“Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.” – Luther Burbank
Everyone loves flowers, right? They can’t help but make you smile. Stop and smell the roses and all that. In Orvieto, as in much of Europe, flowers are everywhere. The smallest windowbox has flowers. Walls have flowers. Roofs have flowers. Every nook and cranny is stuffed with flowers. And in case you don’t have a built in space for flowers, you can buy them at the market!
When you travel with Adventures in Italy, you will see flowers blooming in May, and giving way to fall in September. The differences are subtle, depending on the preceding season’s warmth and rain. Sometimes in May things are just beginning to bloom if spring is late.
I tend to gravitate toward the same flower spaces. I have my favorites! I could probably fill a wall with photos of the same windowbox taken each visit to Orvieto!
It’s a special treat when this lovely lady is sporting flowers. She sits in the entryway of our accomodation, Istituto San Lodovico.
And these last 2 are a couple of my favorites from a photography workshop with Catherine Anderson. Hers was the workshop I participated in my first time in Orvieto.
Through the lens I fell in love with Orvieto and have come to think of it as my home-away-from-home. The flowers are like a personal welcome each time I return.
Don’t stop beleafing!
Michelle Logue leads cultural and creative adventures in Orvieto, Italy. With a mandate to provide "travel that transforms", Adventures in Italy gives guests an immersive experience. After more than 15 years of return trips, Orvieto has become a welcoming home base surpassing the typical Italian vacation.
Adventures in Italy operates trips in May and September, with two options: Artistic Enrichment nurtures creative expression, while Discover Orvieto invites visitors to focus on the history and culture of Orvieto and live as locals. Find out more about tours and special offers by following Adventures in Italy on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and visit www.adventuresinitaly.ca
Slow Travel Tours is an affiliation of small-group tour operators who offer personalized trips in Italy, France and other European countries.
Last night I dreamed about the Cotswolds and in my dream I was eating Sticky Toffee Pudding at the Lygon Arms…
My first memories of Sticky Toffee Pudding are from 2004, the summer our family walked 192 miles across England on the Coast-to-Coast walk. Every night over 2-1/2 weeks we stayed in a small hotel, inn or B&B, and every night after our long day of walking we enjoyed a hearty British meal. Because we were walking 10 or more miles a day, we could enjoy dessert with every meal with no qualms. At some point early in the walk, one of us ordered Sticky Toffee Pudding, and… wow! It’s since become our favorite British dessert, one worthy of dreams.
I was surprised to learn that Sticky Toffee Pudding is a relatively-recent arrival on British menus. One story is that it originated in Canada and was first prepared in England during World War II, when Canadian soldiers gave the recipe to a British hotel manager so she could make them a favorite dish from home.
The “Great British Puddings” cookbook says Sticky Toffee Pudding originated in the 1970’s, though exactly where is unclear… chefs in the Lake District, Lancashire, Aberdeen and the south of England all claim to have created this now-popular dish. So who really knows?
But over the years, Sticky Toffee Pudding has become a British classic with many variations on the recipe. Do an internet search on “Sticky Toffee Pudding” and you’ll find recipes galore. Jamie Oliver, Alton Brown, Martha Stewart, the Barefoot Contessa, Gordon Ramsay… they all have a Sticky Toffee Pudding recipe.
The British term for the dessert course is “pudding,” and you’ll often see that term on menus or pub blackboards. But don’t think of “pudding” as Americans do: a thick milk-based dessert that you eat with a spoon. English puddings can include a whole range of sweets including fruit pies, cheese cakes, and elaborate steam-cooked concoctions… the traditional British “puddings.” Some of these traditional puddings date back hundreds of years.
Each of the classic puddings has its own devotees but we think one pudding–Sticky Toffee Pudding– stands tall in the hierarchy of after-dinner treats. My husband Charley described Sticky Toffee Pudding as “a tastebud-exhilarating mix of dark, rich buttery date cake, thick and hot toffee sauce, all to be covered with clotted cream, an English invention that’s just a tad short of being creamy, whipped butter.”
Over the past 15 years, we’ve sampled Sticky Toffee Pudding at restaurants and pubs all over England. Our standards are high, and we’re sometimes disappointed. For us, the all-star Sticky Toffee Pudding is served at the special family-owned inn where our groups stay in the Cotswolds– the Lygon Arms in Chipping Campden.
The Lygon Arms in Chipping Campden – our home base in the Cotswolds
A wonderful inn, pub and restaurant; a welcoming and enthusiastic staff; a ideal location in the best village in the beautiful Cotswolds. And the best Sticky Toffee Pudding in the Cotswolds… maybe in all of England!
Sticky Toffee Pudding at the Lygon Arms
The Three Ways House in the nearby village of Mickleton is world-famous for its puddings. Since 1985 they’ve hosted The Pudding Club, an evening dedicated to celebrating traditional British puddings. They host Pudding Club evenings several nights a month, serving a small main course and seven different puddings. Charley and I attended a few years ago… what an experience! You can have as many servings of pudding as you can handle. (The man sitting next to me—a middle-aged postman at a bachelor’s party—ate 17 servings, far surpassing my four!) Afterwards the entire room votes on their favorite. No surprise— their Sticky Toffee and Date pudding usually beats out all the others.
Seven puddings to try at a Pudding Club dinner
Our Cotswolds Experience groups enjoy a special dinner at the Three Ways House, though we have a starter, a proper main course, and a buffet of “just” three puddings. That’s probably enough for us. Some people try all three, and some go back for seconds. My favorite there is the Syrup Sponge, another of the steamed puddings.
Our “pudding buffet” at the Three Ways House.
We like the Sticky Toffee and Date pudding at the Three Ways House, but Charley insists it’s in second place to the Sticky Toffee Pudding at the Lygon Arms, and I have to agree. The Lygon Arms normally serves theirs with clotted cream. The Three Ways House recommends “lashings of custard”… the big bowl on the left in the photo above. I prefer it with vanilla ice cream, melting a bit as it sits next to the warm soft-cake pudding with the wonderful toffee sauce. (The sauce is made of butter, double cream, and dark brown sugar.)
This past summer we hosted a Return to the Cotswolds group, mostly travelers who had been with us in the Cotswolds before and wanted to come back to enjoy new experiences. There were many Sticky Toffee Pudding (STP) fans in that group… so much so that we planned a very special experience during the week, with the help of the Lygon Arms owner Sandra and their long-time server-extraordinaire Jo.
Sandra and Jo welcomed our group for an evening at a beautifully-restored 16th century house in the nearby village of Lower Quinton. In addition to a delicious barbecue meal, Sandra arranged for Jane Rapp—who prepares many of the cakes and puddings served at the Lygon Arms—to give us a cooking demonstration of Sticky Toffee Pudding, the version we’ve all enjoyed so much.
Our hosts at the barbecue – Jo, Sandra and Jane (photo by Mindy Smith)
There was one very secret ingredient that surprised us all… the dates were soaked in coffee before being they were pureed and added to the batter.
Our Return to the Cotswolds group at Jane’s STP demonstration
At the end of our meal, we all savored the special Sticky Toffee Pudding Jane had prepared. (She shared with us that she had studied baking with Pru Leith, who lives in the Cotswolds and now judges The Great British Baking Show.)
There is a wonderful “sweets” menu at the Lygon Arms, many made by Jane. We always save room for dessert when we eat at the Lygon Arms!
Typical “sweets” menu at the Lygon Arms
Some thoughts from Charley about Sticky Toffee Pudding:
“The best way to enjoy STP is to banish any thought of counting calories from your mind and dig right in– and use a really big spoon. After the first bite, any remaining caution is thrown to the wind and you congratulate yourself for having discovered what might be the world’s best dessert.
“As I think about STP, I can practically smell the warm and rich caramel notes swirling off the dish. Perhaps that’s the best way to start to enjoy STP. Lean over the bowl and inhale the seductive aroma and watch the cream begin to melt and blend with the warm syrup. I love this pudding because it checks all the boxes – sight, smell, taste.
“Okay, now I’m really ready for a big bowl of STP, preferably from the Lygon Arms.”
Perhaps I’ve now got an idea for a special British-themed Valentine’s Day meal: Steak and Ale pie followed by the Lygon Arms’ Sticky Toffee Pudding! Not quite the same as enjoying Sticky Toffee Pudding at the Lygon Arms the Cotswolds, but think I’ll have a very happy husband!
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You can enjoy the Lygon Arms, the Three Ways House, Sticky Toffee Pudding and much more of the beautiful Cotswolds on our Cotswolds Experience or Cotswold Gardens Experience weeks this July. We’d love to have you join us!
We’ll also be back in the Cotswolds in 2021, and we hope Jane will once again join our Return to the Cotswolds group to share the secrets of her Sticky Toffee Pudding recipe.
Learn more about our Experiences in the Cotswolds in these other blog posts:
Kathy and Charley Wood lead European Experiences, week-long “slow tours” in some of the most beautiful areas of Europe, including The Luberon Experience in Provence, France. National Geographic Traveler magazine named The Luberon Experience one of their "Tours of a Lifetime" for 2012, the top 50 tours in the world.
Kathy and Charley host Experience weeks in the Luberon, the Chianti region of Tuscany, Alsace, the Dordogne, and the Cotswolds. They also offer two longer trips: The European Christmas Experience (12 days) and The Cornwall Experience in southwest England (10 days). Kathy will host a new trip The Puglia Experience in southern Italy in October 2020.
Kathy and Charley have been traveling in Europe for over 25 years and love sharing their special places in Europe with other travelers. They've hosted 120 Experience groups since they launched in 2006. They now live part-time in their beloved village of Bonnieux in the Luberon. Read more about Kathy and Charley here.
Slow Travel Tours is an affiliation of small-group tour operators who offer personalized trips in Italy, France and other European countries.
It’s official: on January 21st 2020 Bologna porticoes have been nominated to be a UNESCO site.
And there is a good reason for it: no other city in the world has so many porticoes and they are, together with the Two Towers, the symbol of Bologna.
The last updated measure of porticoes length says that there are 38 km only in the historical center and other 20 km spread just out of the antique walls.
It means about 58 km of walking path, which offers shelter from rain, snow or sun, where people can walk, meet and speak.
For this reason porticoes can be considered also a social model of life.
Bologna also detects the primacy of the longest portico in the world:
the one that takes you to the Sanctuary of San Luca, it is 3,7 km long and composed of 666 arches. A long walking up to the hill that for many “bolognese” people is a sort of pilgrimage and a pleasant walking at the same time. You can reach this church from the main Piazza Maggiore always covered by porticoes.
To know why this kind of architecture was born and how it developed so fast we need to go back to the Medieval time, when the first students and teachers started to arrive in Bologna from many parts of Europe, attracted by the important university. The increasing number of inhabitants attracted as well a conspicuous number of farmers who immigrated to the city to open a commercial activity.
In the city there was not enough space to accommodate all these people, so inhabitants started it by private initiative, to create additional space from the first floor, extending the building outward to create another room on the street, supported by wooden pillars and stones. This also allowed to open several commercial activities.
Later, in 1300 the city of Bologna, considering the important support of porticoes for local economy, stated that all the streets had to be added with a portico and that all the owners had to build it privately but for public use by all the citizens.
Walking in the center you will find elegant and artistic porticoes, with painted ceilings and beautiful marble floors along the main streets, or just simple arches, not artistic, in the poor parts of the city. However, all of these are much appreciated with hot or rainy weather.
If you have never visited Bologna, come and enjoy beautiful Bologna with any weather and taste the fantastic food!
Marcello and Raffaella Tori invite you to come and taste Italy in an authentic, up close, and personal way. Everything is arranged, from food and wine tastings to cooking lessons, walks in the countryside and meanders through beautiful villages. Marcello and Raffaella live in Bologna and have over 20 years of experience working with people just like you who want to taste all Italy has to offer. Their unique experiences are enduring in their simplicity and authenticity. Join us for a day trip or a 4-7 day tour and taste and see amazing Italy through the eyes of Marcello and Raffaella. What are you waiting for? Come and Taste Our Italy! Find our more at bluone.com and follow us on BluoneCookingWineToursItaly/.
Slow Travel Tours is an affiliation of small-group tour operators who offer personalized trips in Italy, France and other European countries.
I was surprised to learn that Sticky Toffee Pudding is a relatively-recent arrival on British menus. One story is that it originated in Canada and was first prepared in England during World War II, when Canadian soldiers gave the recipe to a British hotel manager so she could make them a favorite dish from home.
“The best way to enjoy STP is to banish any thought of counting calories from your mind and dig right in– and use a really big spoon. After the first bite, any remaining caution is thrown to the wind and you congratulate yourself for having discovered what might be the world’s best dessert.
Marcello and Raffaella Tori invite you to come and taste Italy in an authentic, up close, and personal way. Everything is arranged, from food and wine tastings to cooking lessons, walks in the countryside and meanders through beautiful villages. Marcello and Raffaella live in Bologna and have over 20 years of experience working with people just like you who want to taste all Italy has to offer. Their unique experiences are enduring in their simplicity and authenticity. Join us for a day trip or a 4-7 day tour and taste and see amazing Italy through the eyes of Marcello and Raffaella. What are you waiting for? Come and Taste Our Italy! Find our more at