Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Italian Life + History FREE”
For the holiday season 2025, Dream of Italy is celebrating Advent by revealing one of our favorite travel treasures for each day. See list of all days. Day 24: Kathy’s ancestral hometown of Castelvetere sul Calore is devoted to its patron saint Madonna delle Grazie, so on this Christmas Eve we honor the Virgin Mary. See more on the Castelvetere episode of …
For the holiday season 2025, Dream of Italy is celebrating Advent by revealing one of our favorite travel treasures for each day. See list of all days. Day 17: When the Pugliese want to socialize or celebrate, they turn to an age-old traditional dance, the pizzica (similar to the tarantella). Kathy experienced the pizzica first-hand in the main square of the town of Squinzano and then during …
For the holiday season 2025, Dream of Italy is celebrating Advent by revealing one of our favorite travel treasures for each day. See list of all days. Day 11: Born in 1858, Giacomo Puccini is one of Italy’s most famous opera composers, with operas like Tosca, La Boheme and Madama Butterfly. Puccini’s birthplace and childhood home in Lucca is now a museum housing …
This appeared on the back cover of the August/September 2024 issue. SETTEMBRE di Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) Le speranze se ne vanno come rondini a fin d ’anno: torneranno? Nel mio cor vedovi e fidi stanno ancora appesi i nidi che di gridi già sonaron brevi e gaj: vaghe rondini, se mai con i raj del mio Sole tornerete, le casucce …
Transcript with show notes embedded: SAVE 20% at Dalla Fonte with code: DREAMOFITALY Olivia Becker: Actually Dalla Fonte translates to from the source, and so this is truly coming from the source. It’s coming from these small towns. It’s coming from these small producers that really honor traditional preparations. And in so many cases, they’re family recipes as it really …
This is an excerpt for Episode 1: Andrea Bocelli’s Tuscany from the Dream of Italy Season 3 Travel Guide. Get your own PDF copy here. We visit the seaside home of famed Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli in Tuscany to learn how this region has influenced Bocelli’s life and music, exploring his deep faith and love of dogs and visiting the …
This is an excerpt for Episode 2: Americans Moving to Abruzzo from the Dream of Italy Season 3 Travel Guide. Get your own PDF copy here. As Americans expand their horizons for more adventurous lives and retirements abroad, we return to one of our favorite regions—Abruzzo—filled with stunning mountains and coastlines. We meet four Americans who have taken advantage of …
This is an excerpt for Episode 3: Caserta: A Palace & Pizza from the Dream of Italy Season 3 Travel Guide. Get your own PDF copy here. Did you know that there’s a 1,000-room palace in southern Italy that rivals Versailles? We travel to Caserta to visit this very special Reggia (it even made an appearance in Star Wars). The …
This is an excerpt for Episode 4: Slow Food, Fast Cars and Episode 5: Massimo, Modena & Philanthropy from the Dream of Italy Season 3 Travel Guide. Get your own PDF copy here. When we visited with 3-Michelin star Chef Massimo Bottura and his wife Lara Gilmore in Modena, a town in the “slow food, fast cars” region of Emilia-Romagna, …
This is an excerpt for Episode 6: The Black Madonna with Marisa Tomei from the Dream of Italy Season 3 Travel Guide. Get your own PDF copy here. Kathy has a deep familial connection to the Madonna delle Grazie and the region of Campania. Her grandfather left Castelvetere sul Calore a century ago but often sent funds from his new …
