Just One Suitcase

TRAVELING SOLO [Tricks of the trade]

19 December 2018 ♦

STORIES

I’m a woman and I travel the world. Alone. (With some occasional exceptions.) Alone, I’ve stayed in a stone cottage on top of a mountain in Tuscany, an 11th-century fort on an island off the coast of Brittany, an estancia in Argentina, and a riad in Tangier. Alone, I’ve shopped…

GUEST POST | Puglia, Italy | Anita Dore

29 January 2015 ♦

STORIES

One of the perks of writing a travel blog is that I hear from people around the world. Anita Dore is a designer and painter, living in Luxembourg. She and her husband, Dave, recently traveled to the region of Puglia, Italy, in the “heel of Italy’s boot.” It is the…

EXCEPTIONAL EATERIES | Portofino | Ristorante Puny

22 July 2014 ♦

DON’T MISS

One of the (many) perks of working on “The Brian Boitano Project” for HGTV, was the opportunity to eat at some fabulous restaurants in Italy. Brian, besides being an Olympic gold medal-winning skater, is a fantastic chef, with his finger on the pulse of the best restaurants. Ristorante Puny is…

EXCEPTIONAL EATERIES | Como | Pane e Tulipani

2 June 2014 ♦

DON’T MISS

Pane e Tulipani (translation: Bread and Tulips) can be found on a quiet street corner in Como, Italy. Both design and cuisine are perfection. Sit down at a scrubbed pine table with the warm breeze drifting through the door. Crisp carrot sticks and freshly-baked bread will be placed in front…

Style Moment | Chiavari

23 February 2014 ♦

STYLE MOMENTS

“I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” María Rosalía Rita de Castro (1837-1885) Spanish poet

Weird but Wonderful | Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in Italy

21 February 2014 ♦

WEIRD BUT WONDERFUL

While I was in Italy art directing “The Brian Boitano Project,” I began to notice something peculiar. Everywhere I went, I saw Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. There are several versions of the fairy tale in Italy, dating back to the fifteenth century. Which is interesting, but doesn’t explain…

Style Moment | A house in Favale

9 February 2014 ♦

STYLE MOMENTS

“Beauty is a summation of the parts working together in such a way that nothing needs to be added, taken away or altered.” Elio Carletti (1925-1980) Italian artist

Eye on Design | The Brian Boitano Project | HOW TO | Dining room pendant

5 February 2014 ♦

EYE ON DESIGN

If you’ve seen the posts about The Brian Boitano Project, you’ll know that I had the best job of my life as art director of the HGTV television show, chronicling the renovation of a crumbling stone villa in the mountains of Italy. One of the most asked questions regarding the…

Eye on Design | HGTV | The Brian Boitano Project | Behind the Scenes

25 January 2014 ♦

EYE ON DESIGN

If you haven’t seen the television show, here is my personal chronicle of Brian Boitano’s transformation of a 19th century stone house in the village of Favale di Malvaro, Italy. He started by knocking down some walls. The ground floor consisted of four small rooms, and Brian wanted to open…

HGTV | The Brian Boitano Project

16 January 2014 ♦

DON’T MISS

In a tiny hamlet called Favale di Malvaro, on top of a mountain in Northern Italy, was a house where time stood still. An abandoned stone house, crumbling and derelict, was still filled with the furniture and personal relics that had belonged to countless generations of one family – the…