Day 1 of the next big adventure! Bill and Stephanie and I flew today to Miami and are preparing to leap off to Cuba tomorrow morning. We will be met at the airport by a guide named Bryan in a white t shirt, and taken to eat lunch with a […]

Oh, it’s a fine thing to eat the. Mediterranean Diet! To eat bread with tomatoes and cucumbers for breakfast, tossed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar! To eat focaccia for lunch from Panificio Fiori, the very bag shiny with oil, and your fingers afterwards able to grease your legs up […]

Really, they are easy. They are great travelers. Flexible and fun, don’t get huffy about when and what to eat. Physically strong and capable. Smart and good with electronics. But Bella is a little cranky in the mornings. Some need of the teenage werewolf to sleep until noon. She silently […]

Lots of smokers. No food with fiber. Big breakfast buffet with sausage, bacon, eggs, yogurt, oatmeal with lots of toppings, bagels, muffins, rolls, waffles, pancakes, whole apples, whole oranges, whole bananas, coffee with creamers. Good food, no Whole Foods and no vegetables. It’s muggy and hot. Everyone is really nice. […]

Italian Independence Day, when the Allies freed the country from the Nazis at the end of WW II. (But somehow this sounds like what Putin is saying about freeing Ukraine from the Nazis.) Joe and I were taking a stroll along the beach here near Puzzuoli when a man asked […]

I have decided I really don’t like biking as a way to see the country. I like biking, and I like traveling, but I might as well be on a bus. I am learning as I go, but the method seems to be to ride like hell for an hour […]

We checked in at the bike workshop at 9 AM. After a long wait while they got a Polish group of 18 ready to ride, Giorgio gave me a hurried tutorial on my ebike and we took off through town. It was very difficult for me. I had a bike […]

Lecce is the most lovely and deep warm color, a soft creamy yellow. Apparently it is the color of the local limestone. Oh, the food. And the beauty of the buildings and the scenery. Today we toured Museo Archeologico Faggiano. A private citizen tore up his damp floor to renovate […]

I have done more canning this year than any year in the last 45. I have made strawberry jam, raspberry jam, and strawberry-rhubarb jam. I bought strawberries from Carpinito’s and grew raspberries and rhubarb here in the garden. It was a banner year. I canned 12 quarts of cherries and […]