Vacationers in Italy exist in something of a bubble, where they think they’re experiencing something of authentic Italian life without getting close. They may eat differently, spend their time differently, focus on different things - but ultimately, they’re on holiday and they’re not engaging in any of the routine daily tasks that they would if they lived there.
I think this is why it’s so easy to drift into that romantic state of, “Oh, wouldn’t it be glorious if we could move to Italy?” People forget that even in Italy there is still grocery shopping to be done and laundry to hang (because almost no one has a clothes dryer). And even though the husband and I have thought about living in Italy more than just making sigh-filled passing comments during a piazza stroll, we’ve been guilty of over-romanticizing it, too. Really, it’s quite difficult not to.
So in an effort to bring a dose of reality back to anyone who’s contemplating a move to Italy, here are a couple of articles about Italian food to get you thinking.
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Italians might not be shocked by much, but a gigantic naked man floating above a park in Milan is causing some raised eyebrows. To me, it’s not nearly as bad as some other public “art” that’s been shown in the past. Oh, and here’s another picture of the naked guy, too.
A virtual love lock bridge is supposed to help keep the actual one in Rome from being destroyed. I wonder if it will work… Here’s the love lock website, if you’ve got someone about whom you’d like to express your undying affections.
Sometimes old cities crumble and there’s nothing to do but watch them go. In Civita de Bagnoregio, “The Dying City” as it’s known, the one path that will get you there isn’t long for this world. Now they’re thinking of using mules to carry the tourists who want to come see the place before it’s gone.
If you want to be ahead of the fashion curve, get your mitts on something from “Alice,” the new line of clothing which is a cooperative inside Milan’s San Vittore women’s prison.
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I’m discovering that one of the perks of writing this blog is getting emails from readers (thanks, and keep them coming!); and I also enjoy the occasional freebies I get in the mail, too. For instance, I’ve gotten two advance copies of books about Italy to review on this blog. One of them is quite long and I haven’t started it yet (I’ll write about it when I do), but the other is mostly photographs, so I’m already done with it and here’s my review.
Tutta Roma is a book of photographs of Rome (of course) by Martin Parr, who is a British photographer. In 2006, the Rome International Festival of Photography asked Mr. Parr to “create a comprehensive guide of the eternal city,” which is what this book is. It is a guide in that it has maps of Rome (really excellent ones, actually) and information about the main sights (written in Italian and English by Italian art historian and journalist Ivana della Portella), and it’s thoughtfully encased in a plastic cover - at least mine is - to keep it from getting completely ruined by sloppy gelato eaters.
But this little book is not simply a look at one of the world’s most famous cities - it’s a look at how visitors make the city what it is. Most of the photographs are not of the sights themselves, but rather what’s going on around them. We’ve all seen pictures of the Colosseum, the Vatican and the Roman Forum countless times. We know what all of those things look like. Sure, I can still appreciate a nicely made photograph of the Pantheon, but I’m much more intrigued by something I haven’t seen before. What Mr. Parr has done with the photographs in Tutta Roma is he’s forced us to look at more than just the “sight” but at its surroundings, and that includes the tourists.
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I think I’ve mentioned before that one of my favorite tricks to make the famous art museums in Italy (and elsewhere) more tolerable to my wandering mind is to bring along the appropriate pages of Rick Steves’ now out of print book, “Mona Winks” (my understanding is that the self-guided tours that made up that book are now included with the various destination guides he writes, but I don’t have any of his new books to confirm that). The thing that I think is so great about those self-guided tours isn’t that they’re all-encompassing. In fact, they’re far from it - if any guide (alive or in book form) tried to cover everything that was in the big museums of the world, you’d be there for days. And by the time you got out, chances are pretty good you’d hate both the guide and the art itself.
No, “Mona Winks” was great for its well-explained highlights tour of the museums it covered. It doesn’t just tell you that painting X in room Y is important, it tells you why, which is often more interesting. It also leaves plenty of room for you to put the guide in your pocket and further explore anything that’s not covered in its pages, so it’s the best of both worlds as far as I’m concerned.
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Staying in Italian convents or Italian monasteries instead of a hotel or even a hostel is an excellent budget accommodation option, but even beyond being a way to save money it also gives you a unique accommodation experience. While some of the monasteries and convents have stricter rules than an ordinary hotel or hostel would have, most people should have no trouble abiding by them.
Two of the more important things to keep in mind are that you don’t need to be Catholic to stay in convents or monasteries in Italy, and most …
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I’ve got a giant stack of books beside my bed (not to mention the bookcases which are overflowing in my living room), but it’s kind of a situation of having too many choices - whenever I finish a book, I agonize over what to read next. Perhaps that stems from the idea that no matter how hard I try, I’ll never read everything I want to read in my lifetime. More likely it’s just that I’m a bad decision maker.
At any rate, Shelley of At Home in Rome has given me yet …
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Among the gajillion things that the husband and I have discussed - or at least started discussing, because the task is always far too overwhelming to continue for long at this point - about a potential move to Italy is the car situation. Actually, I’m the one who has thought about it, and I’ve already made up my mind about part of it. The part I’ve decided is that I have no intention of attempting to drive in Italy - at least not to begin with.
My reasons for this are many. First and foremost, Italian drivers scare the bejeezus out of me. I cannot imagine being behind the wheel and trying to navigate the streets of a big city like Rome or Milan. It stresses me out enough being in the passenger seat, or even outside the car altogether. In Oregon, where I live now, the local joke among people who didn’t grow up around here is that Oregonians don’t have a clue how to drive in snow (it’s true) - never having learned anything about which way to turn the steering wheel when they start to slide, they are the ones who end up in ditches when there’s only an inch or two on the ground. So they’re the ones who are a real hazard, not the out of towners who know how to handle their cars. In Italy it would be the exact opposite, seems to me - I’d be the hazard, both to myself and to those around me. Just thinking about it gives me heart palpitations.
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If you’re like most travelers, even if you love Italy you probably have dreams of seeing the rest of the world, too. And if you’re like most people I know, finding the money to see and do everything you want can be almost as much of a problem as finding the time. That’s why the BootsnAll Treasure Hunt is such a cool thing - if you win, you could get your hands on a $2000 round-the-world airline ticket, among other excellent prizes. Then all you’d have to do is quit your …
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One Saturday each May, a three-week sporting event begins in Italy which will criss-cross much of the country and catch nearly everyone in its wake. I’m talking about the Giro d’Italia, the annual bicycle race around Italy.
If you’ve heard of the Tour de France, you’re halfway to understanding the Giro d’Italia. The name of the event just means “Tour of Italy,” and it’s a three-week race similar to the Tour de France, except this one goes around Italy. Almost every day there is a race, called a stage, and at the end the guy …
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It’s Mother’s Day here in the US, and it’s also Mother’s Day in Italy. Here’s an Italian account of how it’s celebrated in Italy:
Children usually buy presents for their mothers. Flowers are a very popoular [sic] present on this day, a lunch [sic] of flowers, usually roses or plants with flowers. At midday people usually eat all together to celebrate their mother. We usually have a big dinner: stuffed pasta, meat and for dessert a heart shaped cake. There are a lot of them in pastry shops. We love them. After dinner …
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