Published on Thursday, July 19, 2018 by Kathy McCabe Florence’s expanded T1 tram line, which runs from the central train station to the Careggi Hospital, is now open. Previously, the T1 line – which opened in 2010 – began at Villa Costanza and stopped at the central train station. Now renamed the T1 Leonardo line, it has a total of 26 stops along an 11.5-kilometer route, and trains run every four minutes. It is...

Published on Monday, July 9, 2018 by Kathy McCabe No one knows Italy better than Steve Perillo. In his Steve's Travel Tips videos, Steve shares his best advice for enjoying Italy. In this video, he explains that August can actually be a great time to visit Italy. You can join the Italians at the beach or have the big cities to yourself while the locals are on vacation.   ...

Published on Wednesday, July 4, 2018 by Kathy McCabe A section of Palatine Hill in Rome has opened to the public for the first time in centuries, allowing visitors to take in 1,200 years of the Eternal City's history. One of Rome’s seven hills, Palatine Hill overlooks the Roman Forum and the Circus Maximus in the city center, but the newly opened spot is a place where tourists can experience nature in the middle o...

Published on Friday, June 29, 2018 by Kathy McCabe The upcoming season of opera at Teatro Alla Scala  in Milan will include Gianni Schicci, a comedic opera by Puccini, staged and directed by Woody Allen. Set in the 1930s in New York’s Little Italy, Allen’s version of Gianni Schicci was successful in a 2015 Los Angeles run. The opera is based on a portion of Dante’s Divine Comedy in which Schicci is sent to He...

Published on Saturday, June 23, 2018 by Kathy McCabe Cheesemakers in Italy’s Parmesan-producing regions produced 147,000 tons of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese in 2017, breaking all-time records for the cheese’s production. The 3.6 million wheels of cheese sold totaled 2.2€ billion in sales and increased production by 5 percent from 2016 and 10 percent from 2014, according to Italy’s Parmigiano Reggiano consortium. ...

Published on Saturday, June 16, 2018 by Kathy McCabe Olive oil, the liquid gold essential to Italian and other Mediterranean cuisines, existed in Italy much earlier than previously thought, according to Davide Tanasi, an Italian researcher and assistant professor of history at the University of South Florida. By analyzing residue found on a Bronze Age ceramic jar that was found in Sicily in the 1990s, Tanasi discovered ...

Published on Sunday, June 10, 2018 by Kathy McCabe Earlier this month, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence debuted its “Raphael and Michelangelo Room” as part of a larger rearrangement of the museum. Housed in Room 41 of the building, the Raphael and Michelangelo Room – as one might expect – contains paintings from the two Renaissance masters. Two paintings by Raphael dating to 1404-05 – portraits of a Floren...

Published on Wednesday, June 6, 2018 by Kathy McCabe A message from Steve Perillo... Italy is a dream. Perillo Tours has been making that dream come true for more than 70 years! That's why we are thrilled to support our friend Kathy McCabe and her PBS travel series Dream of Italy. For two seasons, Perillo Tours has been a proud sponsor of the show! Season 2 is now airing...take a 90-second Italian break and ...

Published on Friday, June 1, 2018 by Kathy McCabe People have long marveled at the remains of human beings preserved in the ashes of Pompeii in the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Men, women and children were trapped in situ, sometimes in family groups, sometimes alone, nearly 1150 in total rediscovered. But a recent find will help everyone to understand more about the role of animals in this region’s ancient ...

Published on Tuesday, May 29, 2018 by Kathy McCabe They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and if two rare 16th-century Italian sketches could talk, their words would be “Thank goodness we’re home!” Florence’s Uffizi Galleries recently acquired the sketches, the work of Giovan Francesco Rustici and Giovanni Catesi, at an Uffizi Galleries auction at Christie’s in New York City. Both artists created t...