Olive Garden cooking school in Tuscany?
Updated 02/2014 Olive Garden is one of those places that really sets my blood to boil. Every time I hear the word ‘Hospitaliano’ I begin to cringe and twitch. When I hear them say ‘When you’re here,...
Food Marketing Terms That Really Chap My Hide…
Many of my posts here are about the oddities I find living in Italy as an American, but the reverse holds true as well. Having spent so much time in Italy, when I come back to the states, there are things that are normal to...
It’s A Small World After All
In our business, we meet people from all over the world. Small World stories can be expected from time to time. You know, “Hey! That person is my neighbor”, or “We went to the same school”, or “we...
Send Up The White Smoke : The Vatican You Didn’t Know About
Just ten miles from our home base of Soriano bel Cimino is the city of Viterbo, which is practically unknown internationally. However, this city of roughly 65,000 residents holds a place in history that is especially relevant as...
We Came, We Harvested, We Made Olive Oil!
In November 2011, Culture Discovery Vacations brought a group of guests to a small traditional cold press olive mill. They harvested olives in Umbria, brought them to the mill, and operated the mill, making their own olive oil...
A Pig Named Sumo
Paolo and Marisa are, by all accounts, your typical everyday Italian farmers. That is, with one big exception: Their farm happens to be across the road from us… those crazy people that bring all of the Americans...
Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Tales of Linguistic Missteps Learning Italian
Anyone that has learned a second language knows all about those embarrassing moments when they were trying to say one thing, but unknowingly said something completely different. In most cases, the thing they actually wound up...
Italian Food You Won’t Find in Italy
As we learned with Alfredo Sauce in the “Who is Alfredo Sauce, and Why do Americans Keep Asking About Him? ”, that which you believe to be Italian, very often is not. Since we do culinary vacations in Italy, you can imagine how...
The Mummies of Ferentillo
24 years ago on the Monday that followed Easter, we were boating on a beautiful lake in southern Umbria with a friend. He asked us if we had ever heard of “The Mummies”. Mummies? Naturally Egypt and...
The Battle with Jet Lag – How to Fight and Win (sort of)
It has always amazed me that some people suffer jet lag horribly, while others barely feel the effects at all. Me? I fall into the first group: I used to dread every trip because I fall squarely on the top of...