Baking here in Italy is very different than it was in the US. The products are different (baking powder, flour, butter), so something I learned shortly after we moved here is that I couldn’t reliably turn out cakes and cookies like I used to in Nashville.

Engage Little Roads’ new “Explorer Service” to investigate a place in Italy that’s important to you…

As our Little Roads readers know, we typically avoid large towns and big tourist hot-spots. But for the past two years we’ve made an exception to this “rule”: We’ve taken a room at a hotel in Florence with a balcony right on the main Piazza Duomo, to enjoy the chaos and celebrations of New Year’s Eve – but from high above it all.

My old friend John was visiting Italy this week, and we carved out a good chunk of time for the two of us to explore a few ancient places near our home town of Soriano nel Cimino. We went to a few places that Zeneba doesn’t want to go to - either because it’s a scramble up and down muddy paths, or it’s a tunnel so far underground that she fears imminent collapse - despite having held up for millennia.