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​“I took a sip and it practically blew my eyeballs out,” Rich said, glaring at the glass in my hand. ‘It’s not that bad,” I said, taking another cautious swallow of the wine. One vlogger had called it “ rough as guts ,” but that seemed a trifle harsh. I shrugged. “It’s no worse than…

If you ever happen to be down on your matrimonial luck, you’ll be glad to know that Íñigo Lopes is standing by to help. Well, not exactly standing, as he’s been dead for 520 years, but Sevillano friends tell me that if you kick the side of his tomb, you’ll be married within the year.…

​When I learned the town’s name meant “a place frequented by vultures,” I have to admit my enthusiasm dimmed a little. Vultureville? Really? However, my current project, “Out to Lunch,” involves visiting offbeat towns in the city and province of Seville, seeking cultural curiosities and great food. As I soon discovered, Utrera offers these in…

I’m not saying the experience left me scarred for life, but my first visit to Seville’s Casa de la Ciencia (House of Science) was sufficiently unnerving to make me bolt out the exit, shuddering and vowing never to return. This was in 2012, when I’d just started this blog, and I went directly home and…

​“Good writers borrow,” said Oscar Wilde. “Great writers steal.” I don’t claim to be a great writer (that’s for future historians to decide, and I probably don’t want to know which way they’ll vote). But the instant I read about an expat writer who occasionally hopped on a train simply to visit another town for…

I know I shouldn’t play favorites, but of the five meals a day enjoyed by Sevillanos (breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner) my hands-down preference is for the midday meal. Here in southern Spain, lunch o’clock rolls around about 2:00 PM. It is NOT about inhaling a sandwich at your desk or (shudder) gulping…

“Let’s get out of here,” I yelled as the jackhammers started thundering overhead. Again. Rich pantomimed agreement and we shot out the door. We were staying in an otherwise delightful Airbnb in Syracuse, Sicily. It was sheer bad luck the neighbors directly above had chosen that week to smash up their old stone floors and…

​​“Rich, I’m in trouble,” I said a few mornings ago. “So far our stay here in Catania has been delightful, but I can’t think of a single moment that counts as a Nutter experience. What am I going to write about this week? If I just prattle on about good food and pleasant weather, even…

You have to love the impish sense of humor that prompts a train station to fill its waiting room with sturdy wooden benches then labels them, “ NON SEDERTI QUI (PLEASE DON’T SIT HERE) .” As if any further taunting were needed, this train station — and, coincidentally Rich and I — stood at the…

​Was the letter in the photo above actually composed by Satan? It was discovered in 1676, clutched in the hand of Sister Maria Crocifissa della Concezione (Sister Mary Crucified of the Conception), as she lay collapsed on the floor of her Sicilian convent, covered in ink and gibbering incoherently. As anyone would be, after spending…