Our last months in Italy were filled with preparing for our move during separate sojourns in California and myriad, demanding tasks at home in Umbria. For some time, we’d been including friends in addition to family as recipients of these monthly letters. Here are edited excerpts from such letters plus memories not written but still …

I’ve detoured for an account of our visit to Oman and Qatar during February 2012. Now let’s back up to January and what was going on in our Italian lives. Here are edited excerpts from letters to family about the many challenges of January through June. January Gosh, what a month. One trial after another, …

Early in 2012, we decided to visit Oman and Qatar, reasoning they’d never be so near nor so easy to get to. So we spent a couple weeks touring countryside and city, trying to get a feel for this part of the world. Post #74 detailed the first half of our trip, and here’s the …

The first six months of 2012 were very full, but we managed to find ten days to get away for some fun and adventure. Let’s visit some Emirates, we thought, they may never again be so near and so easy. This post will focus on the first half of that excursion, while the next one …

One of the great things about living overseas is experiencing the local customs of celebration, whether it be for life-transitions or religious holidays. We’ve been fortunate to do that in Asia, Africa and finally, in Europe. Here are edited excerpts from end-of-the-year letters to family. July Valentina Rosati, whom many of you have met, graduated …

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 …