntly expelled from the Republic of Siena. The city had been under siege for 9 months and its government decreed that th ...
Last month, my daughter returned from school one day with an elated heart: “Mummy, I have to write a theme about some artists! Female artists!” I responded with a big smile and ...
What do Syria and Tuscany have in common? Well, probably several things, but for sure a passion for great food! A few weeks ago, I partook in a Tuscan-Syrian lunch at the Chimera d ...
This happens to all of us: time and time again you pass by a place without ever paying much attention to it, and then one day, God knows why, you finally decide to stop and have a ...
Take my word for it: most Italian food lovers own dozens of cookbooks, restaurant guides, treatises on the history of Italian cuisine, and what have you. And I’m no exception to ...
If I say point-blank “Italian street food”, you’ll probably reply “pizza”, won’t you? Or, if you’re very Italian street smart, you might retaliate with “focaccia” ...
Okay, time to crack open a bottle of champagne : the 200 mark is now being reached! Yes, dear readers, since 2012, the year I started the Trust & Travel blog, 199 riveting arti ...
Even though my work is firmly rooted in the bel paese, it never ceases to offer me opportunities to meet new people from every corner of the world and learn about their customs and ...
Some day – hopefully in a not too distant future – we’ll be able to cycle along the Mediterranean coast on a dedicated bike path that will stretch from the Eternal City all t ...
At the junction of Umbria and Tuscany lies the Val di Chiana, a wide fertile valley boasting lovely medieval villages, beautiful rural landscapes and the eponymous Chianina cattle ...
Why on earth did I think that Italy no longer held any secrets for me?… I came down with a bump when my beloved sister Victoria Trauttmansdorff made me discover a gem of a li ...
When I drop by a village bar in Italy, I often see, hanging on the wall, a black and white photo showing the town’s central piazza filled with lively locals – a scene which unf ...
Ah, springtime!… Longer days, blooming trees, twirling swallows and, above all, – I may have mentioned this to you before – my very first swim of the year in the Mediterr ...
Last week, thanks to the downloadable Mobike app, I spent a whole day whizzing through Florence on three or four bicycles – which I used one after the other, not simultaneously, ...
April 1st,1939. The spectre of an all-out war in Europe is looming. The Anglo-American writer and philanthropist Iris Origo – then owner of the La Foce estate in the Val d’Orci ...
Years ago, during a dinner in Montalcino, I overheard winemaker Donatella Cinelli Colombini tell the story of her winery. When she started producing her own Brunello wine in 1998, ...
In large cities, one of the greatest challenges posed to car owners is, of course, parking one’s beloved motorcar. This is one of the top five questions I hear from our clients v ...
San Gimignano… A lovely Tuscan town famous for its 13 medieval “tower houses” – and which I invited you, in a previous article, to visit in the much quieter wintertime. But ...
Every once in a while – and always when I’m embarking on a New Year – I feel the urge to gorge myself on a delicious cecina, a chickpea flatbread which is the typical street ...
I really love giving books as Christmas presents, especially books about Italian art, handicrafts, touring, food and wine. And there won’t be any exception to the rule this year, ...
You certainly are familiar with the sound of the harpsichord, and would probably recognize the instrument itself if you saw one. But have you ever seen how it is built? Last week, ...
I did it, at long last! Wandering about the streets of Rome on Italy’s iconic motor scooter, the Vespa! I had been dreaming of this since I had first seen, as a child, the 1953 r ...
You have always wanted to attend Siena’s famous Palio, but never did because of the dense crowds and stifling heat that come with it when it takes place, in the heart of summer? ...
Do you still remember the time when TripAdvisor and the like did not exist? When it was creatures of flesh and blood – and not applications and algorithms – who pointed and ste ...
They are everywhere… Over the last twenty years, the monotonous Monobloc – a lightweight stackable polypropene chair, often white in colour – has proliferated like mushrooms ...
I have always loved wandering in the aisles of markets, covered or open-air ones. So when I found out, in Giulia Scarpaleggia’s excellent cookbook, From the Markets of Tuscany, t ...
In Italy, the patronymic Corsini has long been a household name, especially in Tuscany and in Florence, where the Corsini princely family has been playing a leading role since the ...
“I really like the way you’ve furnished your bar, Francesco. No wonder people keep flocking in. — Thanks for the compliment, Katharina. I think I’ve been lucky. — Lucky, ...
One of Tuscany’s most intimate and charming festivals turns 30 next month. No small feat for a chamber music festival in Italy today! Founded by Benedetta Origo, the owner of Vil ...
Before moving to the bel paese, I had barely heard about the Etruscans, a rich and remarkable civilization who flourished in ancient Italy until they were conquered and assimilated ...
When actor Colin Firth, an Academy Award winner, and Eco Age founder Livia Firth decide to actively foster a little-known refugee project in Southern Tuscany, you can reasonably su ...
When the Eiffel tower was erected at the end of the 19th century, a big outcry was raised in Paris about the bold new monument. One could hear or read words such as “useless and ...
My love for the bel paese has always been closely related to my passion for fine leather bags. And when I say “fine leather bags”, I don’t necessarily mean Gucci or Prada – ...
My mother had a little smile: “Katharina, I would love to spend another holiday in Italy. But I worry about Daisy…” Daisy… the cutest wire-haired dachshund on Earth! ...
Every time I travel between Florence and Lucca – I must have done it a hundred times, – I drive through the charming medieval town of Pistoia, famous throughout Europe for its ...
You may remember, dear readers, that I recently wrote an article about the festive sagre, these celebrations held in myriad villages and towns in Italy, all year round, and during ...
“Designers want me to dress like Spring, in billowing things. I don’t feel like Spring. I feel like a warm red Autumn…” These words – which I can easily relate to – ...
Good news: all roads lead to Rome and, in some cases, will take you back to your starting point before the end of the day! I experienced this two or three times last summer. After ...
Shortly after starting to work at Italy’s oldest winery, during the first years I spent in the bel paese, I was already dreaming of touring the bucolic Chianti region on one of t ...
Today, I would like to tell you about one of my favourite desserts: il caffè in forchetta. It is absolutely divine, terribly addictive, and it can only be found in the Val d’Orc ...
Oh, look Mummy, there’s a mosquito sagra around here! Can we go? Pleeeaaase! This was two years ago, in August. My family and I were leisurely driving through the Italian provinc ...
It is no secret among my friends that I am a little old-fashioned when it comes to communicating via social media. I still get on the blower a great deal (the smart version) and am ...
Until a few years ago, when we happened to be sojourning, my family and I, in the Maremma, an excursion on the Isle of Giglio used to be one of our favourite day-trip options. Then ...
The Leaning Tower of Pisa… Who has not seen it, at least in pictures, and tried to imagine what it feels like to be at its top, precariously tilting some 50 meters above ground?! ...
A few weeks ago, under clear blue skies, I was on my way from Montalcino to Perugia when the fancy of a good Italian coffee insidiously took me. I decided to make a stop in Montisi ...
I was recently having a drink with a group of Italian friends, in the Maremma. We were talking about seaside holidays when, at one point, our lovely Simonetta asked us: “Which wo ...
Are you planning to take a holiday, for the very first time, in an Italian villa or farmhouse? If so, chances are that, at some point during your stay, you will run into a small ou ...
By now, dear followers, you are as convinced as I am that Italy is a dreamland, aren’t you? And I think I told you once that the bel paese is the country which boasts the highest ...
Are you, dear reader, a candid Instagram addict like me? If so, you must have seen – perhaps even reposted ? – a photograph of an indoor swimming pool which, by now, is probabl ...
The gradual disappearance of bookshops, especially the small independent ones, is something that has truly saddened me over the past few years. Just in Paris, for instance, close t ...
I came to a dead stop and rubbed my eyes in total disbelief… My friend Rudston, here, in the heart of a remote hamlet of Sardinia? The last time I had seen him, it was in Paris m ...
Where on Earth had we landed?… A frolicsome sprite, hidden somewhere behind a decrepit stone wall, replied to me in a hushed voice: “In the depths of the Middle Ages, in a ...
The best season to visit Italy can sometimes be… winter! Yes, the cold season. Take the small hill town of San Gimignano, for instance – known as the “Town of Fine Towers”, ...
I was in Florence last month, strolling across the Ponte Vecchio, when my phone rang. I answered it: “Hi Katharina, it’s Emiko. – Oh, Emiko! How have you been?” We exchange ...
“And that is how Italians are. So terribly physically all over one another. They pour themselves one over the other like so much melted butter over parsnips. They catch each ...
Martin Luther, the famous priest and reforming theologian (1483-1546), once declared: “Beer is made by men, wine by God.” Well, this is a nice pronouncement. But I think I migh ...
“You have created most of these lovely dresses and jackets, Renata? – Yes, Katharina, my sister and I have designed them. The bags and scarves too. – Wow! Talent obviously ru ...
A lunch at the beach… Few things in life make my family and I as contented as sharing a nice seaside meal with our best friends. My daughter and her young accomplices enjoy the b ...
Carry a chestnut in your pocket and you’ll never run out of money… No, this is not a piece of advice that I’m trying to give you. It’s a German saying: Eine Kastanie in der ...
Let’s start with a little quiz… The “thing” is edible, naturally liquid, and can taste of sage, artichokes, bananas, peppers, tomatoes or freshly cut grass. And when it is ...
The laws or quirks of fate, call it what you want… I had driven by this former petrol station at least a dozen times before, either in too much of a hurry to drop by, or frustrat ...
La Foce… This name, and the superb Tuscan estate which it designates, have now become familiar to you if you have been a regular reader of this blog. Trust & Travel was actua ...
“Oh no, La Ménagère is closing down, really?”… This is a cry of disbelief one could hear on the lips of Florentines, over and over again, some ten years ago; La Ménag ...
My friends were stealing a glance at me with a quizzical eyebrow. I know what they were thinking deep down inside, especially their two teenage kids: “You’re really taking us t ...
When I think of the four seasons in Italy, they always remind me of… food. Well, first of all, don’t we say “to season a dish”? But the fact is that I can also connect each ...
In the heart of Tuscany lies a magnificent town which is exceptional in many respects. Founded by the Etruscans in the first millenium BC… Home to a historic center that has ...
I must have told you once or twice, in previous posts, that the Maremma Regional Park in Tuscany is one of my favourite nature reserves in the whole of Italy. ...
Some road works seem to take forever to be completed… Have you ever had that feeling? This is the case with the still unfinished Superstrada 223 linking Siena to the city of Gros ...
If you like good coffee, as I do, the brandname Illy must be familiar to you. Last August, during a concert given in Tuscany by Mark Springer, I was introduced to Francesco Illy, a ...
Last week, I had a glass of wine with friends who had spent their August holidays in Tuscany. Unsurprisingly, a great part of our conversation centered on their Italian respite: ...
Let me tell you a secret: in my family, we are all big addicts. To the point of being incurable. There is one Italian dish we can never get enough of: the pici all’aglione. T ...
In my last post, we began a roundup of interesting things to do in Italy when you are parents with children. We had a close look at three of the activities which I particularly rec ...
Well I think it’s fine building jumbo planes, Or taking a ride on a cosmic train, Switch on summer from a slot machine… Do these lyrics ring a bell? They are from a great C ...
Do you remember Talamone, this little harbour town lying on the Southern coast of Tuscany? I told you about it in a previous blog post. Well, true, this was almost two years ago, s ...
“Wine is sunlight held together by water”. A great Italian wrote that. Can you guess who? It’s the same man as the one who said: “And yet it moves!” I’ll give you the a ...
Oscar Peterson once said: “I believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea.” I have always loved the piano; ...
“Hey, look at this one, Mummy! Is that a hippotamus? – A hippopotamus, darling. Yes, it is. – He looks angry! – Well… yes. Or he may just be yawning…” For my daug ...
Last week I got a telephone call from my friend Jessica in New York, who had holidayed in one of our Trust & Travel villas in the spring of 2014: “You won’t believe this, K ...
– Mummy, I want to “vote” for the Leocorno, my daughter told me with big round eyes. – The Unicorn? You want to support the Unicorn team? – Yes! And George says he ...
One of my favourite places in Florence is the Mercato Centrale, also known as the Mercato di San Lorenzo, the largest food market in town. A beautiful glass and cast-iron construct ...
“A woman is like an artichoke: you must work hard to get to her heart.” You will never guess who said that… Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Yes, the French – and always gallant ...
“It happened last summer, around noon. It was a beautiful day and I was just walking out of the Villa Gioli, one of our Trust&Travel residences. I heard a noise coming from t ...
