The Bittersweet Life

In this  EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, the elusive American princess opens up about her relationship with the late Prince Nicolò, the unpleasant inheritance fight she's currently embroiled in with her stepsons, how she feels about the prospect of being forced from her home, and—perhaps most intriguingly—what it's like to live at Villa Aurora, a five-hundred-year-old...

If you are dreaming of an Italian summer, find it within the pages of a book. Tiffany shares her favorite books that take place (at least partly) in Italy in summer, and exqiusitely and vividly capture that magical setting.  **Check out our interview with Liam Callanan about his earlier book, Paris by the Book   here .** ------------------------------------- ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future...

Ah, the freedom of the roadtrip. Go anywhere, anytime, at your own pace. No limits but the open road... *record scratch* ...unless you are roadtripping in Europe, that is.  Katy recounts the hazards, hiccups, and dramas of her attempt to roadtrip across several European countries... and catching Covid in the process. ------------------------------------- ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future exp...

"I was in Italy at Lake Como when I learned I had Covid." So begins an original piece by our own Katy Sewall, which recounts her health adventure getting Covid after two full years of pandemic isolation and extreme precaution, just as she finally departed on her first international trip since the coronavirus outbreak. She muses on the irony of the timing, the wisdom of traveling right now accordin...

As you know if you're a regular listener, our show goes a lot deeper than travel tips an "best of"s. Our weekly conversations explore many aspects of life (both abroad and at home), and we encourage our listeners to live more daring and authentic lives. But we've had so many requests for an episode about our favorite restaurants, wine bars, and gelato shops, that we finally gave in! Whether you're...

Rome's fountains are nothing short of inspiring—as we discovered on Monday's episode that features excerpts from Ottorino Respighi's symphonic tone poem, The Fountains of Rome . But there are so many more fountains in Rome than are depicted auditorily in Respighi's music, and so many more than the average tourist comes across in the course of a typical visit.  On this mini-episode, Tiffany shares...

Rome not only has more fountains than any city on earth, it also has the most beautiful ones, from the delicate Fountain of the Turtles (ispiration for Tiffany's book Midnight in the Piazza ), to the massive Fontanone on the Gianicolo Hill and so many others. In fact, the eary 20th-century Italian composer Ottorino Respighi was so inspired by Rome's fountains (four in particular) that he wrote a s...

Looking back on her eventful gap year, our childhood friend Suzanne (whom me mention often on this show) talks about what prompted her to put off college for two years (in a time and place where it simply wasn't done) to go live her version of a bohemian artist's life in Europe. She talks about what she learned about herself and the world, and how, despite being a travel-lover and a polyglot, she...

What about if you dream of moving abroad—but love your life and your community in your home town? This was the dilemma of longtime listener Darlene, who wrote to us several times during her years-long path to becoming an expat. She finally took the plunge and moved to Italy. She started out in Bolzano and is seeking what is next. She joins us for a interview taped in person in Rome to share how sh...

It's hot in Rome right now, and all over Italy. Unbearably hot. Tourists and locals alike are dropping like flies. On this mini-episode, Tiffany shares her tried-and-true tips based on her experience enduring nearly 20 Roman summers (most of them without the luxury of air conditioning) that will keep you reasonably cool, and—most importantly—ensure that you get the most out of your time in Rome, d...

When your co-hosts stumble upon Tiffany's old apartment on Via Garibaldi, where she spent several memorable years between her late 20s and early 30s, it sparks a conversation about aging. Not just the ravages of time on our faces and bodies, but how aging can change the way we remember the past, how we perceive the passage of time, and our expectations for the future. -----------------------------...

As Katy wanders through her rental aparment in Rome, she revels in the quiet joy of simply waking up in a new place (especially after so much time sticking close to home). Part of travel is not just going out and exploring, but sitting still and noticing what's different about the place you find yourself in—what smells different? How is the soundscape different? On this mini-episode, she takes you...

You may know that St. Francis of Assisi traveled to Rome in the early 13th century, but do you know where he stayed? Did you know that you can vist the very cell where he slept and even see (and touch) the stone that St. Francis used for a pillow? (And by the way, why the heck did St. Francis use a a stone for a pillow?) Tiffany and Katy visit this pilgrimage site on this episode and talk about St...

When traveling in Italy, how do you know when you are getting your money's worth and when you are getting scammed? Last week, Tiffany shared tips gathered from her long experience living Italy to help you avoid getting robbed , and this week, she dishes the dirt on how not to get scammed. Be sure to listen to this mini-epispde before your next trip to Italy! As promised, here are the OFFICIAL onli...

Katy finally tests negative for Covid and these two long-separated friends are reunited at last! Katy and Tiffany grab a spot on the steps of the fountain in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere for a totally unplanned, unscripted conversation. It turns into an exploration of Rome through the senses, particularly, what Katy's heightened senses are picking up after over four years away. Sometimes they...

You've finally arrived in Italy for your dream vacation and all you want to do is dive head-first into pasta, gelato, art, history, and beauty but... [record scratch] ...you just got robbed. Passport gone. Smartphone swiped. Wallet emptied. Credit cards maxed out. It is a living travel nightmare that most of us have experienced at least once in our lives... and one we all want to avoid. Just in ti...

After more than two years of staying close to home during the pandemic, being as careful to avoid infection as one could possibly be, with no international travel to speak of, Katy and her husband finally arrive in Italy! And the very first thing that happens... Katy tests positive for Covid  Tiffany and Katy are in the same city again for the first time in over four years... and they have to tape...

As we prepare to launch our "Summer in Rome" series, Katy muses on her favorite suitcase, a piece of luggage that has seen her though nearly every trip she's ever taken for the past quarter of a century, from bus trips to train trips to road trips to flights, including many to Vietnam. With the zipper broken, she tries to decide whether or not it's worth it to fix it, with the impossible challange...

Does the language that we speak influence the way that our thoughts work? An article in the New York Times by Guy Deutcher, Does Your Language Shape How You Think? explores this topic in depth. Taking inspiration from the article, Katy and Tiffany muse on this topic, from how gendered nouns influences how we think about objects, to how specific we choose to be—or are forced to be—depending on the...

The sounds that follow you throughtout your day have a way of slipping into the background and going unnoticed. But how often do you stop to really listen? On Monday's episode we played audio that listeners sent in of the sounds that mean something to them, that signify the something good is happening, or for whatever reason make them happy. On this mini-episode, Tiffany tunes into the ordinary so...

What are the sounds you truly love, not for how beautiful they are, but for what they mean? Sounds that, for whatever reason, make you happy? Sounds that, when you hear them, you know something good is about to happen? We asked and you answered. We asked our listeners to send in the sounds that mean something to them, and we got so many, we almost couldn't fit them all in one episode! Happy listen...

No, we didn't make a mistake and accidently air a BONUS episode on the regular show. Today, we are giving ALL our listeners a peek at what our Patreon supporters and regular donors get twice a month: fun, often silly, sometimes off-topic, and always extremely candid BONUS EPISODES! On this one, Katy and Tiffany talk about the things you can find in any American home but are blatantly absent in Ita...

Two years after the worldwide outbreak of Covid-19, what will the long-term effects be? Not just in terms of public health, but in terms of privacy, censorship, and government control? This week, we are joined by journalists Joel Simon and Robert Mahoney, co-authors of The Infodemic: How Censorship and Lies Made the World Sicker and Less Free . The authors explain how, "as COVID-19 spread around t...

How many weeks (roughly) do you have left to live? The answer will probably shock you, accoriding to author and cartoonisht Tim Urban, as most of us like to think our lives are, somehow, infinite. But even more surprising than that, Urban points out, are the number of days we have left with the people closest to us, not because they are about to die, but because we simply see them much less often...

We are proud to say that we have some of the most engaged listeners in the entire podcast world! We get lots of mail from our listeners, both comments and questions about specific past episodes, as well as suggestions for future episodes and questions about life (often expat life) in general. Every so often, we grab a few of those letters and read them on air, address the questions and offer our s...