Our friend Sergio has a dream tucked beneath layers of rust in a salvage yard. anything iron Whenever we need an old unique piece made of iron, we go to see Sergio. He’s been tirelessly collecting everything iron for decades now, and his collection is indeed impressive. He has meticulously gathered everything from enormous iron […]
devastation May 20th, 2012. In the early morning hours, the small Italian town of Finale Emilia became the epicenter of a 6.0 magnitude earthquake—shaking the heart and soul of the beautiful historic town center. Only one year before, we visited that unique city on the northern edge of the Emilia Romagna region of Italy. The […]
“If you get pure beauty, you get about the best thing God has to give.” magnificent view of Florence The quote is attributed to an anonymous artist long ago, cited by the British writer, Charles Latham in his 1905 book, The Gardens of Italy. The sentiment sums up the intention of the Italian villa—pure beauty! […]
We first went to Barcelona in our early 20s. Traveling Europe together on Eurail passes, Hostels and very little money, we intended to experience the cultures from an ordinary perspective and to see every architectural treasure we could get our eyes on. The ultimate jewels in that treasure chest lay in Catalonia where the famous […]
My name is Emerson, and I have a problem. I’m not too proud to admit it. It became apparent to me the other day when I was shaving. We all have routines. Right? And sometimes they become so repetitive that we go into “auto pilot” mode and don’t even need to think about it anymore. […]
Ahh, summer concerts in Fiesole We love concerts. Nothing like watching a live musician fall into a spell. We scour newspapers and the internet looking for something that we’d like to see/hear. We also check out billboards on our regular drives from Monteloro into Firenze. Sometimes we get very lucky. Sometimes we discover someone special, […]
Here is an all-too-real Italian story that may amuse you. In 1999 (11 years ago), we bought this old farmhouse in Italy along with 3 Italian families—one married couple with two young girls, and two other young-ish bachelors. They are all very nice people and we get along great together. Poolside Possibility Everyone was excited […]
About 7 or so years ago, I enrolled in an Italian language class at the local community center. It was great fun. Not only did we learn Italian, my classmates and I got to know each other and became friends. Because we were dedicated students, we decided to meet outside of class, once a week, […]
Ounces of prevention Summertime, and the living is easy. Thank you George Gershwin. He wrote those lyrics to describe the slowed pace, the casual “live and let live” attitude that is often associated with summer. The weather heats up and things slow down. That is, of course, except for the mosquitoes. Summertime begins and the […]
The following lyrics were created for the musical stories which were published as our eleventh collection in 2009 under the title of “Moment of Truth.” Simply click on the images below to go directly to the original story, music and complete lyrics along with other related links. Back to By Invitation […]
