"You can see the entire history of Sicily right here in Cefalù."

The owner of Hotel La Giara in Cefalù led me up to the roof terrace for a low-level panorama across the city. He made a sweeping gesture encompassing the rooftops and said proudly:

"You can see the entire history of Sicily right here in Cefalù."

"Up on the rocca," he jabs his finger toward the sheer headland that locals call "the fortress" and which shelters Cefalù's perfect little harbor. "You find prehistoric caves and an ancient Greek temple."

"Down here," his hand sweeps to present the narrow streets directly below us. "You can see the courtyards of old Saracen homes, and how the Arabs built the streets narrow as one man, so that if enemies tried to attack, they'd have to enter Cefalù in single file." He paused to grin devilishly. "That way it was easy for just a few men up here with arrows and some more down there with swords to dispatch them."

A meal at Podere Terreno in the Chianti

“The best compliment I ever got,” said Roberto Melosi, passing around the homemade lasagne and Chianina steaks from his seat at the head of the communal dinner table. “Was when I asked some American guests whether it was a bother to keep driving back and forth to Florence every day.”

He paused to top off the glasses around him with more of his farm’s peppery but light Chianti Classico

“The Americans said ‘No, because when we drive back at the end of the day, it’s not like we’re taking an hour to reach our hotel. It’s like we’re driving home.’” Roberto chuckled. “And then they asked if they could stay two weeks next year.”

An elderly German gentleman, sitting at the other end of the table near Roberto’s Paris-born wife, Marie-Sylvie Haniez, nodded gravely. He had been returning to the agriturismo Podere Terreno every summer for twenty years and was in the midst of a record-setting stay: 35 days straight.

Sicily in the Saddle

A horseback ride in the heartland of Sicily

Antonio Carlotta and his horse, Pepe, against a backdrop of the Sicilian countryside. My mount danced up to the crumbling lip of a 1,000-foot drop. She didn't seem inclined to stop.

I yanked repeatedly on the reins, yelling "Whoa!" in what I meant to be a stern, controlled voice but came out high-pitched and panicky. My brain, often of little help in these situations, suggested that perhaps "whoa" wasn't how you made a horse stop in Italian.

Antonio Carlotta, my guide, gave a short, low whistle, and my chestnut mare immediately put on the brakes, kicking loose dirt and pebbles over the cliff as my heart pounded away merrily in its new home halfway up my throat.

"Got a little closer than I expected there," I said suavely, adding, "Ha, ha" to show Antonio I wasn't fazed and, in fact, quiet enjoyed the bitter taste of adrenaline on the back of my tongue. I tried to convince Katy to back up a bit, but the dark chestnut mare seemed content to perch on the edge of doom and just enjoy the view.

"Don't worry," said Antonio, a big grin evident in his voice but not, out of politeness, on his face. "A horse wouldn't go over a cliff." Relaxing a bit, I took a moment to focus on the breathtaking panorama below and not my fear of becoming a part of it.

Good Night, Sleep Tight...And That's All

I'm a confirmed one-star hotel man.

I get a quirky, self-satisfied thrill every time I snag a railroad narrow room with creaky wood floors, a wobbly chair and table rejected by a finer hotel back in 1963, a bare 20-watt bulb dangling on its wire from the ceiling, and a bathroom down the hall I have to share with the rest of the floor.

Good night

I downright revel in my thrift. I mentally lord it over people who can afford better hotels than this one-star in Ravenna. In fact, I picture the poor saps shelling out three or four times as much for a room with TV and minibar in the three-star joint around the corner, and I think: suckers!

Sure, they don’t have to put on pants and grab their keys every time they want to nip out to the bathroom, but I look at it this way: I could stay here for three or four nights at the price they're paying for one. (I say "could stay" because I can't; I've got to dash off to Modena tomorrow, Parma the day after that, then Milan... more than one night in a city is a luxury we working stiff travelers cannot afford.)

I stand here in my gloriously drab one-star hotel room, stripped to my undies, smugly washing my clothes in the sink (even rooms without baths in Europe usually have a sink).

As I round-robin my camera, Palm, laptop, and cellphone battery chargers though the single outlet available, I reflect on my wisdom for preferring one-star hotels—"wisdom" sounding so much better than the slightly more accurate term, "poverty." I am one who appreciates that a comfy bed is all one really needs from his lodgings; anything more is downright slothful. Or maybe avaricious. One of the Deadly Sins, at any rate.

People who live on glass islands...

The changing face of Venice amid the acque alte

Just about every day I was in Venice, we had Acque Alte. That's when the lagoon backwashes into the city streets, starting with Piazza San Marco (the lowest point of Venice) and then filling in the low-lying calle around the Grand Canal.

The air raid sirens go off when the rising waters cause the first gondola moored at Piazzetta San Marco to start nudging over the embankment, usually somewhere around 5 a.m. Since this is an ancient and oft-repeated emergency, the Venetians are perennially prepared during the autumnal Acque Alte season.

Along key arteries of the city they string out a raised wood-plank walkway in long lines of picnic table–looking devices that allow pedestrians to glide over the surface of the water. Once the waters recede, these wide walkways on their stubby aluminum tube legs are stranded high and dry, dividing the streets down the middle, looking sort of like Venice is about to throw a huge outdoor feast for an army of dwarves.

No Room in the Inn at the Center of the World

Making do while shaking up in the myth-soaked Sicilian city of Enna

Enna is a city one can see in just 95 minutes—at least, that's how long it took Jay and I to do the major sights (not that most were major...).

Admittedly, we did skip the medieval Norman Torre di Frederico II and it's surrounding park, but the thing was way out on the other end of Enna in the new town (the city is kind of V-shaped, splayed out along two ridges) and is completely swathed in scaffolding (Ionic, from what we could tell) and closed anyway.

Although our train pulled in around 2:20pm, there wasn't a bus up to the town proper until 3:10pm. And, as it turns out, Enna's bus station is way the heck over in the new town, not the old town where all of the sights (and the only hotel) cluster.