A sunset this heavenly seems fit only for a date of equally epic proportions – Romeo, perhaps? Well, this is Verona, Italy, seen vividly in my sunset shot from my trip last weekend. And I guarantee you, Verona’s capacity for romance doesn’t disappoint. If you buy your plane tickets now, you might just be able to claim Romeo as your valentine. And if you are good at keeping secrets, his address is via Arche Scaligeri 2. Shhhhhhh!
Don’t worry, I’ll keep Juliet occupied. 😉 She’s pretty much just a bronze statue these days anyway, so I think we’ve got it in the bag.
Italy has taught me how to love my home again. After thirty years in Southern California, and many summers and holidays in New York, I felt like I didn’t know how to have fun in my own country anymore. Nothing seemed new and exciting. I came to Italy in search of that warm fuzzy feeling again, and I found it. But of course, as Murphy’s Law would have it, now that I am in Italy I miss the United States terribly. A complex combination of “the grass is always greener,” legitimate cravings for food, friends, and family (not necessarily in that order), and a renewed thirst for traveling, my longing to explore America runs deep these days.
One of my favorite stories about Italians adventuring in America has come from one of my best English students, a very established Bolognese marketing professional, who knows more about American politics than I do. He wrote this story about his first trip to the United States, when he went alone several decades ago before he was even twenty years old. The first time he read it to me, I died laughing. Hope you enjoy it nearly as much as I did.
My impressions about my journey in the United States.
By Paolo, October 2012
I was in Mexico at the end of February during a journey that I had begun two months before, and as you are probably aware, it was warm over there. Suddenly I decided to go to New York, but in New York it was winter. I left Bologna, Italy only with summer clothes because I had planned to go to the USA on another trip late in spring. Well just a few days later I left Mexico and I touched down at J.F. Kennedy airport when I was under twenty years-old, without knowing English, without a hotel reservation and during the winter dressed in summer clothes. It didn’t seem too bad!
I remember that at the gate of the airport I wore an alpaca overcoat that I had bought in Peru… but only as a present for a friend of mine. But my friend was a skinny girl! So imagine, I arrived at customs, dressed like a hippy, with long hair and wearing this weird overcoat, Jimi Hendrix style. They frisked me!
I found a taxi who drove me to Manhattan. I got out of the taxi, right in front of a hotel. I took my suitcases which were very heavy because I had bought some stone objects, and I went into the hotel. It was fully booked! I found myself in the middle of a street not knowing exactly where I was, without an idea of where I could go. In addition it was getting dark and mean characters were coming towards me.  I was getting scared about the situation. I tried three or four other hotels and eventually I found a room. The receptionist understood my position and smiled at me. I went in the room and I had a warm bath. After my bath I stopped me in front of a window and I looked at the roofs covered by the snow and …I was in Manhattan!
My English students in Italy often ask me to explain the difference between “home” and “house.” I usually stumble through my answer. The best I have ever managed to muster up is that a house is a building, whereas a home is your place to be.
This is by no means a textbook definition, and I could definitely do with some good input in a major way. How do you define a home?
Our subway stop.
I am really interested to know. As I rambled about in a previous blog entry, my travels through the United States this summer have uncovered the depth of my ongoing quest to answer this very question on a personal level – what is my home?
Predictably, the answer hasn’t come easily. Welcome complications have arisen from recent life adventures that sent me from my long-time home in San Diego, CA to a new beginning in Pittsburgh, PA, followed by Bologna, Italy, where I am now. I’ve spent this August on a break from work gallivanting around the eastern United States with old friends, family, and coworkers. My most recent stop was Park Slope, Brooklyn, a sort of homecoming after being away for many years. My visit incubated a little voice that has been nagging me, and has become annoyingly loud over the last few days. Park Slope, always a “taken for granted” second home for me, might actually be home.
Park Slope, Brooklyn is, at face value, a lively, diverse, and wealthy community in Brooklyn, NY. Sporting every imaginable cuisine within a ten minute walk, ornate churches, overpriced boutiques (is that redundant?), and the most diverse families I’ve seen in the US, some scoff at the sky-high real estate and the gentrification of the area. But don’t judge a book by its cover. This community has an identity that most certainly is more than meets the eye. The history and complexity of Park Slope could fill a thesis or two, and there are tons of people that can explain it better than I.
It is this very history, and the history of families like mine in the neighborhood, that has made this community feel like home. As even with the Starbucks and the boutiques that have crept into 7th avenue over the years, the community’s rich past is still evident in staples like Pino’s Pizzeria,
mentioned in an earlier post as the best pizza I have eaten outside Italy. While easy to overlook, this food culture is a steadfast part of the immigrant population of the area.
My family’s home of 50 years in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
I was lucky enough to be born into US citizenship, but I am fiercely proud to share something in common with the thousands of immigrants of every imaginable origin whose parallel paths finally crossed when they found their home in this community, binding cultures that rarely overlapped outside of the US. Like many new immigrants, my great grandparents on my dad’s side, from Ireland, settled in Brooklyn. My grandparents moved my dad and my uncle to 4th street after purchasing their brownstone in 1955, which stayed in our family nearly fifty years. At that time the neighborhood was affordable – my grandpa sold subway tokens and taught my dad the ins and outs of riding the subway as if he were one of the architects of the subways, details that my dad has tried to pass on to me, but now seem insignificant as this once coveted information has been replaced by your latest iPhone app.
4th street and 7th avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
It is hard to separate my dad from his roots in Park Slope, crossing 4th street every night to have his second dinner at his best friend Michael’s house, who was a second generation Italian American and the oldest of seven brothers. He later became my godfather. And although my dad has lived in California for much of his adult life, every time he says “faarest” instead of “forest,” I am reminded of stories of his days playing ball on 4th street with Michael and the other guys that are still his best friends.
My dad and his buddies, a long time ago. 🙂
Park Slope still feels like home because of its magical, enduring ability to remain constant in its dynamic identity where people from other places, and people who don’t know where their homes are, find their homes here.
This is a place filled with people searching for – or finding – a home. People like my fabu friend, Steph, proudly representing a new generation in Park Slope, after making the big move from DC to start her new job at the NYC Department of Education last week.
Lunch with Steph.
And just last night I crashed a wedding rehearsal dinner on the roof of a new apartment complex in Park Slope, recently purchased by a fabulous lesbian couple that are friends of my childhood neighbor.
View from the rooftop.
All at once it feels surreal and perfectly normal to be surrounded by these people – the new pioneers in Park Slope, whose grandchildren may one day be writing a blog entry on this very topic.
For me, no matter how many deluxe baby carriages, Starbucks, and purebred dogs currently fill the streets of Park Slope, the democracy of its roots are unmistakable.
The people who made this history and the people who are only now discovering the Slope are crossing paths, just as the immigrants of my dad’s generation dad, to add to its identity and make this place incredible.
And maybe now I can do justice explaining the Slope to my english students the next time they ask me the difference between “house” and “home.” Not a house, but a home – this home, this place, is Park Slope, Brooklyn.
I’ve put together some of my favorite shots from my last trip to Park Slope, as most of our pics are on film and are buried in closets. One of these days, I will dig them out. I did include a few old pics of Park Slope taken my dad and other family members.
Ravenna is a small, unassuming city in the northeast Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and is a virtual treasure trove of visual delights. Famous for its mosaics and churches, a day in Ravenna is relaxing adventure back in time, with a fabulous Italian dinner waiting for you to top it off.
Portici in Ravenna, Italy
A simple train ride from Bologna, I spent a day here last fall. My roommate Seve comes from a small city near Ravenna, and I was always curious about the city. I was not disappointed. The city is beautiful, easy to navigate, affordable, and who can beat 6th century mosaics?
More mosaics in Ravenna
For more info, check out Wiki and Wikitravel.
Here are a few of my favorite pics… Gallery:
Booking comfortable, affordable and centrally located lodging is possibly the biggest and most underestimated challenge related to travel planning. While there are many ways of going about meeting this challenge, over the years I have perfected my own system that I am now happily sharing with you. In the following step-by-step instructions I hope to save you not only time but also money on your next vacation.
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So, let’s imagine that you are booking your dream trip to Venice, Italy. A popular and sometimes quite expensive travel destination, it can be very difficult to know where to begin in your search through hundreds of hotel options, many seemingly quite expensive.
Instead of even attempting to evaluate the scope of accommodation options available to me in Venice, I instead save myself perhaps hours of time by going to a trusted travel expert – Frommers.com.
Frommers.com provides reviews on many things, but their hotel reviews are invaluable as they are reliable, clear, and most importantly, they are written by travel professionals. This is an important point, and is the major reason their reviews are so trustworthy. 1. Find a trusted and professional reviewer’s hotel listings for the city you would like to visit.
For our trip to Venice, I went to Google.com and type “frommers, venice” in the search bar, because my favorite professional travel review resource is Frommer’s. Fodor’s also works, as does Lonely Planet, etc. Use whatever source you are comfortable/familiar with – the important thing is that they are professional reviews, and not just reviews from the general public that have stayed at the hotel.
When I type Frommer’s Venice into google, the page I was looking for was the first result, which I clicked on to arrive at the homepage for Frommer’s information about Venice. I then clicked on the left-hand side of the screen where it says “Venice Hotels” and “List All.”
Below is a screenshot of what you will be seeing when you are looking at the Frommer’s hotel listings for Venice. You can sort the list by stars, price, name, and neighborhood. I normally sort by price and then choose the hotel with the most stars. For the sake of this blog post, let’s pretend we will select Hotel Al Piave, as it has a three star Frommer’s recommendation and is in a lower price range, listed as only one dollar sign. An important note: Frommer’s star system is not related to the normal hotel star system. Instead, their star system refers to their recommendations for hotels and is not related to the amount of amenities the hotel offers. A Frommer’s 3-star hotel is their most recommended hotel, while a Frommer’s listing without stars is still recommended but not as highly recommended as their other listings. 2. Read the hotel reviews to find the one that suits your needs.Â
Next, I clicked on the name of the hotel, Hotel Al Piave, in order to read Frommer’s review, and to make sure that it sounded like the type of hotel that I would enjoy staying at. Normally if the hotel has any major inconveniences related to location, architecture, amenities, etc, Frommer’s will mention it in the review. 3. Do a general search for hotels at your destination and in your date range on Kayak.com. Kayak.com is like a giant search engine for travel, allowing you to gain a perspective on the general price range of the type of travel you are booking in that area and timeframe. Kayak is able to do this by searching prices listed from a huge number of discount travel websites like Expedia, and Hotels.com to help you find the best price available on the internet. I also like Kayak because it includes even more information than pricing, like Tripadvisor reviews, and an interactive map with all the hotels in the area you are searching for to help you get a great idea of location.
Below, I have typed “Venice, Italy” and my dates under the hotel search section in Kayak. 4. Â Price the hotel(s) you are most interested in and check availability on Kayak.com.
Once Kayak has performed a search for available hotels in Venice for my date range, I then narrow the results by searching specifically for the hotel or hotels I found in the Frommer’s reviews that I am most interested in. In this case, we liked the Hotel Al Piave. Kayak offers many options for narrowing your search on the left-hand side of the screen within the search results. Toward the bottom of these options, you will find a search box that says “Hotel Name.” Here I type “Piave.” Kayak found two hotels with “Piave” in the name, but only one is in Venice. I click on the hotel in Venice to confirm this is the hotel that I am searching for. 5. Confirm the hotel information matches the information from the Frommer’s review, and check out current prices and more reviews at Kayak.com.
I arrived at Kayak’s detail page for the Al Piave Hotel, which you can see below. Because the name is slightly different on the Kayak listing than the Frommer’s listing, I confirm this hotel is the same by comparing the contact information listed for the hotel here with the contact information listed with Frommer’s.
The information matches, so I know I have successfully found the hotel that Frommer’s was recommending. Here on the Kayak detail page I can get tons of information, including more hotel reviews from other travel sites, as well as the pricing for the hotel on about 15 major travel discount websites, and more information about the hotel’s location. 6. Check pricing on the hotel’s website.
Before I book my hotel, I need to perform one more important step. Now that I have researched current pricing for the hotel, I need to compare this pricing with the pricing on the actual website of the hotel itself.
As surprising as this may sound, most of the time I book my lodging directly through the hotel itself, because most of the time the hotel offers pricing that is competitive with what the online discount sites are offering.
As you can see below, the Hotel Al Piave is no exception, with a room available that is even less expensive than on the discount sites.
Let’s say for the sake of this discussion that instead of being cheaper, the prices listed on the Hotel Al Piave’s website were more expensive than the prices listed on the discount travel websites. Before I book with another website, I would give the hotel a chance to match the other website’s price by calling them and telling them about the rate I found, and if they could sell the room to me directly at that rate. Most often they can, as they would much rather book directly with you than have to offer service fees to outside agencies selling their rooms. 7. Book your room!
After completing all my necessary research on my stay in Venice in about twenty minutes, I am ready to book my room directly with the Hotel Al Piave. Booking directly with the hotel has many advantages as opposed to booking with a discount site “middle-man,” including more control over your reservation, as well as – in many cases – a more understanding cancellation policy, etc.
Do remember to always book with your credit card when possible, as your credit card company serves an important role as your advocate if something goes wrong with your room or with the billing.
And most importantly, enjoy your trip!!!
– – – – – – – – – – – – Another important note: It is important that you know this system is relevant for both North American and European travel, so once you learn it, it will serve you well on a large variety of vacations. Kayak.com and Frommers.com are the two websites I use, and while both of these companies are American, I’ve found that being an American, my standards for lodging are high and I am not as willing to compromise my expectations for lodging as much as I am willing to adjust my expectations for food, transportation, and sight-seeing. Therefore, the information and recommendations by these companies on both American and non-American lodging is quite relevant, as their frame of reference matches mine.
Yes, it is Sunday night. Of course most of us have work or school commitments tomorrow. But why should that stop us from having fun? This is the Italian way – fun is never completely out of reach. Which is reason number 1,024,862 why I love living in Italy.
Last Sunday night during a stroll with a few friends after a soccer match, we ran into some other friends on the street. We happened to have a bottle of wine and an iPad (the perfect combination), so why not? We headed to the nearest piazza, called Piazza San Francesco, which is an especially popular spring and summer evening destination for young people in Bologna.
And just an hour later, we suddenly found ourselves dancing across the piazza as if we were the next contestants on “So You Think You Can Dance.” As you can see from the above picture, the scene wasn’t perfect due to some safety reinforcements after the latest quake to hit Bologna. But this is only a small detail and easily overcome. The church next to the piazza still stands tall, proud, and beautiful. And what could be better than having a whole piazza as your dance floor?
I never thought I’d be uttering those words. But now I couldn’t imagine life without a bottle of wine, an iPad, great friends, and a piazza. 🙂
Cinque Terre rose to fame among American tourists with the help of a well-known friend, Rick Steves, and it seems to continue to grow ever-more popular, as its beauty and simplicity are hard to match
Cinque Terre rests on the western coast of Italy, and its name is derived from the five small coastal cities that compose the area – Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso. Â One of the signature tourist draws to the region is the hike from the southernmost Riomaggiore to the northernmost Monterosso, as each city is no more than three kilometers from the last. That being said, the more northern you are, the more difficult the walks become, with many steps and hills involved.
I have made the walk twice, and not only is the view one of the most stunning I have experienced since Big Sur, California, there is also quite a reward in Monterosso, as this city has the largest beach for relaxing a bit after your hike, and the focaccia here is not to be missed. Â Speaking of food, this area of Italy is known for creating pesto, so definitely leave some room for some homemade pesto dishes while you visit.
As if the beauty of this place (and the pesto!) isn’t enough of a reason to go, there’s more. Each time I go to Cinque Terre I have made friends from the city that I still keep in touch with. The people here are wonderful – they truly appreciate the tourists and make it their own personal mission that you are happy and enjoying your visit to their city. Â Seriously, what more could we ask for?
While each city has its own character – my personal favorites are Corniglia and Vernazza, as each of these cities have absolutely charming architecture and tiny yet fantastic little swimming areas.
To help you get a better idea of the true beauty of the area, I have picked out a few of my favorite photos.
Slideshow:
Despite the 15 months that I have already spent in Bologna, I have not yet acclimated to the striking allure of this historic Italian city. The photos in this gallery are snapshots that I have taken over the months at moments when the beauty of the city has truly struck me. Which is often. As you are about to see, Bologna is truly a land of extremes with its signature portici adorning nearly every street in the historic center, and many of the walls behind the portici laden with graffiti. A stroll through its wealthy neighborhoods can feel almost like a walk through a fairy tale, while a stroll down via Zamboni in the heart of the student community is a reminder of the sometimes radical political roots grown in Bologna.
Bologna may be my home away from home, but I dare say that these moments when I drop everything just to take a picture will never stop. I hope you enjoy them even a bit as much as I have…
An intense love of travel has inspired me to start this blog, so I can think of nothing more appropriate as the subject of my first blog post than a simple question: why in the world do we love to travel so much?
Let’s face it. Our beds at home are pretty comfortable and time zones are pretty significant. And who really likes airports anyway?
I get sick within thirty seconds of smelling jet-fuel. I always forget my perfume. And every day on vacation is a bad hair day because I never have enough space to pack all my curly hair products.
But somehow, I magically forget all of these complications, not just once in a while, but every time I travel. Because if I didn’t forget these things, if I am any semblance of a rational person, I would probably never travel again.
Ok, maybe this is an exaggeration. But definitely don’t ask me about my future travel plans the next time I am on a bus at 6am to the Ryanair airport in the middle of nowhere with two hour’s sleep and a paper due at noon.
Being that you are reading this post, I can only assume that we share a passion for travel in common. And being that we are both human, I am also assuming that you have your fair share of gripes with your own travel experiences. I would love to hear some of them in the comments of this blog, so please share.
So, then this brings us back to my original question – why? Why do we travel? Why do we give up our nice, warm, comfy beds in exchange for potential disaster, or at the very least some scratchy sheets?
I can only speak for myself. And honestly, it has taken me a really really long time to figure this out. I travel because I want to connect with people. This may sound a little strange. I will try to explain.
I don’t mean “connect” in a literal sense, like I am going on singles tours to meet my future husband. I mean, I travel to satisfy an ever-clamoring (sometimes annoying) voice deep down that wants to understand people, everywhere. Where they live, how they live. What they do for fun, what they do for work. I want to understand everything, from their routines to their extremes, to their history. I am fascinated.
When I come home from my latest exploration, I see home differently, every time. I’m exhausted, my washing machine is never happy to see me, but I’m happy because I’m sporting this new-found perspective about the people who have welcomed me into their city. While I probably never absorb much in my brief visits, it is enough to whet my appetite for more. And the memories of this place fly all the way home with me, and simmer for a while as a little hop in my step for the next few days. And ultimately, they make the world a little smaller for me. Which somehow, is a good thing. 🙂
(The above photo was taken of my friend Lizbeth, struggling with her suitcase on the umpteenth staircase of our trip to the south of Italy last September, with no elevator in site.)
