linking to a WP blog?

I think what you are after is for the blog to be a sub-folder of your site ?
If so, create the blog – for example at https://www.iloveitaly.com/blog/index.php , and then on your main page at https://www.iloveitaly.com/index.html you link straight to it.
Is this getting close ?
(Oh, and the .html or .php matters not – that’s for the browser to worry about, not you).

You can put any HTML you like (your menu, pictures, introductory text, whatever) in the index.php document. If you want something to appear between the main heading and the Weblog entries, for example, you’d put it between the </h1> and the <?php if ($posts).

thanks! thats what i was looking for!