Some recent favorites! In a Northern Italian Wine Region, Raising a Glass with Less Fuss (New York Times) Wine shops with a handful of tables — informal places that locals frequent for lunch or a bite before a late dinner — now have shelves that are packed with the region’s best wines at retail prices, not the pronounced markup found in many restaurants. Where to Unplug in the Welsh Countryside (Food 52) Last spring, a bout of city fatigue left me dreaming of unplugged pleasures in the countryside. As showers fell in New York City, I charted a road trip through rural…

A couple favorites from late 2017 and early 2018: How an Italian Town Changed Me (BBC Travel): Everywhere I went, I walked in her footsteps. She stepped on these same stones, past the Roman-era thermal baths, beyond the church, to the 15th-Century castle in the heart of the town. When I pictured her, she was no longer the white-haired octogenarian I knew from my childhood, but a 25-year-old newlywed with her whole life ahead of her. In the first days of my honeymoon, I travelled to the region of Abruzzo in central Italy to retrace the same steps my great-grandmother Filomena…