I look forward to nothing more than revisiting my favorite museums in Italy and finding new ones to explore but I am the first one to engage in inappropriate behavior if I have to share my space with too many people; I mutter under my breath, I give dirty looks to anyone lingering too long by the signs I’m trying to read, and I passively-aggressively stand in front of anyone who has broken my unwritten rules of behavior. So I feel your pain if you’re dragged to the museum or just go because it’s there when you’d rather be hunting down some gelato. Maybe I can help.
If you call in sick while your travel companions are at the following museums, you will not have missed much, and the following recommendations are based on my very humble, very unprofessional opinion, with no offense intended toward these fine institutions:
Lucky you: you have the opportunity to see some of the most famous works of art in the entire history of the world while in Italy, so don’t blow it! There’s a fine line between doing it right and overdoing it and ending up trudging aimlessly through the exhibit rooms while rotating your gaze from left to right, seeing it all yet seeing nothing. Everyone, even the most ardent of art appreciators, is capable of hitting the proverbial wall (if not the actual wall if you’re walking on auto-pilot.)
The best way to eat well in Italy is to ask an Italian. Ask the hotel clerk, stop someone on the street, ask a bus or taxi driver. (You may not want to ask a tour guide as they are possibly getting paid a “commission” for referrals.) Unlike many of our undiscriminating diners who are content to grab the fastest and cheapest food for lunch most Italians are much fussier about their cuisine, and those workers who are not privileged enough to be able to eat at home for lunch tend to know where to get cooking almost as good as Mamma’s. Once on a road trip from Florence to Rome we were looking for somewhere to eat and my husband, while stopped for gas, asked a truck driver for his recommendation. The rest of us in the car, all Americans, were politely silent but had little faith when we pulled up to Le Capannine, in Barberino di Mugello(near Florence). It turned out to be one of the most memorable meals I’ve ever had in Italy (okay, there’ve been more than a few), so much so that I included it in my blog of favorite restaurants, and if you are ever on the A1 autostrada between Florence and Rome, I highly recommend you plan your trip around it.
Moving on…
Pizza: I have to act like an Italian and be a regionalist about this; even Northerners will admit that the best pizza is in Naples. My humble opinion is that as you move farther north, the pizza depreciates in value. Rome has a great thin-crusted pizza, and in Tuscany I prefer their focaccia to the pizza, which is still decent, but I got a hold of some pretty bad pizza in Milan. Sorry, Milan, but pizza is not your thing.
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→
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→
Christmas in Italy is a wonderful time to visit for many reasons, but don’t expect that you will have the whole place to yourself. Au contraire! You’re not the only one who would rather travel than go through the trouble of decking your own halls but the experience far outweighs any little inconveniences you may encounter, be they crowded airports, crowded piazzas and museums, or the cold weather.
Christmas Decorations
I know you’ve heard it before, but Italians just have a flair for style which is usually understated and never overbearing. In big cities and small towns lights are strung across the streets, evergreen garlands are draped over doorways, and the churches are adorned with poinsettias.
