Like the Seine in Paris, the Thames in London and the Styx in the Underworld, an old dignified river flows across the city of Florence, dividing it, inevitably, into two river bank ...
Cogito ergo sum… Fluctuat nec mergitur… Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant… How is your Latin these days? You don’t have, I guess, that many opportunities to practice ...
October 2014… One month which Roberto Rossi, chef and owner of Il Silene, will not easily forget about. “I’m the happiest man on Earth, Katharina! he carolled to me, waving h ...
The reasons we, Northerners, love Italy are numerous. One of them, of course, is the sunshine and mild temperatures that reign all over the country when the rest of Europe is under ...
“If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.” You will never guess who said that… Albert Einstein. Here is the story of another great Italian tailor w ...
I used to get a little confused with the thousands of museums and archaeological sites which Italy can boast, particularly with their policies concerning entrance fees, opening hou ...
“Katharina, this Casalferro wine is absolutely divine! whispered to me one of my neighbours at table. – Divine indeed, I replied, and coming from the oldest winery in Italy, be ...
“As I sit at the piano, says Mark Springer, the feeling takes hold of me and I start to play a melody which is very direct. It shifts interestingly between major and minor ...
Every time my family and I go to La Foce for a short or long stay, buying una forma di Pecorino – an entire ewe’s milk cheese – is one of the first things I do on arrival. ...
“A Taste of Italy and a Touch of France”… Some of you may remember this article which I posted in my blog last year at about the same time. I had invited Charlotte Horton and ...
When travelling around Italy to visit the houses and villas featured in our Trust & Travel rental catalogue, I always try to see or do something new. This keeps my job interest ...
Last week, I was tidying up a cupboard in my Parisian flat – it needed it badly – when I stumbled upon a small ceramic vase I had bought at Lucca’s antique market a few years ...
“Katharina, this wine is absolutely divine! – Well, it’d better be, Jonathan. I have never paid that much for a bottle of wine! – Oh! Is that so ...
Phew! I’m a little out of breath. I have just spent a week running around Italy! And now I am at the Venice airport waiting for my return flight to Paris and thinking: “Gee, it ...
This week, I am going to teach you how to pick the Asparagus acutifolius in the Italian fashion. How about that? Oh, by the way, the Asparagus acutifolius is more commonly known as ...
There are days – like yesterday, for instance – when everything goes wrong. I’m sure that you experience such unpleasant days once in a while. I won’t tell you about yester ...
Off the beaten track… You want to be surprised and discover little gems when you travel? My one piece of advice: go off the beaten track. Take the back roads and back alleys. Ven ...
Victor Hugo once wrote: “Dear God, how beauty varies in nature and art! In a woman the flesh must be like marble, and in a statue the marble must be like flesh.” ...
It was in June, last spring. My husband, daughter and I were in the Maremma, and friends of ours were visiting us with their two children. One morning, we decided to go to the town ...
“Buona bruschetta, Katharina! – Buona what? – Buona bruschetta! You’ve never heard this before?!” No, I had never heard this greeting phrase b ...
“Mummy, are we going back to the Christmas market this year? You know the one where the houses are all yellow and orange?” Her bright eyes filled with hope and anticipation, my ...
“You don’t know Lo Zazzeri, a friend of mine asked me once, disconcerted? Luciano Zazzeri, owner and chef of La Pineta ?! ...
At about this time of year, every year, when the days are getting shorter and colder, Tuscany is busy extracting its highly prized “liquid gold”: the extra virgin olive oil. Th ...
I have mentioned Tuscany’s highest mountain, Mount Amiata (1738m), several times in some of my previous articles. I have never told you, however, about its neighbouring Monte Lab ...
Yes, Trust&Travel has recently been mentioned in a New York Times article entitled “Finding Gems on the Tuscan Coast”! ...
On June 15, I managed to bring my two lives together: the Italian and the French ones; and by the same token to indulge in one of my great passions: food & wine! I invited Char ...
As some of you, dear readers, might remember, I started last week’s article by quoting a few words by Benjamin Franklin. This week, allow me to cite the great Virginia Woolf: “ ...
Being in the Garden of Eden… This is how I felt the first time I came here years ago, and this how I feel again today. A warm, bright, soothing day in the heart of the Maremma. A ...
The sanguine enthusiast who was sitting next to me in the stands clapped his hands in a burst of joy and glanced at me briefly: “No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the sa ...
Pharmacies, drugstores, chemist’s shops, dispensaries– whatever you call them – are not exactly the kind of place most of us like to hang around. We go there to buy some medi ...
My father and I were simply mesmerized, like under a spell. We looked at each other with a funny smile, and then stood up to join the applauding audience. ...
If you happen to be in Florence in May, there is a special event you must make sure not to miss. This year again, from May 16th to May 19th (Thursday to Sunday), the 19th edition o ...
Contrary to my general practice, our “story” today will not exclusively focus on Italy. And it will have to do with two castles… In 2011, one of the owners of La Foce, Do ...
Sunday morning. I’m having a lie-in and am sleeping like a log. Sheer bliss. My mobile phone, on my bedside table, rings. I wake up with a start and answer the call. “ Hello? ...
Off the beaten track… This is where I need to venture once in a while. And usually I don’t regret it: more often than not I get to run into something that makes a strong, p ...
A room with a view… This is what I would like to share with you this week: a room with a view which I had fantasized about for years before discovering it, at long last. ...
One of my closest friends has been dreaming of that for years: a dark green belt made of the best Italian leather. She’s lucky because Christmas is around the corner, and I know ...
No, I did not know what good, real good pasta was until… Here is the story of one the great gastronomic discoveries of my life. I was dwelling in a Tuscan farmhouse near Merc ...
This week, for the half-term school holidays, my family and I are staying at one of the two houses of our Trust & Travel Il Fontanile estate in Tuscany. We like to come here ...
“I like the silence of a church, before the service begins, better than any preaching.” ...
The last time I ran into Mrs. Loiseau, one of my Paris neighbours – I introduced her to you in my very first article, – she was wearing flashy sling back shoes which she had j ...
It was a very special day indeed. Special evening, I should say. It was high summer. The Italian sky was slowly turning into gold and copper, as it so often does at the end of the ...
Tuscans celebrate the rhythm of the seasons with an array of festivals and feasts adapted for each period of the year. Autumn is particularly colorful as the leaves change and th ...
At a recent dinner party, a friend of mine introduced me to Cassius, her young lively nephew. “So tell me, young boy, I asked him, what would you like to be when you grow up? – ...
You are a stone broke student with three pennies in your pocket and an immoderate passion for antiques. Wandering up and down the alleys of a colourful flea market, you stumble upo ...
As American author Justina Chen Headley wrote in one of her novels: “Adventure in life is good; consistency in coffee, even better.” ...
“Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” This beautiful phrase hasn’t just come right off the top of my head – even though I think it might have if I had been laz ...
Here we are for the third and final episode of the Origo family epic. Historically, a dark and trying one for both the family and the country. From June 1943 to June 1944, Italy ke ...
In my last post, I undertook to tell you the story – well, to outline the story, I should say – of the Origo family. A family who has played a key part in my life, as I said. S ...
I was only 19. And already in love with Italy. Images and Shadows, an autobiography by Anglo-Irish author Iris Origo, kept me company during the long hours I spent on the Tuscan be ...
“Phew! We got there, at last!” You left home early this morning and have been travelling all day. Now it’s the evening and you have just arrived at your Trust & Travel de ...
“Oh, evil, cold-hearted woman, why hast thou betrayed me so ruthlessly? – Heaven forbid! I have not betrayed you, my sweet Lord… Not yet.” These are the first two l ...
Can you guess… When, in the middle of the day, at work in Paris, I suddenly long for Italy or feel a strong urge for anything Italian, what do I do most of the time? Well, ei ...
Each time he comes over to fix something, our plumber always says: “Heaven on earth is a pipe dream!” I’m not sure why he keeps repeating that – sometimes ten times in a ro ...
You like Italian cuisine, don’t you? Of course you do. Wish you could cook some great Italian dishes yourself? ...
Because I usually keep my promises, here are – as promised – my two extra luncheon picks for anyone visiting beautiful Florence, Italy. Like the first two I gave you last week, ...
As is often the case, it’s only 10 am and I already have a hungry eye trained on the upcoming lunch – even though I had a hearty breakfast just two hours ago! There’s somethi ...
If I have always had a passion – and, I think, some flair – for design and interior decoration, I most certainly owe it to my dear Mom, who was an accomplished expert in these ...
This week, I am taking you to a most unusual “mystery garden”. It is nestled in the small Italian town of San Giovanni d’Asso, not far from one of the gems of Tusca ...
Last night, I managed to break into a cocktail party where I met a slightly eccentric English aristocrat: – Catharina ! Posh name ! With a C or with a K ? – With a K. Or wit ...
“I need a new look, I need a new look!” Every time I run into Madame Loiseau, one of my Paris neighbours, this is what I hear: “Don’t tell me I don’t, because I do! Il fa ...
