Every time I leave Venice I experience an odd sort of melancholy with a feeling of dread that I may never come back. I once sat for an afternoon in the living room of an elderly aunt whom I had never met before that day; when it came to leave it was with a lump in my throat that I told her goodbye for I knew I had been with a kindred spirit, albeit for a very short while. Almost anyone who has walked across the bridges of Venice has a similar emotional connection, for Venice is magical. Continue reading Venice Enchanted
Category Archives: Getting Around
Cinque Terre
I have to confess to a love-hate relationship with Cinque Terre, a spectacular portion of the Italian Riviera, in Luguria, that has become very, very popular with tourists over the last ten or fifteen years, possibly owing to the 1997 designation of Cinque Terre as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I had never heard of it until a friend brought me there in 2000 and I must admit that I was completely enchanted by the colorful houses precariously hugging the cliffs, the charming harbors for the fishing boats, and the natural beauty of the coastline. For the uninitiated, the Cinque Terre, or Five Lands, is a series of five fishing villages teetering on the terraced rocks on the coast of the Ligurian Sea just south of Genoa. Since there is no automobile access in the villages you must explore them by foot and get from one to the other either by train or boat. Herein lies the problem. Continue reading Cinque Terre
Italy: When to Go, What to Pack
When to Go?
The question I get asked more than any other is, “When is the best time to go to Italy?” My usual reply is 1986, but I know that’s not very funny (true, but not funny.) The literal inundation of tourists from Eastern Europe and Asia since Ronald Reagan himself toppled the Berlin Wall has increased the number of visitors to Western Europe exponentially making Paris, London, and Rome burst at the seams during the summer months. Imagine, if you will, the worst traffic jam you’ve ever been in: maybe it’s Friday, 5 pm on the 405 during Carmeggedon; maybe it’s the Long Island Expressway leaving New York for Fourth of July weekend; you’re moving at a snail’s pace and your a/c is broken. Well, pretend that instead of cars, the traffic is comprised of people shuffling slowly in groups of six across rather than single file, and you’ll have a small idea of the concept. To clarify, you’re going to want to avoid summer if at all possible. If you must go in the summer avoid August when many Italians close their shops and restaurants, head for the beaches, and leave the cities to the tourists. This is less like a traffic jam but more like a post-apocalyptic situation. Continue reading Italy: When to Go, What to Pack
Italo I love!
I had the good fortune to run across a show on the National Geographic channel, two weeks before my recent trip to Italy, that featured the newest Italian train. This train is fast, stylish, and modern; so much so that they christened it with an appropriate masculine name: Italo. Italo had me at “ciao!”, so I immediately booked any routes that I could through the website.
