Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Reflections”
It seems like a lifetime, yet it’s been just ten years since I published Calabria: The Other Italy. My intention was to shine a light on an area that seemed to have been left in the dark – the tree that fell in the forest with no one around to hear it. I found that there was an audience out …
When I sat down to write my first blogpost 10 years ago, I wasn’t even sure what a blog was. I knew I had visited blogs on occasion, searching google for various topics, but I would have had to stretch my mind to picture someone on the other side of the earth doing the same thing and ending up on …
A few short years ago, we thought we might never travel again. Now, “over-tourism” is the catch phrase of the day. And while media outlets continue to promote the same popular destinations, they line up to voice passionate concerns over the resulting difficulties of said “must-see” locations. The alternative to mass tourism comes with its own buzzwords, such as “sustainable …
Cool, crisp mountain air – make sure to breathe deeply when you visit Calabria, as the region has the cleanest air in Europe! All of the mountains contribute to this freshness with three major ranges: the Pollino in the north, the Sila in the center and the Aspromonte in the south. As a matter of fact, the Sila Mountains, a …
I grew up hanging laundry in the backyard. We had a dryer in the basement, but my mother said there was nothing like the smell of fresh air in your sheets. I haven’t ever seen tourists taking pictures of wash in the United States, on that rare glimpse of swaying fabric in a summer breeze. Laundry in Italy, however, seems …
Vacations are meant to be a special time, a breath of fresh air, whether for total relaxation, leisure travel, energetic activity or a combination thereof. With whom should you travel and where should you go? And just what would it be like to join a small-group tour in Southern Italy?
Many of my readers and followers have roots in Calabria – Calabrian-Americans, Calabrian-Canadians, Calabrian-Australians, Calabrian-South Americans, Calabrians living in other regions of Italy and throughout Europe, and then there are just plain Calabrians. In Italian, that would be calabresi-americani, calabresi-canadesi, calabresi-australiani, etc. Many have visited the more famous spots of Italy and a few have visited Calabria, often just one …
What would traveling to Italy post-Covid be like, I thought, as my departure date approached. I was going from stay-at-home to full-out international travel. In my mind, a big hurdle was the trip itself. Traveling to Europe from the west coast of the United States was a long haul without a mask, but with one?
These past few months have been difficult for everyone, and the travel industry has been hit particularly hard. What will the future of travel be? How will it line up with the “new normal”? I find myself thinking about the “old normal” as I consider common travel perceptions and misconceptions.
With the “stay at home” order in place, I find myself flipping through old books and photos. And as news outlets report scenarios ever more ominous, I turn to images of better times and lovelier places. In this post, I would like to share a few beauties of Calabria through the words of visitors who passed through the region over …