15 April 2013
Parma | Pizza Prince
Hot on the heels of Design Week in Milan is an event dedicated to another icon of Italian culture, possibly even more appetizing. Starting today, the Exhibition Centre in Parma is hosting the first ever Pizza World Show, international trade fair ... More
12 April 2013
Pizzo | Piccolo Grand Hotel
Crisp and cool in the turquoise-on-white of Greek island postcards, the Piccolo Grand Hotel basks on another Mediterranean shore, on Calabria's Tyrrhenian coast. More precisely, at Pizzo, an engaging little port built on a rocky outcrop with steep narrow streets, the ... More
9 April 2013
Milan | Fuorisalone in Green
If eco-credentials aren't already a design ante, they should be. In the 21st century, no product or idea is quite so cutting-edge if it isn't also ethical and responsible. As Design Week 2013 takes off in Milan, here's a motley green ... More
6 April 2013
Ripatransone | The Mission House
I haven't actually been there myself, yet, but anyone who has can't commend the Relais del Colle enough. It's a little out of the way, but then that's the whole point: a rural pile in a superb hilltop location where ... More
3 April 2013
Milan | I Saloni 2013
The temperature's rising in Milan. It's a seasonal thing: April is here and the biggest and best, the original Design Week is only a few days away. Around 2000 exhibitors are right now fretting about their stand layout in the mainstream Saloni at the ... More
31 March 2013
Trento | MUSE
Trento has a new museum as architecturally futuristic as it is conceptually innovative. Or rather, for the moment it has the magnificent structure designed by Renzo Piano, already part of a new urban landscape, while internal fixtures and fittings by the ... More
28 March 2013
Belluno | Made-to-Measure
Among the lovely people I was lucky enough to meet while prospecting up in the Veneto not long ago was Elisabetta Venturelli, an achingly young but singularly talented fashion designer from Belluno. A recent virtuoso graduate of Milan's Istituto Marangoni, world-class fashion academy which counts ... More
25 March 2013
Rome | Truffle Hunting
Fear not. We're talking about a consummately metropolitan diversion here, truffle hunting made very easy. No tramping through the undergrowth, no pigs or hounds required. Just an address in one of Rome's swankiest shopping streets, Via Borgognona. This is where ... More
22 March 2013
Modica | Balarte Hotel & Other
An extraordinary project inspired by Futurism, interpreted by young artists, and overseen by an architect-designer: that would be Balarte Hotel & Other, down in Sicily's south-eastern corner, about halfway between Modica and the beach at Pozzallo. Definitely other, even in the category ... More
20 March 2013
Naples | Walking the Walk
When you've seen the unmissable and marvelled at the top sights of this still lawless, querulous, unique city of extremes, it's time to get to know Naples better. It's time to delve deeper into its lesser quarters, off the beaten track, ... More
17 March 2013
Milan | Pisacco Bistrot
An impressive recent addition to the mainstream drinking and dining scene in style capital Milan is Pisacco, gastro-bistrot in Via Solferino, on the edge of one of the coolest areas of the new Milanese movida in the northern reaches of Brera. Put ... More
14 March 2013
Levice | Back to Nature
I recently found myself in one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places on earth. Scouting around with people who've now become friends (Elisa, Mauro and the other guys who were part of our troupe), my photographer John and I set out ... More
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