I am writing this from the terraced bar area of the quirky Bristol Hotel in the little Amalfi Coast town of Vietri. We left Sicily two days early and powered halfway up the Italian boot yesterday. Now, we’re back to overlooking the sea … near the end of our Italian vacation. In a few minutes, […]

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We again interrupt this travelogue to muse about sports events back home, this time the Day of Reckoning at the University of Southern California. Anyone who has been around the American college sports scene for any length of time could see this coming. To spend any time around Heritage Hall at USC was to pick […]

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Truth be told, as great as our first week was, in Massa Lubrense … our second week was not, the first three days in Sicily. The beyond-tepid “welcome” to the Feudogrande agriturismo hotel, the dreariness of Catania (broken up slightly by a nice lunch I wasn’t there for), the tourist-driven nightmare of Taormina, and then […]

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A friend and former colleague recently told us that a significant fraction of his ancestors lived in the famous Sicilian resort town of Taormina … before they left for America a century or so ago. He wondered what we would think of the town, because we are so close to it — we can see […]

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Alas, the end of the week arrived. Time to leave our “home” overlooking the sea at Massa Lubrense … and venture into the great unknown. Well, we know the broad outline of the great unknown: Sicily. A long drive and ferry ride south. So, we each took a last, longing look out over the sea, […]

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After traveling all day down the mountain-spackled length of Italy — and no, you can’t find a dozen places flat enough to plow 40 acres anywhere south of Rome — finally some time to do my tiny bit on UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, the most important sports figure in Southern California over the last […]

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Does it get any better than this? I mean, really. Italian seafood lunch al fresco, perfect weather, best table, overlooking the sea and the beach at a little town that feels as if it ought to be overrun with tourists … but no one this year has yet gotten around to visiting. Three-plus hours, four […]

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It’s vacation! Not a change of laptop viewing venues! The three of us clearly didn’t get the memo. We had just had a very nice dinner of pesce spada (swordfish) for me, risotto con scampi for Leah and spaghetti vongale (pasta and clams) for Liz at one of the nicer restaurants in our little town […]

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More photos. I hear it often. Post more photos! We live in a visual age. Words are so 20th century. Images! We hear you! And now we have about 40 photos of, mostly,  Italy. Here is the link to them.  Of if you want to cut-and-paste, here is the url in old-fashioned letters and punctuation: […]

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* Subtitled: How almost to ruin your perfect vacation by attempting to make it perfect-er. In a previous post we have stipulated that we have landed in paradise. To recap, for those just tuning in, we are ensconced in a tastefully decorated, well-appointed, four-bedroom house with an enormous terrace that gives us about a 180-degree […]

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