The summer has not been anything like as hot as last year, you will be relieved to hear. With a bit of luck, there will be enough rain to ensure a good truffle season. But that's in the future. For now, let's look at what I have been able to find to help you keep yourselves amused for the next month or so. Oh, and read on, because I am going to reveal all on the book project I was working on. (Plus, there's another one bubbling under. But more on that later.)

I missed the opening of the Museum of the Sea at Genoa, but hope to get there next time I visit the city. Which will be soon, since Genova is European capital of Culture this year and lots more events are planned before the end of 2004. Inaugurated on Saturday July 31, the Museum of the Sea is in fact the Museum of Merchant Shipping. And where better for it to be than Genoa? Even if the glorious Republic was not as long-lived as it perhaps should have been, there is no doubt that the influence of the city's shipping industry and trading prowess can still be felt today. The museum complex offers 6,000 square metres of exhibition space on four floors. Designed by the Spanish architect Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra, the Museum also includes a reconstruction of a seventeenth-century galley. From August 1, 2004 to January 5, 2005, a special exhibition about transatlantic liners will be running, with wonderful old posters and what looks to be interesting multi-media reproductions of the embarkation process. The Museo del Mare is located at Calata De Mari 1-Via Gramsci, five minutes walk from the Porta Principe railroad station in one direction, and another five minutes from the Old Port and the Aquarium in the other. For details, please click here.

Closer to home, I am looking forward to having an aperitivo in the garden of the brand-new Bulgari hotel before the summer is through. Would you ever have imagined that there were 4,500 square metres of green right behind bustling Via Manzoni, the metropolitan main street by definition? Seeing is believing, and I have had a glimpse already. It's fabulous. So is the hotel, of course. In Italian, one describes something that is truly wonderful as un gioiellino (a little gem). And this hotel could hardly be otherwise, given that jewelry is Bulgari's stock-in-trade. Oh, and in case you were wondering -- the 3,500 Euro-a-night suite is fully-booked for now.

I had a lunch lined up at La Volpe e l'Uva in Via Senato in Milan, just round the corner from Via Manzoni and Via della Spiga. Run by two sisters, this place is not only conveniently located for when you are doing the fashion streets, but it is indeed one of the only places to eat when you are doing the fashion streets. Reservations essential since there are only about thirty covers. Tel: 02/7602-2167. Closed Saturday, Sundays, and Wednesday evening, as well as part of August.

If the name of this restaurant rings a bell, then that is probably because you recall a gioeillino of a wine-bar in Florence by the Ponte Vecchio that I mentioned a while ago. Actually, that one is called Le volpi e l'uva, since, presumably, there is more than one wolf involved. Or owner, as we might say, if we wanted to be more prosaic. Check it out. It's in Piazza de'Rossi, and is closed on a Sunday.

I will probably be there shortly since I am going to be in Florence for a few days. I also hope to get to the Uffizi to see the pre-Raphaelite exhibition. Or, to give it its full title: Il mito di Firenze nell'ambiente preraffaellita e nella cultura americana fra Ottocento e Novecento. That reminds me that the last exhibition I saw at the Uffizi, Dove il Sì Suona (Where You Can Hear "Si"), which was the first-ever large-scale show about the Italian language, will be at the Swiss National Museum in Zurich between October 2004 and January 2005. As well as offering visitors the chance to see everything that was shown in Florence -- including the Placito di Capua, a 10th-century document that is considered to be the oldest surviving piece of written Italian -- the Zurich version of Dove il Sì Suona will also include a section on Swiss-Italian. This initiative is to be applauded. Just think how exciting it would be if other countries with a large Italian-speaking community decided to mount the exhibition - which is subtitled Gli italiani e la loro lingua -- supplementing it with a part on their own local variant of la lingua madre. By the end, we would have an encyclopedia of how this language -- which is spoken by just 65 million people in the world -- 60 million of whom live in Italy - has evolved and is evolving. OK, well I think it's exciting, anyway.

Another exhibit that originates in Florence and is being held elsewhere is Leonardo, i giochi e lo sport (Leonardo da Vinci, Games and Sport), which is to be seen in Athens as part of the celebrations for the Olympic Games. To be inaugurated on August 10 and running to September 28, the venue is the Centro Culturale Melina, which is close to the Agorá and the Keramicós, as well as in a number of external locations throughout the city. Leonardo's enquiring mind drive him to observe and comment upon all manner of physical activities and -- even if they did not have names at the time -- many of these relate to modern-day athletic pursuits such as fencing, the pentathlon, skating, soccer, as well as parachute-jumping. At that time, competitive sport was somewhat more sedate, and again Leo was involved. The Renaissance courts organized jousts and other tournaments, the objective being for everyone to have a good time and to beat out the competition, i.e., to ensure that your event was much more spectacular than the neighbor's. Leonardo was often asked by the rulers of the city-states where he was employed to come up with ways to make these events more interesting and exciting than anyone else's. And he, of course, obliged.

Another place I will be heading for while I am in Florence will be the remainders bookshop called Libreria Chiari in Piazza Salvemini in Florence. Apart from the outstanding selection of books on Tuscany -- many of them extremely hard to find and at great prices -- Libreria Chiari also has air-conditioning. Which may make you think, so what? But you try dealing with Florence's summer temperatures, and you too will be homing into the nearest place with a/c.

Cool air -- as well as a really cool place -- was the order of the day recently when I went to the Terrazza restaurant in Piazza Cavour in central Milan. My objective: to interview a chef who specializes in sushi, Italian-style. The chef was Francesco Mapelli. He takes the idea of raw fish and rice, and creates, among others, riso bianco con caponata di melanzane e gambero (white rice with eggplant and shrimp), orzo alle verdurine, dentice, e erba cipollina (barley with tiny vegetables, sea bream and chives) not to mention sushi vegetariano con riso bianco, zucchina e pomodoro comfit (vegetarian sushi with white rice, zucchini, and comfit of tomato). Lovely to look and delicious to taste, these are true gioiellini. So is the place. Named for the beautiful terrace that provides a view over the Giardini Pubblici, the largest park in downtown Milan, the restaurant is open for lunch and dinner. The terrace, by the way, is fitted with those heaters that the Italians call funghi (mushrooms), which means that cenare al fresco is an option for much of the year. You'll find the restaurant listed on To Dine, which is linked from In Italy's own Restaurants Page.

While on the subject, it occurs to me that the idea of eating al fresco has a completely different meaning in Italian. In English, it sounds wonderfully refined: fine china, sparkling crystal glasses, and the best silver under the pergola. In Italian, if a person is al fresco, it means he is "in the slammer". Indeed, even what we call a fresco is called an affresco (plural: affreschi) in Italian. Italian churches abound in examples of what is, in effect, wall painting on fresh plaster. Which is where the name comes from, of course. I recently came across some suggestions of rarely-mentioned frescoes in Southern Italy that are worth taking a look. So rarely-mentioned are they, that I could hardly find any mention of them at all. However, here are a few of these gioiellini, which I will check out in a while. Or, you can do it by yourselves if you have a spare moment. A couple are near L'Aquila, in the Abruzzo. These are in the churches of Santa Maria ad Cryptas in the town of Fossa, and Santa Maria Assunta in Bominaco. Another is the basilica of Sant'Angelo in Formis, close to Caserta in Campania. For more information, please click here.

A few weeks ago now, I attended the press conference for the forthcoming Venice Biennale. If it seems like this biennial event seems to be taking place every year, well, yes, it is. What has happened is that the Art and the Architecture Biennials alternate. So there is one every two years, but it is actually every year. If you see what I mean. In 2004, it's the architects' turn. The event, which runs from Sunday, September 12 to Sunday, November 7, is entitled Metamorph and examines the changes wrought in, and by, architecture in the last century or so. Directed by Kurt Forster, the exhibition will be held, as always, in the Arsenale and the Giardini di Castello. The three-volume catalogue in Italian is by Marsilio, while Rizzoli has published the English-language version. As well as being on sale on the spot, tickets to the Biennale can be acquired in Milan from PorroDuriniquindici at 15, Via Durini, or online from Art Cities in Europe.

I said I had a lunch planned today. In the end, we went somewhere else. The place: Cantina della Vetra in Piazza Vetra, right behind the basilica di San Lorenzo, one of Milan's most beautiful churches. The Cantina della Vetra is a lovely spacious restaurant on two levels, created from what was once a shop of some kind. It is furnished with delightful old wooden shelves salvaged from defunct pharmacies and the like. We started with burrata, which is a specialty of the Puglia area of southern Italy. You take a large mozzarella and roll it out flat. You pile fresh cream in the middle and then roll it up again. Then you race it up to Milan and deliver it to restaurants and salumerie around town. After this exquisite - and calorie-packed -- starter, we moved on to a risotto with lemon and herbs. Also divine. For reservations, tel. 02/8940-3843.

For some reason, at this point, I am reminded that from August 3, many museums and galleries that are run by city councils and were previously free, will now charge admission. In Milan, visiting the museums at the Castello Sforzesco will now incur expenditure of three Euro (free of charge after 2pm on Fridays). This does not mean that the monies collected will go towards seven-days-a-week opening, however. Mondays will still be the official closing day. For more details, click here.

I had planned a trip to Capri in early September with my significant other, but it has had to be postponed. In the meantime, I keep hearing about lovely places to the area that will surely need to be explored when we are there. One is the Baia di Sorgeto on Ischia. To the west of the Sant'Angelo isthmus, it can be reached by boat or by climbing down a set of very steep steps from the hamlet of Panza.

A couple of months ago, I mentioned Vagli, the vanishing village near Lucca in Tuscany. The reason is that the Italian electricity utility, ENEL, keeps it under wraps -- or water, to be precise -- most of the time, since it just happened to stand in the place they wanted to use as a reservoir about sixty years ago. Italy's tallest -- and Europe's second-tallest -- waterfalls have a similar history. Until 1931, when the Barbellino dam was built, the Cascate del Serio pursued their natural course, dropping 315 metres in three stages -- of 105, 74, and 75 metres respectively -- into a lovely rockpool below. These days, they do it between 11 am and 11.30 am, five times a year. The last three opportunities this year are August 22, September 12, and October 3. If you want to be in on the scene, then head northeast out of Bergamo, taking the Val Seriana road, past Clusone, until you get to Valbondione. From there, take the road to Grumetti. Park here, and then it's 45 minutes on foot, past the village of Maslana at 1,168 metres, and over the medieval Ponte della Piccinella, under which flows the river Serio. Take the path to the left and, fifteen minutes later, you will reach some rocks from which you -- and a whole lot of other people - will be able to admire this outstanding sight.

Last time, I mentioned the opera festival at Verona. While it is possibly the best-known, it is surely not the only open-air festival of musica lirica in Italy. The other two top events are Torre del Lago near Lucca in Tuscany, and Macerata in the Marches. The settings for these festivals are no less impressive than those in Verona. The backdrop at Torre del Lago is, as the name suggests, a lake -- Massaciuccoli, by name -- as well as the Apuan Alps. In the case of Macerata, it's the largest open-air arena in Europe.

Torre del Lago was the home for many years of Giacomo Puccini and, of course, his work is the focus of the fest, which runs to Saturday, August 21. Madame Butterfly, Tosca, and Turandot are on offer, with ticket prices starting at 20 Euro, the best seats coming in at 11 Euro.

The Macerata Opera Festival opened on Sunday July 25 and closes on Friday August 13. The program consists of Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann, Riccardo Zandonai's rarely performed Francesca da Rimini, and Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. The arena seats 1,200, and prices range from 15 to 110 Euro. For more information and other festivals, click here.

Now that it has been published, I am able to tell you about the book I was working on at the beginning of the year. Indeed, I am thrilled to be able to tell you about it, because it looks terrific! It is none other than the TimeOut Guide to Milan, the Lakes and Lombardy, edited by Silvia Tombesi Walton. This was published in the UK on July 23. I was responsible for a number of sections, such as contemporary art, as well as theatre and dance. I also did Lago di Como, Pavia, as well as Cremona, Crema, and Lodi, and several "boxes" in the history section. For an explanation of what the Cinque Giornate were all about, reach for a history book. For my take, see the TO Guide to Milan. Click here for more information.

By Roberta Kedzierski, Milan

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