I recently wrote two short features, on two of my favorite neighborhoods, for two of my favorite magazines. One was on Monti for National Geographic Traveler; the other, on Testaccio for Travel + Leisure (their food issue, which was very apropos!).
You can see them back-to-back, below, or pick them up in the magazines' April issues. The Monti piece is also available online.
There's nothing like seeing Rome by scooter—so I was thrilled to get the chance to write about exactly that for the premiere issue of AUH magazine. (The magazine, published by Ink Global, is the brand-new magazine for Abu Dhabi airport).
The folks over there also, of all things, asked me to participate in the photo shoot for the article. So I got to not only write the premiere issue's cover story... but spend a morning whipping around Rome on a scooter. And not just any scooter. This was a 1953 white, vintage Vespa, complete with a sidesaddle seat in the back. Yep, I love my job.
Excitingly (and embarassingly), I wound up in several of the story's photos (being the only girl in the group will make that happen). You can check out the story, and the rest of photographs, here.
I was back on the How to Tour Italy radio show with Anthony Capozzoli today, talking about one of my favorite subjects, Rome's underground sites. Got a half-an hour? That's enough time to get the low-down on my top four underground sights.
I appeared on the show for the first time in September, sharing my take on everything from what the deal is with Italy's graffiti to why it's nice to see weird-looking produce here. You can listen to that show here.
This spring, I got the email every travel writer prays will, one day, wind up in their inbox. The title: "Do you have time to go to Santorini this month?" The text: "We want you to do our cover story."
Obviously, I was in.
I'd been to Santorini twice before. But on my third time there, I spent four days simply... exploring. And fell in love with the island, which—to be perfectly honest—I'd almost written off on my last trip there, finding the souvenir shops and tourist hordes at Fira just too much.
This time, I did things differently. I rented a car, something I'd never done there before (but recommend highly!), which let me get to the smaller, off-the-beaten-path towns and beaches that many tourists don't discover. I made it to Akrotiri, the Bronze Age settlement, frozen in time by the volcanic eruption here in 1,600 B.C., which had been closed both times I'd visited before. As luck would have it, it opened for the first time in almost a decade on the very same weekend I arrived.
It was also Orthodox Easter, which, if you've ever celebrated Easter with Greeks, made everything even more exciting. In Perissa, I sat with a family that owned a restaurant on the black sand beach and ate the goat that they'd been spit-roasting for the past several hours. In Oia, on a local's tip, I went to the main piazza at midnight; firecrackers and fireworks exploded nonstop overhead. One, whizzing too close, made me deaf in one ear for the rest of the night. (Between that and the scar I'd gotten a couple of months earlier from being hit by, of all things, an orange at the Battaglia degli Aranci in Ivrea, I've decided travel journalism—while not exactly war reporting—can be pretty risky business).
And I made friends, especially thanks to Craig Walzer, a Tennessee native and the owner of Oia's Atlantis Books, who took me under his wing and introduced me to many others in the town. As well as convinced me to rent a car to begin with. (Thanks, Craig!).
It all gave me much more insight into the island's culture—and even more appreciation for its beauty and history than I'd had before. So I'm so thrilled to see that the story, which is the cover story for Mariner magazine's fall issue, came out so beautifully. The photographs by James Bedford are stunning.
So check it out! If you can't find Mariner on newsstands, you can read the story online here.
Back in the spring, I wrote a piece on Rome's best hotels for National Geographic Traveller (the U.K. version); now, my article on Rome's best B&Bs is out in National Geographic Traveler (the U.S. version). Find it on newsstands now, or read it online here!
If you're a fan of my work—whether the articles I've done, or my blogging, or maybe even that documentary that just came out—then check out my new page on Facebook! That's where I'll be sharing news and photos not just of and about Rome, but my travels, life and work in general (in all their variety!).
Check it out here... and let me know what you think!
guidebook hit bookstores yesterday..
Emperor Caligula made his horse a consul, his palace a brothel, and his sisters his, erm, "girlfriends." Two thousand years later, the jury's still out on how crazy Emperor Caligula really was.But one thing's for certain: He was, and remains, a fascinating character.
That's why I was thrilled to be a host/"story-teller" for the History Channel's 2-hour documentary on the Roman emperor, produced by North South Productions. The documentary premiered in the U.S. on Tuesday, Oct. 9. If you missed it, don't worry: It'll be airing again soon, so keep checking your History Channel schedules.
In the meantime, you can check out the preview here.
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