Toward the end of 2010 and into early 2011, we had ten individuals/families interested in buying our house and five acres. As many as two tours a day with our agent! That’s unusual for a rural property and for that time of year. But one after another, each possibility fell through as potential buyers couldn’t …

Even though we’d put our house on the market, life in Umbria went on as usual, with the fun and challenges of changing seasons, local day trips and a longer visit across the Mediterranean. But life also has a way of reminding us never to take today’s normalcy for granted. Here are edited excerpts from …

For all our lives, spur-of-the-moment trips have been normal, and they’ve often worked out like magic. Even when something didn’t go as expected, the results were almost always happy surprises. Now, in our ninth decade, that’s still our favorite way to travel. We just get in the car and go, often not really knowing where …

Good thing our two weeks in Morocco ended with relaxing days in Essaouira. The next months in Italy were about to ask a lot of us. Here are edited excerpts from letters sent to the family. February We started the month traveling to Rome with local friends to attend a Chopin recital and returned another …

When an unexpected IRS refund arrived, we decided to spend at least part of it on a mid-winter trip to Morocco. A country we’d wanted to visit for decades, it offered not only unique sights and sounds but, just as  important, insights into ourselves as travelers. Here’s an edited account of our adventures sent to …