As an American, I recently began extending visits to friends in Italy by meeting families providing "agriturismo." My Italian speaking wife Evi (Eveline Faure, MD, FCCP, a graduate of the Universita Italiana per Stranieri, Perugia) made this p- sible. During one visit in 1994, we were sitting around the table in Pisa with friends who were fellow critical care physicians. They were remarking how specialists needed more patients. We told them that we were going south beyond Naples, a concept which they could not understand, considering the beauty of Tuscany. We had a marvelous time in southern...