Published on Friday, May 25, 2018 by Kathy McCabe Summer is a happy season, and it’s made even happier each year when the international Blue Flag program heralding the world’s cleanest beaches announces it choices. For 2018, a great number of those in Italy are set along the Tyrrhenian Sea in Tuscany. You might find it impossible to choose, and it just gets tougher when you widen the Blue Flag map out to the r...

Published on Tuesday, June 21, 2016 by Kathy McCabe This year, Chianti Classico, the picturesque heart of Tuscany that is home to Italy’s most famous wine, is celebrating its 300th anniversary of delivering high-quality wines to Italy and beyond. On Sept. 24, 1716, the Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo III de’ Medici created official borders of the Chianti wine region, establishing quality control teams in the area...

Published on Wednesday, March 25, 2015 by Steve I've always wanted my own magazine and now I have it. The premiere issue of Perillo Traveler - a new digital publication - focusing on our favorite destinations of Italy, Greece, Hawaii, Costa Rice and beyond is here. It is free to download. You can look forward to a new issue every quarter. Enjoy! ...

Published on Wednesday, November 26, 2014 by Kathy McCabe No matter how much you hear about the Leaning Tower, Tuscany’s lovely city of Pisa offers much more to do and see than that structurally challenged monument (but since you will want to see it, here’s a link to tell you more about its history than you might otherwise discover). Here are a few things we recommend: 1. Enjoy the water.  Pisa nestles at the mouth ...

Published on Thursday, February 13, 2014 by Kathy McCabe What's a great way to celebrate a college graduation and a 65th birthday? How about walking 200 miles from Siena to Rome on the historic Via Francigena? That's what aspiring filmmaker Alex Sandberg and his mom did last June. The Via Francigena is part of the ancient route that brought pilgrims from Canterbury to Rome. Alex and his mom Catherine met up in Siena, hi...

Published on Thursday, January 16, 2014 by Kathy McCabe Visiting San Gimignano, the Tuscan town famous for its towers, can feel like a journey back in time. One of the town's museums - San Gimignano 1300 -  helps you have this time travel feeling with an historic, miniature version of what this UNESCO World Heritage Site was like in the year 1300.  While numerous towers in other Italian cities have ben destroyed by t...

Published on Friday, November 15, 2013 by Kathy McCabe The Italy Mix is a post about the most interesting Italy and Italy travel news and human interest stories around the Web each week. Here are our top picks for this week: Venice: Google Street View: How did Google captures the alleys of Venice without cars? Employees carrying backpack-mounted cameras. (The Guardian) St. Peter's Bones: For the first time in hist...

Published on Sunday, July 14, 2013 by Kathy McCabe The ornate marble floor of Siena's Duomo is one of its great treasures. Yet it is rarely uncovered in all its glory for visitors to see. Following the success of last summer's display (350,000 visitors saw it), the flooring of Siena's cathedral will be on view again this summer, for two months, starting August 18th. A must-see if you're visiting Tuscany. According ...

Published on Thursday, May 16, 2013 by Kathy McCabe   One of the magical experiences of visiting Italy is watching master artisans at work... This craftsman is in the town of Volterra, in Tuscany, a place known for its alabaster creations. Photo by Theodore Scott, flickr.com...

Published on Wednesday, November 14, 2012 by Kathy McCabe For four straight days, parts of Italy have been deluged by floods resulting in at least four deaths. Hundreds have been evacuated from their homes in Tuscany and the Tiber River burst its banks north of Rome. High tide in Venice where acqua alta is at record levels: Photo by Robert Trm, flickr.com Flooding in Montepulciano, Tuscany: Photo by Andrea Ro...