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: Personal Reflections
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
Torture in San Gimignano
It usually takes an embarrassing tongue lashing from a waiter at a coffee bar or gelateria for an American traveler to Europe to learn that there are two different menu prices for the same items: one for standing and consuming your purchase, and a higher price for sitting at a table. My husband, a Roman and anti-Tuscan from birth, nearly had the owner of one such establishment arrested after she charged us table price for eight hot chocolates when we were clearly drinking them in an upright position, but that was at the end of our short but eventful trip to San Gimignano….
Art Unappreciation
Ever since I was a little girl it was my great desire to see the cathedrals and museums of Italy. My tiny little white Catholic Missal had tiny little pictures of St Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, The Shroud of Turin, The Pieta’; my young Catholic mind formulated my own bucket list that ended up changing the direction of my life once I finally got to Rome and met my future husband.
My first trip to Europe was the summer before my junior year in college with one sister and two friends, and I carefully orchestrated our itinerary knowing full well that the others would go along with my program as long as I kept us close to pastry shops and the occasional McDonald’s. Continue reading Art Unappreciation
Whirlwind Tour of St Peter’s Basilica
I’ve mentioned before that my husband and his family, seventh-generation Roman Romans Residing in Rome, have managed to retain their citizenship without having actually seen much of their own hometown. Any true inhabitant of the Eternal City can tell you how to get to the Borghese Galleries or to Santa Maria Maggiore – he just can’t tell you what those places look like inside. It seems to be sort of a boast for a Roman to be able to list the seven hills of Rome while admitting that he has managed to avoid four of them for his entire life.
I was an enigma to these people; I who had visited the Vatican Museums nine times in one summer; I who, that same summer, used to slip into every church I passed on my route home from my Italian classes, checking them off and marking the dates in my guide book. Continue reading Whirlwind Tour of St Peter’s Basilica
