Lazio

A Day in Vignanello

1 week ago

by Peta in Culture, Lazio, Travel Tips

TweetThis Sunday with the weather a little less conducive to wandering around an ancient village so we decided not to travel too far from home. I had heard there is a regular antique/bric-a-brac auction in Vignanello (about 10 minutes from Soriano) & missing a little of our life in Oz [...]

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How (NOT) To Implement a Recycling Policy in Your Town

1 year ago

by Michael in Lazio, Let Me Vent, Things that make me scratch my head

TweetI’m a big fan of recycling, and I was really happy to hear that our town, Soriano nel Cimino, was planning on implementing a recycling program. Better yet, it would include garbage pick-up. Cool! The fact is, that much of Italy is full of litter, many towns have garbage bins that [...]

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The Wine Is Always Finer On The Other Side of the Fence

1 year ago

by Michael in Culinary, Lazio, Tours, Tuscany, Umbria, Wine

TweetI’ve been wanting to write about this for ages. Not about wine actually being better on the other side of the fence, but the impression that it is. We take groups to wineries in Tuscany and the surrounding regions several times a week, and once you have done it enough, you can’t [...]

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Calcata Italy – A Quick Peek

2 years ago

by Michael in Culture, Lazio, Tours, Travel Tips

Tweet Calcata is an ancient hilltop village that is about 45 minutes from Soriano, near Rome. What makes this village so special is that in the 1930′s, it was condemned, and became a ghost town. However, in the 60′s hippies and artists began to squat here, and over time it developed into [...]

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Cooking & Touring Tuscany, Umbria & Lazio Italy in 2008, a look back

3 years ago

by Michael in Cooking, Culinary, Culture, Festivals, Food, Lazio, Music, Tours, Travel Tips, Tuscany, Umbria, Wine

Tweet7 months, 17 tours, 56 cooking classes, 144 guests and over 35,000 miles of Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio are behind us. That was the 2008 season for us at Culture Discovery. As with last year, after coming back to the US, I have gone into video mode. Here is the first video I have [...]

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Tuscia in Jazz Festival 2008 – Schedule

3 years ago

by Michael in Culture, Festivals, Lazio, Tours, Travel Tips, Tuscany, Umbria

TweetCultureDiscovery.com is a proud sponsor of this year’s Jazz Festival in Soriano. We hope you will come and see us! We’ll be filming a great deal of the festival this year in High Definition, as well as conducting numerous interviews. This is the preliminary schedule for the 2008 Jazz [...]

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Soriano nel Cimino – Palio delle Contrade

4 years ago

by Michael in Culture, Festivals, Lazio, Sports, Tours, Travel Tips, Umbria

TweetThis year wasn’t my first time seeing the Chestnut Festival, but through the years, I have never made it to the Palio. First things first, What on earth is a ‘Palio’ ? Those who have heard the term generally know of it it in connection with the famous ‘Palio di Siena’, which is a [...]

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The hidden ruins of a 13th century Olive Mill in Italy

4 years ago

by Michael in Culture, Lazio, Personal, Tours, Travel Tips, Umbria

TweetAsk around Soriano about ‘Fosso Mulino’ (River Mill) and you will get mostly blank stares. So it is no surprise that after all of these years I had no idea that it existed. Very few people do. One day I was out with my friend (and our contractor) Andrea D’Alessio. He asked me if I [...]

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The Medieval Swordsmen of Soriano nel Cimino

4 years ago

by Michael in Culture, Festivals, Lazio, Tours, Tuscany

TweetFor those of you that will be coming to Soriano for the Chestnut Festival, I thought I would post a video that shows a few of the highlights. This video is a promotional piece by Soriano nel Cimino’s Medieval Swordsmen. While they perform at many festivals all over the world, being [...]

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The Flag Throwers ( Sbandieratori ) of Soriano nel Cimino

4 years ago

by Michael in Culture, Festivals, Lazio, Music, Tours, Travel Tips, Umbria

TweetThings got quite busy since my last post. We had a wave of guests come to Soriano, and the annual chestnut festival ( Sagra delle Castagne ) began, which really kept me running, camera in hand. The folks in Soriano’s tourism office were kind enough to issue me an all-access press [...]

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The Wine Harvest – Making wine in Italy

4 years ago

by Michael in Cooking, Culinary, Culture, Festivals, Food, Lazio, Tours, Travel Tips, Tuscany, Umbria, Wine

Tweet I remember my mother telling me about her move to Southern California, and how excited she was the first time she picked an orange off a tree and ate it right there. I was thinking, like… ok, big deal… you need to get out more! But then again, she was from New York, and I had [...]

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Soccer Fanaticism in Italy – Because they cant feed Christians to the lions anymore

4 years ago

by Michael in Culture, Lazio, Let Me Vent, Sports, Things that make me scratch my head

TweetI love Football (Go USC!) & Baseball (Go Dodgers!).. I’m an American after all. But I have never been able to sink my heart into Soccer. So having spent all of these years in Italy, I’ve never been to a serious professional Soccer match. I’ve been to the small ones, but never [...]

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The 40th Annual Chestnut Festival (Sagra delle Castagne) Schedule – 2007

4 years ago

by Michael in Culture, Festivals, Lazio, Tours

TweetThe 40th Annual Chestnut Festival (Sagra delle Castagne) Schedule – 2007 Every year, during the first two weeks of October, Soriano nel Cimino hosts a festival that surrounds the chestnut harvest. This festival is done on a large scale, and attracts thousands of people from [...]

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The Tuscia in Jazz Festival

4 years ago

by Michael in Culture, Lazio, Music, Travel Tips

TweetFor the first time, Soriano hosted the Tuscia in Jazz Festival. This international festival had been held in nearby Ronciglione for the past five years, but apparently that town had complained about the noise and decided they didn’t want it anymore. The festival promoter, Italo [...]

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Living Mangers in Italy

5 years ago

by Michael in Culture, Lazio, Tours, Travel Tips, Tuscany, Umbria

TweetA tradition in Italy during Christmas time is the living manger. Many towns go way beyond a simple manger scene, and produce a full scale reproduction of Bethlehem. What makes it so special in many cases, is that they have the landscape and existing structures to really make it [...]