Some Italian news for your Sunday reading pleasure:
The FBI thinks one of its most-wanted crime bosses visited Sicily in April, so if you saw this man on your Italian vacation, the FBI wants to talk to you.
A new group in Milan is trying to get Italians to drink the tap water. While there’s nothing wrong with tap water in most of Italy, locals are wedded to their bottled water - so it seems to be it’ll be an uphill climb. For those of you who’d rather get your water for free, however, check out the new water …
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Usually, when you pick up a coffee-table sized book of photographs taken in an Italian city, you know what you’re in for. You’ll get page after page of medieval cobbled streets, rolling hills with pine tree-lined driveways, romantic gondolas and roman-era monuments. You’ll be overwhelmed with color, history and - more than anything else - beauty. You might even find yourself getting bored with what seems like the same Tuscan vista in book after book. I mean, let’s face it - Italy’s beauty is boundless, but as with sugar, there really can be too much of a good thing.
Which is why Mauro d’Agati’s book about the Palermo neighborhood of Vucciria is both a surprise and a delight. His photographs are colorful and historical, there is no doubt about it. But beautiful? Well, that’s a matter of some debate.
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Travelers in the know - or at least those who are prone to planning ahead - are finding it easier and easier to avoid lines in Italy and book tours in advance. Many sights are online and offer advance ticket sales, sometimes for a small fee and sometimes for free, allowing you to bypass the often hours-long line (think Florence’s Uffizi in July) and get right to the sight-seeing. As a planner myself, I think these online ticket sales are fantastic things - I only advise you to not skip past the line looking too smug, lest you be tripped by another visitor who’s still got an hour or more of waiting ahead of him.
I’ve written before about getting advance tickets for Rome’s Colosseum (a new development, and very welcome) as well as Venice’s Basilica San Marco (and those puppies are free!), but here’s one I didn’t know about until I stumbled on this site recently. Some people feel like they haven’t seen Italy until they’ve seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa, so whether you’re going to make it a speedy one-hour visit en route from one city to another or you’re going to stay in Pisa a day or two, this is a great resource for planning your trip and getting a ticket in advance to climb the tower.
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When I can’t be in Italy, the next best thing is usually watching TV programs about traveling in Italy. I mean, I love looking at photographs, but there’s something about moving pictures that really gives me a sense of a place. One program I always love watching, almost regardless of where they’re going, is Globe Trekker - and I’m always thrilled to see Italy come up on their schedule. This is why I’m excited about a new way to watch TV programs like Globe Trekker about Italy any time I want.
With the new
…
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Anyone who’s traveled to Italy and been able to get off the beaten path has likely experienced some of the food bliss that keeps people talking about (and returning to) the country which has given us so much to be blissful about. Whenever people ask me how to find the best meals on their next trip to Italy, my advice always begins and ends with the same thing - find the places where the menu is only in Italian.
When a restaurant is in a tourist-filled city, it only makes sense that they’d have a multi-lingual menu to help their guests know what they’re ordering and enjoy what’s put in front of them. I agree that this seems logical, but it’s also the best way to avoid Italy’s best food. The #1 way to eat forgettable meals and leave Italy wondering what all the food-fuss is about is to stick to restaurants with a familiar language on the menu.
So, since not everyone speaks Italian, how can you order a meal like the savvy traveler you are, if the menu is all in Italian and you’re fortunate enough to be far enough from a tourist center that the waiter doesn’t speak English? You’ll be well-equipped to handle this situation if you’ve armed yourself with a couple of excellent guides before you left home.
First is my food Bible when I travel to Italy - The Hungry Traveler: Italy. I can’t even count the number of people I’ve recommended this book to, and I continue to think it’s the best way to make sure you not only have a handle on what you’re ordering but that you order what’s fresh and local - no matter where you are in Italy. It’s a tiny little thing, so it easily fits in a purse (even a travel purse!) or possibly even your back pocket, and it’s positively indispensable.
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I love Italian idiomatic expressions - those sayings you just can’t translate directly but which make the Italian language the colorful and charming language it is.
Today’s saying from Italy is actually two sayings, but the two spices involved are inseparable on the dinner table, so why split them up here? I’m talking, of course, about salt and pepper.
First, the salt-related saying:
Ha molto sale in zucca.
This would literally translate to “He (or she) has a lot of salt in his (or her) pumpkin.” Yes, salt in the pumpkin. When I first saw that I assumed “zucca” would be standing in for “brain” (as “gourd” does for us) and that it would be a bad thing, like that he/she wasn’t very smart. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. The saying above actually means “He (or she) has a lot of good sense.”
Now for pepper:
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The Vatican began flying charter flights for Catholic pilgrims recently, to holy places like Lourdes in France, Santiago de Compostela in Spain and Mount Sinai in Egypt. The planes bear the Vatican’s traditional yellow-and-white color palette and the seat backs bear the phrase, “I’m searching for your face, Lord.” Personally, I think, “On a Wing and a Prayer” would have been more fun, but the Vatican isn’t generally known for their sense of humor.
At any rate, the new Vatican airline said its goals were to provide safe service and low prices so that pilgrims could visit Catholic holy sites without being rich. In addition to the plane’s decor, religious films will also be shown during flight and religious messages broadcast over the plane’s loudspeakers. The airline venture is a partnership between ORP, the Vatican arm which organizes pilgrimages, and Mistral Air, a small Italian airline.
Predictably, low-cost airline giant Ryanair wasn’t happy about this new inexpensive competition, especially as some of the routes on the Vatican network are already served by Ryanair. They released a statement which said, “Ryanair already performs miracles that even the Pope’s boss can’t rival, by delivering pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela for the heavenly price of 10 euros.” Well, you can’t argue that Ryanair’s got a sense of humor, now, can you?
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Traveling on a budget is something most people strive for. While some might dream of blowing out all the stops on a plush five-star hotel, helicopter rides, limousines and $500 bottles of wine, most people - even those who can afford to spend more - like to save money where they can when they travel. And next to your airfare to Italy, your next biggest ticket item is going to be where you stay.
For many people, staying in an Italy hostel is the best way to save money on accommodations. They’re inexpensive, often fun, you get to meet up with other travelers, and they can sometimes be in historic buildings. But for the more outdoorsy types, have you ever considered camping in Italy?
Now, I don’t mean that you’re going to lug your own tent and camping stove with you on the airplane - instead, I’m talking about the network of campsites which has sprung up throughout Italy and where you can sometimes get an even better deal than on a hostel bed. Simply by choosing the word “campsite” from the drop-down menu under “Select your property type” on this hostels in Italy search engine, you can find some excellent bargain beds in Italy’s biggest tourist cities.
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Seasoned travelers know that when dining out in a foreign restaurant, one of the biggest cultural conundrums is simply this: To tip or not to tip - what is the answer? Depending on where you go in the world, tipping your waiter can be anything from a kind but unnecessary gesture to customary to compulsory. So in Italy, which one is it?
In most sit-down restaurants, especially the nicer ones which have no counter service, you may find both “il coperto” and “servizio incluso” written on the menu. “Il coperto” is the cover charge, which is generally one or two Euro, and which takes care of things like bread before the meal and a glass of tap water. “Servizio incluso” means that service is included, meaning they’ve already figured in a tip for you - it’s usually around 15% - so the total due on your final bill is all you’ll owe. If the service has been particularly outstanding or you’ve had an exceptional experience, leaving a couple Euro on the table is a lovely gesture to let the waiter know.
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Some Italian news for your Sunday reading pleasure:
For those of you who are always looking for “undiscovered Italy” (or anything beyond what tourists normally see), I give you Badolato in Calabria. And Badolato resident sognatrice is happy to help with your vacation planning, too.
Ever wonder how Italians are so food-obsessed and yet seem to keep their beautiful figures? Here’s how they avoid the universal evil that is junk food.
But if you’re looking for good food that doesn’t take hours out of your sight-seeing agenda in Florence, GeoBeats filmmakers Toni has a few tips for …
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