Cinque Terre is five picturesque town located on the Italian Riviera in Liguria, between La Spezia and Genoa. I had gone there my last time in Italy and it did not go very well. It was a rainy day in November than was peppered with thunder and lightning. I got wet and lost and did…

My first WWOOFing experience went a lot like my first Couchsurfing experience. It was perfect! Il Troscione is a small organic farm/agritourism site in the southwest of Tuscany. Fiorella and Igi own and operate this little slice of heaven. They are a wonderful couple that moved from Milan to Il Troscione 5 years ago to…

I spent one of my days off from Il Troscione in Siena with 3 of my co-WWOOFers. Due to logistics, we only had about 3.5 hours in the city. We spent 30 minutes having nannini coffee in the main piazza, then walked around town for about an hour. Siena is really beautiful and was covered…

One of my fellow WWOOFers at Il Troscione, Tony, drove to Il Troscione and was nice enough to take us on a tour of southern Tuscany on one of our off days. We visited five towns in all and had a wonderful time. Our first stop was Montemarano. It is a sleepy little medieval village…

Just as in Rome, this time around I only spent two nights and one day in Florence. My stay was very brief, but I couldn’t return to Italy without visiting my (former) favorite city. The last time I came to Florence it was November and I spent an incredible week there. I went to most…

Bologna is the culinary capital of Italy, which I consider Italy to be the culinary capital of the world. Needless to say, Bologna is a very spiritual place for me. Again, this being August, many of the restaurants were closed for holiday. Bologna is also a university town and was pretty much a ghost town…

I visited Rome the last time I was in Europe and could not spend a month in Italy without stopping by again. I only spent two nights and one full day in the city this time, but still had a great time. I’m a big fan of history, culture, and architecture in addition to, of…

I decided to take the Ferry from Corfu to Bari and start my month in Italy in Puglia. A chef friend in Hawaii, Donato, hails from this region and told me to visit his hometown of Alberobello. The town is a 2 hour bus ride from Bari and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site known…