The drug of choice for young, club going Italians: psychedelic mushrooms dissolved in Nutella. Found under cow patties in mountains near work-hard, play-hard Milan, these red, polka-dotted Amanita muscaria shrooms are plentiful. Dealers mix about 10 of the fungus in a jar of jam or the famously addictive hazelnut spread Italians consider a national treasure. [...]
Head to the maestro’s hometown in Tuscany, where a spanking new amphitheater will be unveiled at this year’s Puccini Festival to celebrate 150th birthday of Giacomo Puccini. The curtain rises June 15 (through August 23) in the tiny lakeside village of Torre del Lago, where the opera legend spent most of his adult life, and [...]
Historic Italian outdoor firm Ferrino concocted a travel kit for pilgrims hoofing the thousand-year-old Way of St. James to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. It comes with a super light, feature-happy backpack, waterproof map holder and lightweight sleeping bag sure to come in handy on those long, cold nights; the whole shebang costing a parsimonious €99 [...]
If, as some scientists claim, 80 percent of taste is linked to smell, you’d better follow your nose to Europe this month. New York Times perfume critic Chandler Burr leads a series of scent dinners in Rome and Florence, curated by Context Travel (who insist on calling their scholarly guides “docents”), the evenings are part [...]
