An Extra Palio - Palio Straordinario - will be run in Siena on 20 October 2018.

How do you spend one year in Italy? Here's a month-by-month, personal account of my first year living and traveling in Italy.

Inspiration always seems to find me when I'm not looking and that is exactly what happened as I settled in to watch a few minutes of television last night. Lucky for me, I clicked over to Kenny Mayne's Wider World of Sports, a show on ESPN that puts sports into a cultural context. One of the ...

When my colleagues in the Italy Blogging Roundtable and I decided to write on the topic "gifts" for our December post, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about. I knew straight away that I didn't want to write about Italian gifts you can buy in a store, though there are many I desire or would ...

Every year, as we approach the anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, I think back to what I was doing that day. In fact, I was in Florence. So this year I thought I would share my recollections of the event from the perspective of a tourist in Italy. This may not be all that ...

To many a traveler, Tuscany and art are synonymous. From the architecture to the numerous galleries to those gorgeous, green, and cliché hills, there's an element of art in every corner of Tuscany. That's why I am very excited to introduce you to guest poster Alexandra Korey, a Canada-born ...

Coming up with three of my best travel secrets for Italy is no easy task. Alas, I've been tagged by Robin Locker at My Mélange to come up with my list, just as she has over at her blog. In fact, since I had difficulty paring down my favorites, I've come up with my non-Italy list over at my personal ...

Italofile guest contributor writes about five of her favorite things in the city of Lucca in Tuscany.

New Moon, the second book in the Twilight series, has some scenes set in the Tuscan town of Volterra. Learn more about Volterra, including its vampire tour.

The Monster of Florence is a true crime tale about a serial killer who terrorized the Tuscan hills around Florence for almost 20 years.

It has been a little under two weeks since Italy announced the findings in the Brunello di Montalcino scandal. In case you haven't been following this case, Italian authorities — prompted by the United States — started an investigation to find out whether some renowned manufacturers of Brunello ...

Last November, the New York Review of Books released Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio under its NYRB Classics imprint. The tale, as reviewed by Tim Parks in the latest issue, is much darker than the Disneyfied version. After the jump is Parks' full review. As always, I urge you to ...

Italian wine enthusiasts (that includes most of us, right?) may find this past weekend's 60 Minutes story on Italy's Antinori family intriguing. https://youtu.be/UcyqizOfAic "All in the Family" story on the Antinori wine family on CBS 60 Minutes. Also available here. Considered one of ...

Tuscany has more than a dozen wine routes. These are known collectively as Le Strade del Vino.

If you're the type of traveler who likes to go it alone and doesn't mind injecting a little technological know-how into your trip, then a GPS-driven self-guided tour may be the ticket. Information about Zephyr Self-Guided Adventures through Italy just crossed our desks over the weekend. The ...

Florence may feel like a fairy tale city for adults, but kids aren't always impressed. That's mostly because they've yet to study or appreciate the art, architecture, and history that have made the Tuscan town one of the world's most favored destinations for generations. Enter Context Travel. The ...

I am supremely excited about two new nonfiction books this summer: The Monster of Florence and Rome 1960. Both books describe tumultuous times in central Italy. The first is a period of time in Florence when an unknown predator (or predators) "stalked lovers' lanes in the countryside." The ...

Salman Rushdie imagines Renaissance Florence in his new book "The Enchantress of Florence."