Food is at the center of Italian culture, very much the national pastime. Italian food is great because it is the freshest and best ingredients usually picked up at the market that morning or grown just outside the backdoor. Also it is against the rules to take short cuts-- no microwave dinners, fast food, or mixes in a box. Probably our most memorable meal during the trip was dinner at the agriurismo just outside of Siena. It was the epitome of gathering around the Italian table. There were five couples all from the US and we shared stories and laughed throughout dinner and it got a little noisy and boisterous. We were eating food that was grown in the garden just out the window and wine from the vineyard across the road. Our hostess shared about each dish and wine. My favorite pasta in all of Italy was the zucchini lemon pasta we had that evening. They shared the recipe with me and I have attempted to recreate it-- of course I know it will never be the same as that evening but it has been fun to try to produce some of our favorite foods from Italy in our kitchen. So far I have made the zucchini lemon pasta, nutella gelato which is wonderful, spaghetti carbonara, and some warm foccacia with basil or oregano from just outside our backdoor. At least we can have a taste of Italy on this side of the ocean. In Italy we also approached food with the idea that it too was part of the adventure. I tend to shy away from exotic or different foods and especially vegetables but tried to put that aside in Italy. We tried rabbit, boar, kalamari, fennel, spinach dumplings, polenta, pizza with eggplant, and basil gelato. We always clean our plates too. I was impressed by the fact that vegetables, if cooked correctly, can be edible and even enjoyable. My take home lesson is to try new things, even vegetables. Since arriving home we have tried Brussels sprouts and loved them.
In Italy you can't help but bump into world famous art everywhere. For example, there are three works attributed to Michelangelo in the United States. We saw 24 works of Michelangelo from sculptures to paintings to buildings. This doesn't even included the three statues that were in the cathedral in Siena that we probably walked by but didn't know they were Michelangelo's until I just looked it up on Wikipedia. Can you image walking by a masterpiece and not realizing it because there are masterpieces everywhere you look. At some point we were like, "Oh, so there's yet another Michelangelo, ho hum." But on the flip side some of these works stopped us dead in our tracks, brought on tears or goosebumps, and left us speechless as we knew that we were admiring something great. We got cricks in our neck looking at the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, felt miniscual in the massive St. Peter's Basilica, and marveled at the foot of David. Yes we had seen pictures of each of these pieces before in books or on TV but experiencing art in person is worlds different. Frankly, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about going to so many art museums on this trip. But according to the guide books that is what you do in Italy. Then we were in Florence and three hours wasn't nearly enough time to take in the Uffizi. The Vatican Museum was such an experience that both of us were so "amped up" that we couldn't sleep that night-- "amped up" from an art museum! I became a Carvaggio groupie, eagerly searching out as many works as I could find in Rome by this controversial Barque artist-- how did that happen?
If you aren't bumping into art in Italy then you are tripping over ancient ruins. At first we were struck by seeing a Gothic cathedral from the 1200s and the town market that had been around for 700 years. Then we stayed in the attic of a building built in the 13th century. Oh if the ceiling beams we kept bumping on heads on could talk. Later we hiked to churches started in the 700s to shelter people hiding out from pirates on the coast. Next we bumped around a city started by Etruscans in 400 BC-- prior to the Roman Empire. And finally we ambled down the Via Sacra, Ancient Rome's Main Street where triumphant armies would parade after battle. Yes, history can be learned from books but reading about an event and imagining it play out in your mind's eye is different that experiencing the place where the event took place and letting your imagination run wild from there. As we wandered down the main drag in Florence we thought about what it would look like if the swarms of people passing us were not Japanese tourists but Floretines in Renaissance attire or Michelangelo chatting on the corner with Machiavelli. History in person also seems bigger.
It is also important at Americans to remember that history doesn't start in 1776. In fact we saw very little in Italy that wasn't built or created before that time. So many events that played out in history took place in Europe that then impacted how the Founding Fathers thought or acted in 1776. The seeds of democracy were planted in Ancient Rome. The Founding Fathers just thought it would be worth trying again. Over the course of the past year I have realized how little I know about European history and how learning European history has added to my understanding of American history. Examples
I heard once that when you travel abroad the country you learn the most about is your own. It is not until you see something done differently you really consider the habits, traditions, or culture that you partake in on a daily basis. One of the best parts of Italy was that we spent two weeks in the country and didn't use any form of private transportation outside of a 5 minute taxi ride. We loved zipping between the cities on the fast train while looking our the window or reading. We also experienced standing room only on a bus full Germans and a small regional train full of people out traveling on a Sunday. Public transport was available and efficient-- things we can only dream about in the Midwest. It was also fun to walk past sidewalks full of bikes-- hundreds and hundreds of bikes. Some of the cities we were in prohibited car traffic so bike was by far the most popular choice to get around. I love living in a town small enough to bike almost everywhere-- but in America we have highways and businesses are up for the car. There is nowhere to park my bike at the grocery store but this doesn't seem to be an issue to anyone else. One of the things I enjoyed most about Italy was that the "living room" for Italians is the neighborhood piazza. Ever evening people gather to eat, hang out, and play. My to favorite experiences of this were in the tiny town of Montorosso and the city of Florence. Montorosso was one of the towns in the Cinque Terre. It is overrun by tourists most of the time but in the evening when some of the crowds thin out the locals come out to the piazza. Arthur and I spent a good part of an hour just people watching while eating gelato. We watched the kids whiz down the cobble stone streets on scooters to the play ground and a pick up game of soccer. There was the bench were three or four elderly gentleman who have spent their entire life together were shooting the breeze. Across the piazza the gaggle of grandmothers sharing the town gossip and oohhing over a passing baby in a stroller. There was the young man and his aunt who were having a very heated debate with loud, emotional exchanges and lots of gestures that lasted for about 15 min-- in front of everyone. And this happens every evening-- it isn't just for soup dinners or football games. In Florence we "joined" our community at San Spirito each evening. We ate dinner on the fountain just like all the teenagers, listened to the live music, had a delicious sit down meal on the sidewalk watching everyone mill about on the evening passagiata or "stroll". I will say we were a little disappointed when we return home and all the neighbors weren't gathered in our cul-de-sac with lawn chairs to pass the evenings. Maybe if we served gelato they would come? Americans don't even have "front porch sitting" anymore.
The final lesson I learn in Italy was about devotion. The Catholic church was a presence everywhere you turned. And while many Italians are what we would call Christmas and Easter church goers we also saw examples of faithful devotion that I hadn't experienced. Part of it could be just seeing how others practice religion differently because traveling to the Unite Arab Emirates in college I saw Islam and the people who stopped their lives 5 times a day to pray and how they chose to dress and interact due to their beliefs. Italy was similar. We stayed in a convent with nuns and other guests were nuns from around the world on pilgrimage to the Vatican. We saw two or three of the faithful at a small church in Cinque Terre reciting the rosary together. In Rome people hurried into church going to or from work for a moment of prayer or to light candle. Their religion and beliefs were woven into the fabric of daily life. Devotion is define as a loyalty, commitment, or consistency to a person, belief, or a cause. Maybe this is just my perception but it seems like devotion in the church in America today is a very private, personal thing since our relationship with God is personal, however I was moved by watching these acts displayed in public.
So there you have it. All the blogs on Italy are official posted. Just in time for us to head on our next vacation. If you as a faithful reader made it all the way through treat yourself to a wonderful pasta dinner or let us know and we will even make gelato for you-- one can never have too much gelato. Omnia Vincit Amore.
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