Re-discovering New Haven for CNN Travel

I got to visit New Haven on the company dime and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Now you can, too -- here's my story. It's part of a series we've been doing for three years on the best towns in America that fly under the radar and are often far from the major metropolitan areas.

New Haven is home to Yale -- which you can see in this photo I snapped -- and it's also one of the most walkable cities I've visited in the US.

Here's a note I scrawled in my journal:

New Haven is glorious! I don’t really say it happily but rather with a not-so-healthy dose of jealousy and what-if-ism! It would appear getting into Yale is a golden ticket in more ways than one. You get to live in a beautiful, vibrant city that’s walkable and architecturally alluring (in addition to studying at one of the finest universities in the world).

Before I forget: New Haven is for walkers. I walked so much. So it was really unavoidable that I’d love it, I suppose.

Also, my translation, This Darkness Will Never End, was on the shelf at Atticus! YES!

Interesting fact: I gave all of my leftovers to men on New Haven Green who appeared to need food.

Moment of beauty after the visit: I bought Leo a small puzzle of the painting The Wave at the Yale Art Gallery and he really liked it. He asked to open it immediately and then instead of watching TV, he began to assemble it. When we turned on “Father Ted” after a bit, he didn’t pay much attention to it, preferring instead to painstakingly find pieces of boats that appear in the painting.

(The Yale Art Gallery is quite nice and I didn’t even get to visit the sculpture garden – home to an Alexander Calder – because of the rain).

Anyway, please read my CNN story!

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The Four Seasons Hotel in Florence

The boy whose Fiorentina soccer team shirt reads 'Nato Perfetto' ("born perfect") gets around. 

This is a photo of Leo, aged 5, in the park surrounding the absolutely stunning Four Seasons Hotel in Florence, close to Piazza D'Azeglio and not too far from the Accademia (home of the David statue).

Somehow this fancy-schmancy hotel has an exquisite private park to its name, but there's a coffee bar there so you can show up at the hotel and simply say you're visiting the cafe to gain entrance to this amazing park, which, as you can see, is adorned with sculpture.

(No one can be denied a coffee in Italy!)

We were staying with my old roommate whose current apartment is nearby so we were game to go.

Yet since the park was so beautiful and the hotel clearly for high rollers, the day that Leo and I arrived, I hesitated. Could it really be that simple? So when I asked a hotel employee if we could enter, the born-and-bred Florentine took one look at Leo's shirt, which featured the symbol and color of Florence's beloved soccer team, and he said, "Con quella maglietta lui può andare dove vuole." In that shirt, he can go wherever he wants!

It's absolutely worth a detour if you're visiting Florence -- Italy is full of hidden treasures, often in courtyards and concealed behind high stone walls. It's nice that this one is sort of within reach.

I was reminded of this hotel recently because one of my sisters will be visiting Florence in the Fall for a wedding so I looked up the rates.

Well, she is a bit of a high roller but the cost is King-of-England-level high rolling so she might just have to pass on this one! 

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Tiny moments of exquisite beauty in Italy

The apartment in Florence where we stayed this month during our trip to Italy had a top-floor terrace that stares directly at the Torre di Arnolfo, which defines the Palazzo Vecchio and is arguably the symbol of Florence. In the early morning hours as Leo and Mike (and the rest of the city) slept, I had my coffee while staring back at it. One morning, the silence surrounding me was so profound that the flapping of a bird's wing overhead was singularly audible. 

(Fun fact: the apartment is on the top floor -- 75 steps up!)

Each trip contains certain touchstones -- I revisit my old apartments, I retrace my steps along treasured walking routes, I prowl beloved bookstores and newsstands for all of the written material that I feel as though I need to live. I observe the small moments of exquisite beauty, something I believe my mother would have done (a habit she almost certainly instilled in me by modeling it).  

But each trip is also different, and engenders a specific set of preoccupations. 

At one point during our travels, I developed an obsession with the Roma-Viterbo train line, which is separate from Trenitalia. It's not entirely odd: our apartment in Rome overlooked one of the stations on the line. And when I am in Italy, I am immersed in "my beat," which I define as the ordinary aspects of Italian life, the parts of Italian life that an average Italian contends with. 

It reminded me of the PATH trains that link lower Manhattan to New Jersey inasmuch as it's both local and separate. They are like an alt subway line, which is slightly odd. If you were a traveler to NYC, you could mistake them for the actual subway system, no?  

When I poked my head inside the station I could see from the window, it was as old-school as it comes. The tracks were visible from the entranceway (the long train tunnel simply deadends into the lobby of the station) and on them sat old tram-like trains. There was a bustling coffee bar attached, of course, and I had my breakfast there one day, knowing that while it appeared scruffy, the volume of customers and the people who frequented it (real Italians) guaranteed a fine cappuccino and a light, fluffy ciambellina. Yet still, I am both irked by this random, standalone train line and also by my obsession with it!

More from the Rome Journal: You can buy calendars where each month is a photo of a young Italian priest. Yes, I, too, am wondering how on Earth I left Rome without one of those calendars! I mean, dai, per l'amor di Dio ... you cannot top that. I tried to explain it to Leo by saying it was driven by the dearth of vocations and that the notion of a slew of new young priests would give older Catholics such joy....

There’s an article in the current L’Espresso that is so funny: Italian politicians who years after they’ve left office continue to enjoy la scorta (police escort/secret service-level protection), which is to say they still jump the line (in traffic, at the airport, etc) when it’s convenient. The article cites a two-century-old line of poetry:

Io so’ io

E voi non siete un cazzo

Not a poem I've ever read. (From Wikipedia: La celebre frase che il Marchese rivolge a un gruppo di popolani («Mi dispiace, ma io so' io e voi non siete un cazzo!») è ripresa dal sonetto Li soprani der Monno vecchio di Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, che comincia così: «C'era una vorta un Re cche ddar palazzo / mannò ffora a li popoli st'editto: / "Io sò io, e vvoi nun zete un cazzo"».)

ENGLISH SUMMARY: The gist of the line of poetry, spoken by a nobleman to commoners, is roughly: I'm important (or I'm someone) and you're a nobody (said more colorfully in the Italian: 'You're not jack squat,' or, 'You're a fuckin' nobody.')

I was walking through Piazza della Signoria one evening only to find a concert in the loggia behind the Uffizi – a gorgeous soprano and a small ensemble. Leo didn’t want to linger but luckily the singer’s voice lingered, following me out of the piazza (I walked extra slow).

New 'addresses' emerge on each trip, often connected with coffee bars or bakeries that serve good ciambelle/ciambelline (who would care? Yes, yes I know. There's a reason few people read this blog!). I stopped at Caffe Le Logge by the post office one morning for a cappuccino. I was out on my morning walk and needed to refuel before venturing across the river. When I returned later to buy some pastries (which were quite good), the barman said, "Ri-buongiorno." I believe that's the first time I've ever had someone say that to me. Good morning -- again. (Not that you would care if you weren't obsessed with Italian and why should you be?!)

And while we're on the topic ... The trip was especially fruitful in one delicious way: I ate some of the best ciambelle I've ever had (none would qualify as a ciambellina, where -ina indicates little). Soft, doughy, enormous, and of course covered in sugar.

All I Want for Christmas is Guglielmo Coffee

Even at my advanced age, I find a lot of gifts under the tree. But the one I want most is a mega shipment of Guglielmo coffee!

The American distributor for the brand is based in Massachusetts, and every year, Il Nostro Inviato (the original 'friend of the blog') orders it to be shipped to our home (now in Connecticut, but before in Atlanta). 

One sip and I might as well be in Southern Italy.

Yes, yes Lavazza is Italian coffee, and I drink it. But brands like Guglielmo and Caffe Kimbo offer a very intense coffee experience! You are left in no doubt that you've had -- and almost certainly savored -- a cup of Joe (or Giuseppe, as the case may be).

The brand also has a very cool motto: Il caffe che fa centro. The coffee that hits the spot!

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The Italian trip memento group photo

How did it start? Why would you do it? Who can say? But as far back as when I lived in Allentown (at least), I've been gathering all the wonderful items I collected during my trips to Italy and snapping a photo of them.

A group photo of my souvenirs.

I even wrote about it for Catapult!

So here's this trip's memento group photo. There's not much that I do that's unique -- there are even other hair-twirlers in the world. There are certainly other pushy, petite broads around (to the Franciscan brother who tried to tell my mother that I was refreshingly outspoken when I arrived at St. Anthony's, my mother said, "She's very pushy!").

But so far I haven't met anyone else who ritually poses her purchases for a group photo after trips abroad.

(I did it when we visited Montreal, too. So foreign souvenirs occupy a special spot in my psyche).

It may stem from a habit I have that's connected with Christmas: I leave the gifts under the tree for as long as possible. That's what we did, growing up. God Bless Pat: she was not one of those mothers who was snatching the wrapping paper from your hands and socking it into a trash bag as you were  still unspooling it from the gift. Nope! You got to revel in opening the gifts and also gaze lovingly at them, day after day during your school holiday.

Similarly, I leave the Memento Shrine (TM) intact for as long as possible. It's an unusual ode to conspicuous consumption for me, not because I am virtuous but simply because I am not a shopper. I still have the lacy jacket-like shirt that I bought in a London thrift store in 1995 as well as the black-and-white scarf my sister, Denise, gave me in high school, because to replace them, I'd have to enter a shop. And not one that sells cutesy Italian paraphernalia. Which brings me back to my point.

Items of interest this trip:

*New Bialetti Moka AND coffee AND mug; I guess the Bialetti company figured they should begin roasting coffee to go with their signature stove-top coffee makers

*Spaghetti definition place mat (it says spaghetti is something you must never go without in your pantry)

*Tins of Callipo tuna

*A picture frame swathed in traditional Florentine paper (and various journals, pencils and notecards -- singlehandedly keeping the Florentine paper industry in business)

*Books, of course, including a back back back issue of Granta Italia, which I had been searching for since on Amazon it costs a zillion dollars

*And the edition of the Corriere della Sera with the headline, "Addio al governo Draghi," which I wrote about already.

I linger over these items because the time in Italy is so precious. And so different. Another Jeanne emerges when I step off the plane. Indeed, all of these purchases reflect the habits of this other person -- going about on foot, making acquisti, collecting mementos (this time: packets of sugar from the coffee bars I visited --- shhh! Don't tell Mike. For some reason, he thinks the house is full of clutter). Oh and also moments. Collecting lots of moments.

It helps that I never have to step inside a big box store. It helps that I don't have to traverse a parking lot to examine the Spaghetti place mat or obsess over the gorgeous paper goods.

Also, that when I am done, I can repair to a bench in a piazza to revel in what I've bought. La dolce vita, in a nut shell.

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In Italy the streets are my lab (Seconda volta)

The first morning in Milan (which is to say the first morning of the trip), I wake at 6:50 a.m. and head out subito -- immediately -- on foot while Leo and Mike sleep. 

Left out of the hotel, and left onto Via Turati (where Mike is delighted to discover the San Carlo potato chip HQ is) to find the perfect caffe for a cappuccino & una ciambellina. I did OK – a small corner job, workman-like but some of the paste (pastries) I bought were still hot! And fancy isn't always the ticket. 

I begin collecting information immediately because in Italy, the street is part of my lab -- language lab, culture lab, architecture lab. The coffee bars, too, and any surface that contains Italian writing. They are my beat.

So I notice the massive macchinetta for the coffee is giving the barista trouble and the building that houses the American embassy is also home to Radio Monte Carlo (the station name, when I read or say it quietly to myself, is broadcast in my head in the original Italian that you would hear on the radio).

I also notice, much to my chagrin, that English is everywhere – everywhere. But for different audiences. In some cases, it's there to communicate to people born speaking English. In other cases, it's an absurd flourish (or whatever the opposite of flourish is) to an otherwise Italian-only public service message or advertisement (Trenitalia, I am looking at you!).

Morning #2, I go to Il Chiosco Manin, an outdoor coffee counter in Milan, just to the left of an entrance to the public gardens. A customer beside me ordered, “Un caffe per cortesia.” (‘A coffee, please,’ except that he used the form of please that includes the word ‘courtesy’ – and the order feels extra courtly. Also, for those of you playing along at home, un caffe = an espresso. If you want a cappuccino -- and I do -- you have to say cappuccino).

Another man bikes up to get his coffee. “Ciao Salvatore,” he says to the barman.

While I have my cappuccino at the tiny bancone that sits on the street, the radio is on, and it’s perfection.

Another woman arrives at Il Chiosco and the barista says, “Ciao Lorena.” It's like I'm gatecrashing a party where everyone else knows each other, but no one minds I am there.

I eye the oranges that are used for smoothies – tempting. Meanwhile someone calls out, “Buon di!” Then the garbage truck arrives – and the sanitation workers get out of the truck to have their coffees, too.

I am observing. And when I am done observing while standing still, I say my goodbyes to the barista and begin walking again to observe some more. I feel like I could walk all day and only then would I be sated, happy, fully on vacation. 

Vacation for Jeanne = walking in Italy (while someone speaks behind me, next to me, near me in Italian -- and yes, Heather D-R from St. Anthony's, also when someone speaks Italian directly to me, but I didn't want to get greedy. Those first few days, I am almost struck speechless by how thorough the change of scenery is from America to Italy).

Now I am walking through a stone gate that’s part of the old walls of the city – next to the fancy shopping street Via della Spiga – and the sidewalk ducks under a portico (do we have porticos in America? We should). 

Internal courtyards abound in Milan and the portoni (front doors/main entrances of buildings) to them reveal oases of greenery and sometimes sculpture.

I’ve struggled to find an open giornalaio in Milan – even the concierge at our hotel shrugged his shoulders. Victims of the pandemic, which is heartbreaking because newsstands are Italian mom-and-pop stores that double as mini-piazzas. A place for an exchange. (They also sell Pokemon cards! Ask me how I know!)

But Mike manages to buy for me at Milano Centrale:

-La Settimana Enigmistica (weekly puzzle magazine)

-Bell’Italia (most beautiful travel magazine you've ever seen)

-La Cucina Italiana (food mag)

Doing the frontpage crossword in the puzzle mag ('Settimana Enigmistica' -- you can see the word 'enigma' in there), I learn, or re-learn, that 'musicare' is a verb (clue: “Musicò Tosca.”)

I am collecting information about 1,000 tiny moments, 1,000 tiny encounters between myself and Italy. Later in Rome, I trip over myself to snap a photo of the perfect graffiti spotted as we entered the Villa Borghese from Piazza del Popolo: ‘Sei bella come Roma’ = You're as beautiful as Rome. Not sure there is a way to top that, other than -- maybe -- you're as beautiful as the Taj Mahal or a hologram of your face should be beamed permanently from the sky.

Everything that has words draws my attention (as I may have, ahem, mentioned). I walk the streets each morning silently repeating phrases from ads, billboards, shop windows ("Idraulico, giorno e notte" = Plumber available all hours; "Traslochi/sgomberi" = relocations, junk removal; "Saldi" = sales).  I am shopping a lot but mainly my kind of acquisti, like anything sold at the giornalaio (newsstand). Yesterday I bought La Gazzetta dello Sport just so Leo could see Italy’s pink sports newspaper (he marveled that there seemed to be 35 pages about soccer and 1 page about car racing and maybe 1 page about volleyball and that’s it). I told him that anywhere in Italy, when you see someone across the bar or piazza holding a pink newspaper, you know at a glance he or she (OR HE!) is reading the national sports newspaper.

What I bought so far:

*Il Corriere della Sera (2X)

*L’Espresso (magazine)

*Panorama (magazine)

*A new red Moka coffee pot from Bialetti (yes I now have probably 10 Mokas of various sizes)

*La Gazzetta dello Sport (see above)

*A lightweight plastic basketball for Leo (dal giornalaio!)

*A kitchen towel

*A place mat with the “definition” of Spaghetti

*A bare midriff shirt (ma sei matta? Am shopping around now for a new lifestyle so I can actually wear it)

*A green wool sweater from Benetton like the brown one I've had for more years than I care to admit

*10 or so books (including two by Edith Bruck; when Leo saw another copy of Andremo in Città, he said, ‘Mommy, you have that one already!’ I suppose seeing it around the house for a few years will do that.)

I am no different than all the other tourists snapping photos. Except I snap photos of the 'Missing dog' flyers on utility poles and the tree stumps some cracker jack street artist has transformed into sculpture, not to mention compelling graffiti and street signs of particular relevance (I will always take a photo of  the sign for Via della Vigna Vecchia anytime I visit Florence -- it was once my home).

We are taking trams in Milan and some of them are “antiques.” The #1 tram line that we took to Castello Sforzesco is just such a model. Wooden bench seats line the walls of the tram. There’s a shimmy and shake to its accelerations. Like a mobile museum that allows a step back in time in addition to a method of transportation.

One of the major streets in Milan is Via Alessandro Manzoni and that tickles me for some reason. Like, where in New York is the F. Scott Fitzgerald Boulevard?!

Italy is basically just one big Tickle-me Elmo doll. Every damn thing -- good or bad -- intrigues me.

That's all for now from Il Belpaese.

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Letter from Borgo Ognissanti

I see my life as divided in two: Before Italy and After Italy. As I wrote in my Bennington graduation lecture, "If my life were a novel, the central year dividing the action into 'the before' and 'the after' would be the year I left for Italy on a study abroad program."

Or perhaps you could phrase it this way: My life is divided into the period of monolingual me versus bilingual me, since once I discovered that I could think, speak and write in not one but two languages, there was no going back.

(You, of course, could also divide my life into Before Leo and During Leo, which may make you wonder, how would YOU divide your life?).

Earlier, I wrote that Jeanne on vacation is Jeanne walking while immersed in Italian. But I've speculated, what if all of a sudden Arkansas adopted Italian as its official state language? (Or South Jersey for that matter). Would it have the same ambience? Would it evoke the same gauzy invitation for swooning?

Let's stay on Terra Firma and have me strolling among Italians as they continue the work of Dante in their everyday conversations.

And especially among Florentines as they jabber away in their C-less Italian.

To be fair -- and to add some nuance to this geographical hagiography -- I've described Florentines in my attempts at fiction as a hostile high school clique that hazes newcomers but which you'd nonetheless cut yourself to join (And Senesi -- the people who live in Siena -- and Pisani are arguably snobbier; I've also heard Milanesi aren't the friendliest people).

And yet it is also true that knowing Italians -- knowing them enough that they whisk you off into the country, up a mountain to a rustic restaurant or over to a hidden beach studded with caves -- is like having the secret key to the hidden door (or the hidden key to the secret door). It makes a magical place -- Italy -- truly sparkle.

We had several occasions to insert the secret key in the hidden door; for example at Serre Bistrot, an Oltrarno restaurant you'll find in a private garden (Il Giardino Torrigiani) that heretofore I'd only seen on a map of Florence, even though it's quite close to my old apartment, which I shared with my friend, Irene, who took us to Serre Bistrot. It's described as a secret garden in the heart of Florence, and that's more or less true (specifically near Piazza Torquato Tasso, which you may or may not consider the heart of Florence). You won't stumble over it -- you have to look carefully at the map and seek out what Irene called "an internal road" that leads to the entrance.

We also took a hike! Mike's friend, Dante, took us up into the Pratomagno mountain range near Arezzo so we – or really Leo – could have a break from the painful heat of the cities we had been visiting. And it was delightful. Classic Italian gita – drove two hours (not a half hour, not un’oretta, but a full two hours), had a wonderful lunch al bosco in this rustic little eatery where Mike and I ate half the menu (at lunch!) and Dante had a quartino of wine (at lunch!), and then proceeded to take a short hike in the wonderfully breezy environs of Pratomagno. 

We hiked to a red, iron cross at the top of the crest of the mountain that had been built by ‘Francescani secolari’ in honor of St. Francis, who had spent a great deal of time nearby. The wind was truly delicious, the way Rahawa Haile described it in her essay about hiking, "Going It Alone."

And Leo ran up the mountain. Ran. Literally. 

He was way out ahead and he kept saying to me, “There’s a good view over here.”

There was an organized group of school-age kids and when they reached the summit as we were descending, we could hear them celebrating with shouts of joy. I kept looking back at them as they encircled the cross, thinking, 'This is perfection.'

(When you reach the summit, there's a stamp and an ink pad, which we duly used on my travel journal. Why do I act as though the journal page with the stamps is like a manuscript of Shakespeare? I was careful not to write on the back to preserve it).

Dante had picked us up near the station at 10:30; at around 3 p.m., when I was ready for a nap but casually mentioned that I hadn’t been to Siena in a while, he said, “Andiamo ora se vuoi!” (We can go now if you want). 

And then there's the Italian lesson, courtesy of Cristiano, which I wrote about earlier (maybe every Italian male would have begun the lesson with the word for cuckhold?!). Not to mention the evening we dined at the house of our friend Vicki (German by birth, Florentine by choice) and Leo had his first glass of Coca-cola (in Italy!) while I gazed out at the building's verdant courtyard, which I've described before as 'If 'Rear Window' were filmed in Italy.' 

We are lucky to have such adventures when we set foot back in Italy.

Plus, there are also always new adventures -- ways to stretch this relationship with Italy, because I feel at home in Italy, even when I am not with friends. So I was delighted to see we were staying near the French bookstore in Piazza Ognissanti, a place I'd never needed to patronize since I was plenty busy with Italian books when I lived in Florence. But now that I visit Montreal and in particular the neighborhood Petite Italie, I know that there are bilingual Italian-French books to be had and they are delightful (I have Erri De Luca's Non ora, non qui//Pas ici, pas maintenant in the bilingual edition, published under the Folio series by Gallimard).

Inside the darling little store, the proprietor juggled her infant while answering my questions about the bilingual editions and ringing me up (plus responding to the phone; at one point, I heard her say to an unseen caller, “Buongiorno, si, si ... ah Bonjour, oui nous l’avons….”).

She also patiently put up with the neighborhood lunatic who entered the store to harass her -- and judging by her cool-as-a-cucumber attitude, he comes in often. It reminded me of a Ligabue lyric that mentions "l'idiota del paese" -- the village idiot, whom everyone knew and everyone said hello to, even if he puzzled them.

You may not believe me, but I am leaving out 1,000 other tiny encounters and moments! But isn't that the way with Italy? Especially when you spend the first ~two hours of your day pounding the cobblestones, head up, eyes aglow (and not from the screen of your cellphone).

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Florence journal

July 28, 2022

It's 8:40 a.m. and so far today I have:

 

*Written in my journal

*Jogged along the Arno

*Fatto la moka con biscotti (made coffee with the moka coffee pot plus breakfast cookies -- my preferred breakfast any day of the year)

*Visited una pietra d’inciampo in Piazza Santo Spirito (stones that mark the homes of Jewish Italians deported by the Nazis during WWII)

*Had a cappuccino (at Caffe Ricchi on the piazza – old haunts)

*Watched rowers along the Arno

*Found a new place for ciambelline (Pasticceria Balletti on Borgo Ognissanti)

*Took inventory of what’s new in my old old neighborhood (=Oltrarno/Santo Spirito section. The restaurant Borgo Antico still there, also Trattoria Casalinga still there, Residenza Sorelle Bandini where Daddy stayed in 1996 when he came to visit me, gone – or in any event existing under a new name; morning market on, Caffe Cabiria still there, I Raddi at the corner now has picnic tables outside; opposite my old apartment on Via dei Serragli, the fiaschetteria is still there but now I see they have a warehouse across the street where they store all the wine).

I see Ballerini, the tiny bakery on the street of our rental apartment, also has homemade cantuccini for dunking in vin santo – duly noted for later.

In other news: Half of Spain is visiting Italy!

From yesterday’s journal: I can now say I have seen Galileo’s finger! (at the Museo del Galileo in Florence, which is a science museum). Jealous yet?

This morning’s marathon walk took me from Borgo Ognissanti to:

Via del Melagrano – Lungarno Vespucci – Piazza Goldoni (at foot of my old bridge, Ponte alla Carraia; I used to pass the statue of Goldoni every morning as I hurried to get the bus just beyond Piazza Santa Maria Novella) – via della Vigna Nuova – via del Purgatorio – back to Via della Vigna Nuova – then via degli Strozzi – Piazza della Repubblica (where I visit the newsstand) – Via Orsanmichele -- Via Calzaiuoli – all culminating in Piazza della Signoria (Florence’s living room) where I swoon, turning the corner into the square and seeing the tower of Palazzo Vecchio (largely mine for the ogling at this hour).

From there, I make a stop on Via Georgofili, behind the Uffizi, for my ritual visit to the monuments marking where the Mafia detonated bombs in 1993 in an effort to deter criminal investigations and reassert its iron hand (oddly, I was in Sicily at the time it happened – and yes I am that old, but don’t tell Leo).

This morning, I see paddleboarders in addition to rowers on the Arno. I would say rowing on the Arno would be perfection. 

(Writing in your journal while gazing across the Arno to Chiesa di San Frediano in Cestello? Also perfection).

I stop in to pray at Chiesa Ognissanti on my way back and ethereal choral music fills the sanctuary, a perfect accompaniment to prayer & contemplation. 

Later, when we all go back, Mike gives money to Leo to light a candle and I tell him to say a prayer for Grandma. At this rate, Pat has been prayed for in half the churches in Italy. I am mindful of their trips to Italy both to visit me and on their own, including the trip to Milan where Mommy left a message that began, "Buongiorno Jeanne!" 

I have mentioned it before on this blog but I am not sure you -- I! -- could ever sufficiently savor my mother's heavy Brooklyn accent wrapping itself around 'good morning' in Italian. The intertwining, as it were, of my two lives, as if there weren't already overwhelming evidence of how very lucky I am.

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What passes for art in my head (I 💓 la moka!)

In Italy, the streets are my lab

OK let's back up a moment. I've told you that I want to buy everything in Italy -- even maybe the air. I've tempted you with some of the dishes I've been scarfing up. Now I want to return to the first sensations of my trip, once the long flight was over and I was reunited with Italy.

The first morning in Milan (which is to say the first morning of the trip), I wake at 6:50a and head out subito (immediately) on foot while Leo and Mike sleep. 

Left out of the hotel, left onto Via Turati (where Mike is delighted to discover the San Carlo potato chip HQ is) to find the perfect caffe/coffee bar for a cappuccino & una ciambellina. I did OK – a small corner job, workman-like but some of the paste (pastries) I bought were still hot! And fancy isn't always the ticket.

I begin collecting information immediately because in Italy, the street is part of my lab -- language lab, culture lab, architecture lab. The coffee bars, too, and any surface that contains Italian writing. They are my beat.

So I notice the massive macchinetta for the coffee is giving the barista trouble and the building that houses the American embassy is also home to Radio Monte Carlo (the station name, when I read or say it quietly to myself, is broadcast in my head in the original Italian that you would hear on the radio).

I also notice, much to my chagrin, that English is everywhere – everywhere. But for different audiences. In some cases, it's there to communicate to people born speaking English. In other cases, it's an absurd flourish (or whatever the opposite of flourish is) to an otherwise Italian-only public service message or advertisement (Trenitalia, I am looking at you!).

Morning #2, I go to Il Chiosco Manin, an outdoor coffee counter in Milan, just to the left of an entrance to the public gardens. A customer beside me ordered, “Un caffe per cortesia.” (‘A coffee, please,’ except that he used the form of please that includes the word ‘courtesy’ – and the order feels extra courtly. Also, for those of you playing along at home, un caffe = an espresso. If you want a cappuccino -- and I do -- you have to say cappuccino).

Another man bikes up to get his coffee. “Ciao Salvatore,” he says to the barman.

While I have my cappuccino at the tiny bancone that sits on the street, the radio is on, and it’s perfection.

Another woman arrives at Il Chiosco and the barista says, “Ciao Lorena.” It's like I'm gatecrashing a party where everyone else knows each other, but no one minds I am there.

I eye the oranges that are used for smoothies – tempting. Meanwhile someone calls out, “Buon di!” And then the garbage truck arrives – and the sanitation workers get out of the truck to have their coffees, too.

I am observing. And when I am done observing while standing still, I say my goodbyes to the barista and begin walking again to observe some more. I feel like I could walk all day and only then would I be sated, happy, fully on vacation. 

Vacation for Jeanne = walking in Italy (while someone speaks behind me, next to me, near me in Italian).

Now I am walking through a stone gate that’s part of the old walls of the city – next to the fancy shopping street Via della Spiga – and the sidewalk ducks under a portico (do we have porticos in America? We should). 

Courtyards abound in Milan and the portoni (front doors/main entrances of buildings) to them reveal oases of greenery and sometimes sculpture.

I’ve struggled to find an open giornalaio in Milan – even the concierge at our hotel shrugged his shoulders. Victims of the pandemic, which is heartbreaking because newsstands are Italian mom-and-pop stores that double as mini-piazzas. A place for an exchange. (They also sell Pokemon cards! Ask me how I know!)

But Mike manages to buy for me at Milano Centrale:

-La Settimana Enigmistica (weekly puzzle magazine)

-Bell’Italia (most beautiful travel magazine you've ever seen)

-La Cucina Italiana (food mag)

Doing the frontpage crossword in the puzzle mag ('Settimana Enigmistica' -- you can see the word 'enigma' in there), I learn, or re-learn, that 'musicare' is a verb (clue: “Musicò Tosca.”)

I am collecting information about 1,000 tiny moments, 1,000 tiny encounters between myself and Italy. Later in Rome, I trip over myself to snap a photo of the perfect graffiti spotted as we entered the Villa Borghese from Piazza del Popolo: ‘Sei bella come Roma’ = You're as beautiful as Rome. Not sure there is a way to top that, other than -- maybe -- you're as beautiful as the Taj Mahal or a hologram of your face should be beamed permanently from the sky.

Everything that has words draws my attention (as I may have, ahem, mentioned). I walk the streets each morning silently repeating phrases from ads, billboards, shop windows (Idraulico, giorno e notte = Plumber available all hours; Traslochi/sgomberi = relocations, junk removal; Saldi = sales).  I am shopping a lot but mainly my kind of acquisti, like anything sold at the giornalaio (newsstand). Yesterday I bought La Gazzetta dello Sport just so Leo could see Italy’s pink sports newspaper (he marveled that there seemed to be 35 pages about soccer and 1 page about car racing and maybe 1 page about volleyball and that’s it). I told him that anywhere in Italy, when you see someone across the bar or piazza holding a pink newspaper, you know at a glance he or she (OR HE!) is reading the national sports newspaper.

What I bought so far:

Il Corriere della Sera (2X)

L’Espresso (magazine)

Panorama (magazine)

A new red Moka coffee pot from Bialetti (yes I now have probably 10 Mokas of various sizes)

La Gazzetta dello Sport (see above)

A lightweight plastic basketball for Leo (dal giornalaio!)

A kitchen towel

A place mat with the “definition” of Spaghetti

A bare midriff shirt (ma sei matta? Am shopping around now for a new lifestyle so I can actually wear it)

A green wool sweater from Benetton like the brown one I've had for more years than I care to admit

10 or so books (including two by Edith Bruck; when Leo saw another copy of Andremo in Città, he said, ‘Mommy you have that one already!’ I suppose seeing it around the house for a few years will do that.)

*

I am no different than all the other tourists snapping photos. Except I snap photos of the 'Missing dog' flyers on utility poles and the tree stumps some cracker jack street artist has transformed into sculpture, not to mention compelling graffiti and street signs of particular relevance (I will always take photo of  the sign for Via della Vigna Vecchia anytime I visit Florence -- it was once my home).

We are taking trams in Milan and some of them are “antiques.” The #1 tram line that we took to Castello Sforzesco is just such a model. Wooden bench seats line the walls of the tram. There’s a shimmy and shake to its accelerations. Like a museum that allows a step back in time in addition to a method of transportation.

One of the major streets in Milan is Via Alessandro Manzoni and that tickles me for some reason. Like, where in New York is the F. Scott Fitzgerald Boulevard?!

Italy is basically just one big Tickle-me Elmo doll. Every damn thing -- good or bad -- intrigues me.

That's all for now from Il Belpaese!

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I sing of ciambelline, tagliatelle & vino

Arma virumque cano ... the three words that launch Virgil's Aeneid (and also indirectly my study of Italian since studying the modern Romans means studying Italian) and which I memorized long ago in my high school Latin class translate as: "I sing of arms and the man..."

Nothing quite so lofty for me; rather, it is of ciambelline, tagliatelle, cappuccino (made right), biscotti, focaccia, polenta, prosciutto, cioccolato and vino that I sing.

I wouldn't even say I have eaten particularly good on this trip, compared to other visits or to the period when I spent months and years here. But still, let's be serious: I have eaten things fit for a president. Or maybe even the Pope. Because in Italy, non si scherza. No joking around (when it comes to food -- lots of joking around when it comes to everything else).

At night when I am drifting off to sleep or on a long car ride, I often think about what makes Italy different from America, and when it comes to food, I always think their penchant, their insistence, their belief in moderation is the key. As I walk the streets of Italy surrounded by the artful display windows of coffee bars and osterie and gelaterie, it can be hard to believe that Italians subscribe to moderation but oh, they do. I often tell people about the scenes I've witnessed at dinner parties where Italians fight over who will be FORCED to eat what's left of the pasta dish or the second course. Because if they believe they've had enough, they are loathe to have more than enough.

I don't know if I've really embraced moderation this trip -- my trips to Italy in the past decade have often consisted of double breakfasts (two ciambelline -- yes due!!! -- or a ciambellina followed by a yoghurt), something I would never have done when I lived here. But I know that anytime I've overdone it, I've felt ill at ease. And I think that's how Italians feel. They don't want to be "stuffed," as we would say in America. They want to satisfy their hunger and then move on.

OK, without further ado, here's a sampling of what I've eaten during this visit to Italy:

*Ciambelline: these are the donut-shaped pastries that are my favorite and which inspire a hunt each trip (each morning of each trip) to find the best. The hunt is especially keen since this is the second holiday in Florence where my old pasticceria/bar is closed for vacation. Also see name of blog.

*Bomboloni: Same basic stuff as a ciambellina (singular) but without the hole and typically filled with custard. If donuts came without the hole and were light and airy and fresh from the oven: they would be bomboloni.

*Focaccia: Salty, oily bread. So good it's made its way -- in bastardized form, typically -- to America.

*Polenta con i funghi: I don't eat polenta much outside of Italy but I do like it. And also good with mushrooms.

*Prosciutto crudo: the only kind of prosciutto I eat. I love its salty, silky texture. I had it in sandwiches and plain, as part of antipasti.

*Crostini: (as you probably know) little toast appetizers that in Tuscany frequently feature pate. Delicious! Especially in Italy. Not especially outside of Italy.

*Fiori di zucca (fritti): fried zucchini flowers. Had them in Florence at Antico Ristori dei Cambi near Borgo San Frediano. Squisiti (literally: exquisite).

*Panzanella (con pane croccante): Prepared by my friend Veronica, this "wet" salad features bread prominently, in addition to tomatoes and cucumbers.

*Polpo (had it twice, in fact): Octopus. I could be an Octopusarian.

*Pecorino con miele: Florentines (dare I say Italians?) like combining salty pecorino cheese & honey. Had it at Osteria Centopoveri.

*Cioccolato alle nocciole: Like a bacio candy, but a whole chocolate bar with WHOLE hazelnuts. Yes it exists, yes it rocks and in Italy the supermarket stocks plenty.

*Gelato, gusto: nocciola (and only nocciola): I don't always eat a lot of gelato but this trip I haven't resisted all that well. And why should I? Last I checked even Ben & Jerry's doesn't make hazelnut ice cream (plain -- it's already perfect, no need to add any zany ingredients).

Plus: a dozen cappuccini, and gallons of fizzy water.

And I still don't think it's enough. 

Buon appetito, y'all!

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Postcard from Torino

Torino was a city that appeared at the margins of my Italian brain. I knew it as the city that had birthed some of my favorite writers (Primo Levi, etc) and I knew it as a city that hosted the Olympics. Me? I was fiorentina all the way. Except for the Eternal City, because it's, ahem, Eternal. (All roads really DO lead to Rome.)

But then I arrived in Torino and the rest of what I will say is just pure cliche, except that really and truly you must visit Torino. Really and truly you need to experience the grand piazzas and the porticos and the coffee culture and the pastries.

Turin, as I wrote in an essay for CNN Travel, is surrounded by mountains and criss-crossed by trams and cyclists. Being outdoors is what people do there, instinctively. Oh and the city is covered with porticos, or covered walkways, so strolling is a year-round hobby (not every city in Italy has these porticos; Florence, for example, has very few.)

The city also has the distinction of having been right in the middle of the Risorgimento, when Italy became an independent country.

One of the things the visit telegraphed to me was how little I've really traveled in Italy.

Sure, I've lived in Siena, Florence, Pisa and Rome. I've vacationed in Bologna, Milan, the Italian Riviera, Venice, the Benevento area in Campania and Puglia. Been to Rome countless times. I've even visited Sicily, which required a hectic overnight ferry.

But it's a big country, Italy. Torino has a different history -- and a different vibe (one laser-focused on coffee culture and public conviviality) -- from all these other places I've mentioned.

(As problems go, it is most certainly a FIRSTWORLDPROBLEM. But as an Italianist, I aim to know everything I can about my adopted culture).

For more about Torino, you can read an article I wrote for CNN Travel:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/return-trip-italy/index.html

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Italian diary, May 2017 (re-post)

I’m back in the “in-between” world, the space where sentences begin in one language and end in another. 

It’s a world that I inhabited for many years and then withdrew from (in Allentown, when I resigned myself to being stateside).

The in-between world is one I love and I loathe – loving it because Italian quickens my pulse! I become Italian Jeanne -- who has the luxury of walking everywhere, yes everywhere, every day, which only serves to ratchet up my already overflowing reserves of enthusiasm and energy. I might just walk someone to death in Italy, purely out of the joy of movement in my adopted country!

I also loathe the in-between world because it plunges me into saudade. What was, what could have been, what wasn't. America is the land of opportunity -- but it is not, for the most part, a land with an excess of perfectly-planned, grand public spaces linked by achingly beautiful cobblestone streets to other perfectly-planned, grand public spaces, where you can be both with and without people. Where you can see something heart-stoppingly beautiful outside of yourself and something deep inside of you, too.

I walk through the streets of Torino (or insert here whatever Italian city that I happen to be visiting) and I want to consume everything. Not merely a panino or a gelato, the things one normally consumes, but buildings, nooks, mossy courtyards, caffes, signs – especially signs, any vehicle for the Italian language that falls under my sight. Also: cobblestone streets and the tight juxtaposition of shops and restaurants, piazzine, too, which are tiny, often hidden lands frequented only locals. Yes, I want to consumer those piazzine, those cortili (which especially in Torino seem to give access to worlds unseen), I want to mainline the way bikes cross piazzas and how content and confident the riders appear. I want to inhale how toddlers bound across the grand squares of Torino without a car in sight -- how Italian cities are made for children to be children.

I want to gobble up how homey some of the cafés appear – their singular arrangement of product and signage and sumptuously-arranged display window and ancient door, making me want to eat and drink items I don’t even like or simply don’t care for at the moment (no I don't need another caffe or brioche, and yet, well, while I am here...).

Seeing these homespun creations, I want to order 3 cappuccini, 4 ciambelline (like donuts but not), and also some other pastry that looks yummy and appena sfornata, a glass of acqua gassata, un bicchiere di vino rosso and maybe something else (I actually had breakfast twice every day I was in Italy this trip -- che golosa!).

It’s almost tender, how beautiful Italian cities are (and how welcoming their public and consumer spaces are). Made to be lived in, made for life outdoors, in the streets, in public. As if the Italians’ need for picturesque boulevards and quaint eateries is something they can’t help wear on their sleeves, as if it’s a remnant of the warm, coddled world of their childhood. That need to be welcomed and wanted by the world around us, by the barista, the giornalaio. That need for human contact.

At the risk of repeating myself, it will never be anything else but thrilling that Italy is a place I’ve called home, a place that’s still home to a very significant part of my mind. Somehow I am lucky enough to know this foreign country in the most intimate way. I didn’t simply live in Italy – it lives in me. Every time I’m here, I’m thoroughly inhabited by this bewildering, beloved, bedazzling country. 

Inhabited in a way that makes me spring to life, as if in Atlanta or America in general, I’m merely treading water, moving ahead instead of bursting onto the street and through piazzas as I do in Italy.

You may grow tired of reading this, and other posts that are similar, but I, at least, never seem to lose that thrill of contact with the culture. Even in moments of difficulty – where Italians insist on something absurd – this is still my Italy.

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