From a Jetsetter online review:
Once owned by the Medici family, this 2,700-acre, 800-year-old medieval village in Montaione fell away from the public eye—that is, until lifestyle hotel brand TUI Blue saw its potential. With the help of the surrounding village’s government, the town has been resurrected into a sprawling five-star resort. Il Castelfalfi, the region’s first new-build hotel in years, offers suites with both sunrise and sunset patio views. Across the street, a disused tobacco factory is now an adjacent boutique hotel, ruinous farmhouses have become holiday homes, and acres of surrounding lands now make up Tuscany’s largest golf course.
The property feels miles away from anywhere thanks to the rolling hills that surround it on all sides, but the village offers a few quaint distractions including a small alimentari (grocery store) as well as a pizzeria, Il Rosmarino. At the entrance of the village is the tower of the ancient castle, La Rocca, now home to La Rocca di Castelfalfi, whose patio is a beautiful place to watch the sunset over Tuscan specialties like Ribollita and ravioli.
https://www.castelfalfi.com/en/il-castelfalfi-5-stars-hotel/il-castelfalfi/
To read more: https://www.jetsetter.com/hotels/province-of-florence-italy/montaione-italy/view/hotel-il-castelfalfi/
Chief among these delicacies is Cuban lard bread, which is what inspired the opening of Pilar Cuban Bakery: Ricardo Barreras, the owner of Pilar Cuban Eatery, next door, decided to start baking it himself, using dough, shipped frozen, from a trusted supplier in Florida. When he realized that his kitchen wasn’t big enough for the operation, he figured he might as well open a second place.
A revelation for Moby-Dick devotees and neophytes alike, Ahab’s Rolling Sea is a chronological journey through the natural history of Melville’s novel. From white whales to whale intelligence, giant squids, barnacles, albatross, and sharks, Richard J. King examines what Melville knew from his own experiences and the sources available to a reader in the mid-1800s, exploring how and why Melville might have twisted what was known to serve his fiction. King then climbs to the crow’s nest, setting Melville in the context of the American perception of the ocean in 1851—at the very start of the Industrial Revolution and just before the publication of On the Origin of Species.
The mind of Leonardo
James McElhinney: Discover the Hudson Anew presents the painter’s sketch books and prints related to the River in a comprehensive showing for the first time. A video program, animating turning pages, will allow visitors to see additional sketchbook paintings. McElhinney says he wants his art to demonstrate “that constructive dialogue between humanity and nature is alive and well, while underscoring how art provides durable and dynamic modes of engagement.”
Travelers are dreamers who act on their inspirations. The new National Geographic book

The PrinCube sits on the throne of being the smallest (and the lightest) handheld color-printer. With a swift motion of your hand, the printer rapidly prints out one line at a time, measuring up to 0.56 inches in thickness. PrinCube’s multi-line feature lets you extend your prints by printing up to nearly 10 feet of content line after line. The wireless printer conveniently pairs with any device like your phone, tablet, or even laptop over a Wi-Fi connection, and each individual ink cartridge can handle approximately 415 A4 pages worth of printing before replacing. The battery on PrinCube’s pretty remarkable too, with the ability to print for 6 continuous hours before needing a recharge via the Type-C port in the PrinCube’s size.
Most pizza places, Detroit-style places, the dough is sitting in a portioned-out container and it gets pressed into the pan. We let it rise in the pan. I knew from the beginning, that’s what’s going to separate our pizza. … It’s built in that we need larger walk-ins to have those extra pans. It’s just part of the plan.
Today’s edition features Harvard professor Steven Pinker. As an experimental psychologist, Steven has written extensively about violence – and for his choice from the gallery’s collection he has selected two of Pablo Picasso’s most gruesome depictions of man’s inhumanity, Charnel House and Guernica, now housed in Madrid.