The COVID Gondolier

Our recent trip to Venice confirmed that unless COVID restrictions are lifted soon, this wonderful experience will become a memory of the past.  Virtually all the gondoliers are going out of business, many after generations of plying the waters of Venice.

Mountain Man

Well, just in case you’ve been wondering what we’ve been doing while we can’t travel outside of Italy, here we are at Seceda in the Italian Alps.  Oh, and it starting raining the next day–and the next–and the next until we gave up and came back to Parma.  But as you can imagine, I’ll be…

Lethal Awe

For thus says the Lord to me, “As the lion or the young lion growls over his prey, against which a band of shepherds is called out, and he will not be terrified at their voice nor disturbed at their noise, so will the Lord of hosts come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill.”  Isaiah 31:4  

Inheritance

As you may have guessed, Italy is filled with cultural inheritance.  It’s not just the architecture that’s thousands of years old, it’s also traditions.  Some are wonderful–like the one we attended a few days ago in Alezio.  The oldest living person in the family, the grandmother, sat in her wheelchair on the side of the…