Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I’m sure that you all sang that word as you read it.

It’s the chorus of a song that appears, alongside so many other musical and visual wonders, in Robert Stevenson’s film Mary Poppins, starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke.

Mary Poppins is set in Edwardian London, in the first decade of the twentieth century. One day, an umbrella glides in through the sky and holding onto the handle is Mary Poppins. Through her magic and ...

Coming away from the edge of the gorge and heading down to the bottom of the “Sassi” is an experience that marks one’s entire life. No other place in the world can grant the sensation of time beyond time, of place without place, that this cluster of houses evokes. At first sight, this ravine looks less like a town than a gigantic game of Jenga gone awry. Descending the Sassi – then climbing again, then coming down again – is to pass from the “national shame” of Matera as it ...

April is always a difficult month for winemakers. It’s a period when they walk on a knife-edge between the excitement of seeing the buds push through and the terror of frosty nights.

This was brought home to us around April 6 and 7. From the full glory of spring, when we were dining outdoors in 26°C/79°F, we plunged to freezing point and even further, snow falling and heating systems whirring back into life. It was a sharp and unpleasant jolt. The Chianti Classico and Montalcino areas ...

We often smile when we hear certain expressions from the old peasant dialect, usually colorful and brutal in some way. We think of ourselves as proud practitioners of a more sophisticated register, one that has nothing in common with the blunt phrasemaking of country folk. What most people don’t know is that our wonderful Italian language, which was originally known as the “vulgate” on account of its usage among the more “common”, less affluent classes, slowly diverged and developed from ...

On May 22, 1499, Val Venosta saw the armies of the Three Leagues and the Swabian League march across it, taking the Alpine valleys for their own. Following their adventures and unpicking their motives is a task for dedicated historians; most of us would get lost in the ever-shifting web of clashes and alliances, which would likely send us to sleep. All we need to know is that in the so-called Swabian War, the Swiss played a decisive role, belying their usual reputation as neutral bystanders. It was the Swiss soldiery ...