Top photos from 20 years of blogging

Leo in Rome, 2018 (Piazza Bucarest)

I love this photo so much because it's the honest result of introducing a curious boy to the Eternal City. 

Leo was 5 years old when we snapped this photo, and excited to visit Italy (actually, really just excited to do anything except go to bed).

It's one of many photos taken in Italy that make me swoon. 

Here's a selection of photos posted previously on the blog that I love, and which best express the joy Italy has injected into my life -- which I guess, come to think of it, is the theme of this blog. The pure beauty of this country I happened upon during a study abroad program, chosen all because a week before I began college, I saw a movie that convinced me to study Italian or bust.

I'm reposting these photos to celebrate 20 years of writing this blog. Note, some were taken in Italy, some just reflect the life of Ciambellina, the person. Might need another post just for photos of actual ciambelle/ciambelline (hold that thought).

In the past two decades, I've had the thrill of visiting Torino (under the radar for many American travelers even though it's a fantastic city with a coffee culture all its own and a mountainous locale that's just stunning), various places in Puglia (including Trani), and of course Rome, Milan and Florence (and Siena and Pistoia and Pisa and Le Cinque Terre and San Marco dei Cavoti and Lucca and Bologna and and Focene and Matera and Venice and ... ). 

Torino, a city of grand piazzas

I've also chronicled Ciambellina's transition from aimless, vagabond journalist to besotted mother whose favorite subject (via photos or writing) is Leonardo.

He was an adorable little boy -- no thanks to me since I wasn't this cute as a child -- and now he's a teen with a gorgeous smile and rather strong opinions (Milan is the best city in Italy, don't challenge him!).

The most adorable Leonardo ever (Atlanta)

When you eat calamari fritti for the first time

My favorite place in Milan

The photo I always take when visiting Florence

To be sure, this is a make-shift photo gallery that includes my favorite moments during my travels to Italy and also my favorite moments from this lifelong project of remaining fluent in Italian and immersed in everything that Italy's one-of-a-kind culture has to offer. Buona lettura!

Monte Sant'Angelo, Puglia -- road-side pranzo!

 a

A gem of an appetizer in Puglia

Weekly flower market, Piazza della Repubblica, Firenze

The photos of Italy are more enchanting but of course the little Italian touches we've brought stateside feel pretty cozy. Our not-so-little shrine to the place we met.

Buon Natale Christmas decoration (in Atlanta)

Buon Natale sign with my little tesoro! (Leo's 1st Christmas)

Little souvenirs for little Italophiles

What I saw during those 24 hours in Rome

At Bennington, thinking of Leo

Priests crossing a piazza in Trani (2006)

Thank you for reading my blog. Thank you for caring about the ways I've incorporated Italy into my life. And if I know you in person, thank you for caring about Leo. That's the most important thing you could for for me. I love Italy, no question, but nothing is bigger than my love for Leonardo.

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The 20th anniversary of my blog!

Two decades ago, I sought a method to log the ways Italy had seduced me, and the activities I pursued so that the language of Dante would remain impressed in my mind. And that's how this blog was born. Early posts were about Italian meals Mike had made, rides in the Alfa and wines we bought.

It has evolved over time to become a public diary of my thoughts, my achievements, my passions (often involving Italy or Italian, but not always) and my commitment to fluency in the form of blogposts in Italian, among other activities (movie reviews of Italian films and of course endless ruminating about books, too!). Oh and a few mentions of the book-length translation I finally managed to publish (Did I mention it's called This Darkness Will Never End?!).

I'm going to commemorate the 20th anniversary with a series of posts. This is the first. And here I'm going to very simply revisit a few of the posts that have resonated the most with readers. I'd be thrilled if you read some of the posts, and I hope perhaps the blog inspires you to return to your own passions and hobbies with renewed vigor.

Posts I liked:

"Tiny Moments of Exquisite Beauty," or the travelogue from my 2025 visit to Italy: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2025/08/tiny-moments-of-exquisite-beauty-in.html

*Praise for the film that convinced me to study Italian and changed my life: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2024/03/an-oscar-winning-film-seen-on-whim.html

Posts readers liked:

*About my fears of how the pandemic could permanently re-shape my life: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2021/05/what-ive-feared-about-post-pandemic-life.html

*On the reasons I need to hoard (or, my letter to Marie Kondo): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2017/12/dear-marie-kondo.html

*On the reference to Angelina Jolie in Roberto Saviano's book, Gomorra (note, it's in ITALIAN): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2008/06/gomorra-angelina-jolie.html

Posts about travel and the glorious Italian language:

*The time Leo learned how to curse in Italian: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2022/08/italian-lessons.html

*What can you do with a mere 24 hours in Rome? Oh quite a bit

*When I want what I should not want (in Italy): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-boarding-doors-are-closing-jeanne.html

*How can Milan be this beautiful? https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2020/07/from-archive-italian-diary-may-2017.html

Posts about Leo:

The joys of running -- even just short distances -- with Leo: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2023/03/running-very-little-very-often.html

Leonardo from Atlanta (not Vinci): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-little-artist-whose-mother-is.html

A Day in the Life of this American Man at Age 10 (Esquire article re-enactment): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2023/07/a-day-in-life-of-this-american-man-at.html

Posts about books:

My all-time favorite books, essays and short stories: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2024/07/literature-ive-loved-after-nyt-list.html

A book list for those looking to read the work of women Holocaust survivors: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2024/01/women-holocaust-survivors-reading-list.html

My book log for the year I read Le otto montagne by Paolo Cognetti and many other outstanding works: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2022/12/what-i-read-in-2022-what-i-plan-to-read.html

Women authors have often been overlooked in Italy (in ITALIAN): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2017/06/dove-sono-finite-le-scrittrici-italiane.html

*

Thanks as always for reading my blog. 

The best gift anyone can give me is to care about Leo in some way. 

But the second best? Read my work.

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Edith Bruck is alive and well!

During our trip to Italy, I was lucky to see many friends I'd known in Florence, but perhaps the most important meeting took place near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

It's the area where Edith Bruck lives -- "my author."

Indeed, Mike even arranged for us to stay near Piazza del Popolo during our visit to Rome so I would be able to to walk to Edith's apartment.

It was our third meeting; the first took place in 2018, shortly after I began translating, "Silvia," one of the signature stories in This Darkness Will Never End.

I spent three glorious hours with Edith this trip. Imagine if your 94-year-old grandmother was a famous writer. Over lunch, she reminisced, she complained, she repeated herself, she smoked! (those thin cigarettes -- the whole time). But she also told me about a story (novel?) she wants to write – but can’t because she’s lost most of her eyesight – and I wish she could write it. It’s called “La Caccia,” and it’s about two journalists who go looking for the last sopravvissuta.

Is that how she feels – like l’ultima sopravvissuta? The last survivor of the Holocaust?

(With only 220,000 survivors left worldwide, according to the Claims Conference, she may well feel that way).

She proudly told me she has a new book coming out this Fall! "L'Amica Tedesca."

She made some very interesting comments, including, “Quando scrivo in Italiano, una parola partorisce un’altra.”  That means: When I write in Italian, one word gives birth to another. She said it to explain that she can’t write now because she can’t see. And since she can’t see, she can’t put down one word and then see where it leads. She said she’s always done her writing by using yellow legal pads propped up on her tummy.

She and Olga (longtime assistant) were very kind and they both told stories about Papa Francesco in great detail. Truly one-of-a-kind to have a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust with such close knowledge of a Catholic Pope! Beautiful friendship. They showed me a special photo book from their visit to Casa Marta, where Pope Francis had lived, that the Vatican created for her (Editor's note: Pope Francis asked to meet Edith Bruck in 2021 to thank her for bearing witness to the Holocaust and to apologize for all the pain she'd suffered).

She told me she thinks about her parents every day -- 80 years after their brutal deaths in Auschwitz (mother) and Dachau (father). She even sang a lullaby in Hungarian that her father used to sing to her!

"Finché vivo, vivono loro ... nei miei libri, nel mio cuore."

As long as I'm alive, she told me, so are they -- in my books, in my heart.

And we spoke of the survivors who rarely if ever break their silence -- like her brother, who witnessed her father's death while they were in the concentration camp and told her what happened but tearfully begged her never to ask again. So she didn't. And she wonders, she told me, what were her father's last words? Was he asking about her? She'll never know.

If your grandmother was a famous writer ... I was spellbound! What a privilege it is to translate another person's words. I sat there combining all of my own identities -- journalist, translator, writer -- and grateful to have entered into a one-of-a-kind relationship with a writer like Edith.

Some of what I blogged about is so frivolous. My memento shrines! Whether the Crazy Drycleaner is still in business (in my old Florentine neighborhood). The barista who said 'Ri-buongiorno.' But this feels momentous.

Yes, there were happy moments, and sad moments during our visit. But mainly proud moments because we were celebrating the publication of "our" new book -- the translation of her first short story collection, This Darkness Will Never End, which has been a milestone for me, and a continuation of the flow of her works into English (three of which have now been published by Paul Dry Books in Philadelphia).

May it continue! I have translated most of her second short story collection, Two Empty Rooms, and even managed to publish an excerpt with Jewish Currents magazine.

My thanks to everyone who has supported this translation! (Including the National Endowment for the Arts). I've been touched by your gestures and interest -- a British colleague of mine at CNN Travel learned about the translation while we were chatting one day over Slack and ordered it from Amazon that day!

I'll continue to talk about the book in the Fall, including a visit to Otterbein College in Ohio where I'll be the guest speaker at a class on Holocaust literature. There will be some other stops, too, which I will detail on the blog and via social media.

The written word, the spoken word, the translated word -- a passport to a world of discovery, understanding and friendship.

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Italy? Still stunning

Of all the ways I've aged, perhaps the one I like best is how easily I am satisfied at times. 

I've written before in this space about the 24 hours I spent in Rome a few years back, and how utterly wonderful they were, no matter the scant time I had to enjoy the Eternal City. Now I come again to say almost any amount of time I spend in Italy is a cure for a life-threatening disease I didn't know I had.

If you read nothing else, let me also say this: We arrived in Italy a week ago and as usual it is both breathtaking and familiar! How lucky can I be that Italy feels familiar? So very lucky indeed. Also: I don't consider myself one to have a bucket list but something that could top it for me? Biking on the ancient Appian Way in Rome.

Pinch me -- maybe my bike tire rolled over a cobblestone once tread on by Julius Caesar's chariot! (Because yes, there are sections of the road with the original cobblestones). You can visit some interesting ruins and of course the catacombs.

That's one of the special things we did in Rome. We also visited (again) the Borghese Gardens and saw the Ara Pacis for the first time. Perhaps most importantly, for me, I visited with "my author" Edith Bruck and she is well (for a 94-year-old woman). I spent three glorious hours with her! She has a new book coming out in the Fall, I am pleased to say. She is not very mobile but as long as she is near a pack of cigarettes, she's OK! (She smoked those tiny thin cigarettes my entire visit).

Also, for the record: Seeing SPQR on every manhole cover in Rome is still cool! (Also cool: knowing it means senatus populusque romanus; the Roman Senate and people)

Oh and you can buy a calendar that features the faces of fresh, young priests every month of the year!

We explored Piazza del Popolo and the area around it (including Via del Corso, site of the nightly passaggiata) quite a bit since we stayed on Via Flaminia, one block outside of the piazza (thus we had to pass through a gorgeous monumental gate each day to enter Piazza del Popolo). It was ground zero for all of the young people visiting Rome last week for the Jubilee youth summit, owing to the fact that one of the churches on the piazza is a pre-requisite for all pilgrims before heading to the Vatican.

Rome was hot, somewhat crowded and still the Eternal City.

Best food so far:

Extra large, extra doughy ciambella (Rome)

Crostini with rabbit ragu

Pinsa with mozzarella di bufala and pomodorini

Fiori di zucca fritti

Verdure fritte miste

My favorite chocolate bar: dark chocolate ('fondente') with whole hazelnuts

Best walks so far

-- Cross the bridge closest to Piazza del Popolo, walk along Tevere to the bridge by Piazza Navona, stumble into the piazza where the Pantheon is located, then Via della Scrofa, which becomes Via di Ripetta until you reach Piazza del Popolo (Rome)

-- Walk along Arno in the town of Onda (mountain town outside of Florence)

I’m in the mountains now – the mountains of Italy – and need I say, it is absolutely beautiful? We visited small, run-of-the-mill towns yesterday and my heart broke from the beauty. It was the Jeanne-small-town variety of beautiful: a rocky stream with multiple small waterfalls ran through the center of town and you could walk along the stream (the towns of Londa and Stia). You could stand on a bridge and look over at the stream, and ogle the buildings that line the stream (including, in Stia, a restaurant where we ate).

At one point, we walked through the town of Stia during lunch hour, and the sound of Italian radio filtered out of a door or a window, much to my delight!

We try to do something different each trip, and this trip we have chosen to stay a few nights at an agriturismo in the mountains east of Florence. Good decision! We have visited mountain towns before but I don’t recall our ever staying overnight at a farmhouse as we are now. So imagine you’re visiting Vermont but all the signage is in Italian, the quirky tavern keeper speaks Italian, the tourists you find at the secret swimming hole are Italian (or German – but of course). Oh and it's somewhat hot.

And then there’s a certain extremity to the matter – the roads we travel to reach this farmhouse are so narrow, no American could possibly consider them fit for two-way traffic. I have visited Vermont many times and probably there are a few roads like this but are the locals going 90 mph around each turn?

While right now I am using my laptop and I have been texting with Italian friends, I am largely offline, content to read my Natalia Ginzburg book (Tutti i nostri ieri) (I've tried to read this novel before but it never appealed to me as much as her other books) and articles in the copy of L’Espresso I bought in Rome.

Right now, as I write: One of the barnyard cats is meowing outside our kitchen window. The silence is so complete, it is loud!

So far in Italy: I have walked – run – swum – biked.

What else? Leo (known as "Leonardo" here) has begun to tease me while I’m talking on the phone here to Italian friends:

I say: “Si,si.” And then he says, “Si,si.”

I say: “Certo.” And then he says, “Certo.”

My mind is not totally 'bifurcated' yet between English and Italian but getting there. 

So to sum up: Italy is still marvelous! And hearing Italian is still marvelous. Wish you were here! Especially some of you -- and you know who you are.

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Stepping Stones Reveal a Path into Italy's Dark History -- for PBS site

Writing stories culled from your travels is a dream assignment. I rarely get paid to do it! But in this case I did, and what's more, the topic is tied to the work I do as a literary translator.

For the PBS website, Next Avenue, I wrote about tiny public memorials to victims of the Holocaust and other targets of the Nazi-Fascist forces. These memorials are copper-plated cobblestones embedded in the streets of Italy, Germany and other countries. I learned about the stepping stones while researching Italian women writers -- and others -- who have borne witness to the Holocaust.

And last summer while I was in Italy, I was able to visit some of these stones in Rome, Milan and Florence. 

The stones in some ways are a paradox: tiny but powerful, open to the public at all hours for free but especially poignant when you're able to do some additional research. Under foot -- which some people object to -- but also in the way, in your face, in a way that supporters like. You can't avoid this historical moment -- it's right under your foot.

(Editor's note: the Next Avenue site has been pared down because of budget shortfalls and many of the stories it once published are no longer hosted on the site. Click on 'Next Avenue' at the top of this post for a PDF of my story).

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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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Ritual ciambellina photo (so fresh!)

We did go to the Coliseum while we were in Italy, I will have you know, since the boy wanted to go there, and we also showed him St. Peter's; while in Milan, we visited the Castello Sforzesco, which I had somehow missed multiple times on previous visits to the city.

But I was in Italy for the ciambelline.

You know that!

(Also there for the overheard chatter at caffe counters and in the street, as you also know).

And wow they were good.

OK, no I wasn't able to share with Leo a massive ciambellina fresh out of the oven as I did last visit to Italy on the final morning of the trip when we stumbled out of the hotel and across the street of tiny Focene into a nondescript coffee bar shortly before our flight home. But that's possibly a once-in-a-life-time ciambellina event, as ciambelline aficionados know (ahem!). (It was nearly the size of a dinner plate and did you hear me? Fresh out of the oven!)

So yes, I had lots of good ciambelline during our trip this summer to Italy, including the one above in Rome. Actually, this time around I had some ciambelle (what I would call ciambelline) and some ciambelline (li'l baby-sized numbers), if I follow the nomenclature of the bariste. 

I also had some cornetti, including some fresh out of the oven (thanks to Caffe Portofino on Via Cola di Rienzo in Rome). (Cornetti caldi makes me think of the Jovanotti song "Gente della Notte," in which he sings about staying out all night and having breakfast at the crack of dawn feasting on cornetti caldi, hot croissant-like pastries).

Sometimes I bought them "da portare via" and we would eat them back at the apartment we were renting, or the hotel in Milan. But when I could, I lingered at the bar to watch the busy bariste at their craft. Or I saved mine for a scenic spot.

I often had to hunt around for ciambelline, going street to street and bar to bar, since the pastry cases aren't packed with them -- which is odd, because I believe they are gobbled up first since if I arrived too late there were sometimes none or only a few left (not a scientific claim, however, since I have never witnessed an Italian ordering a ciambellina but I have seen them order cornetti and other pastries like bomboloni in droves).

Anyhoo ritual ciambellina photo & ritual ciambellina blog post now in the books!

Oh before I go, any favorite Italian pastries/favorite Italian pasticcerie anyone wants to mention? (Or other favorite dishes?) I tried to branch out a bit this trip -- though I will always be a ciambellina-lover.

Yours truly,

Miss Ciambellina

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Best photos/Italy: Has anyone seen this dog?

Tea Vela, an English setter, is missing! And some tricky commenters have weighed in on whether Tea Vela is alive (I cut out of the frame the rather pessimistic guy who doesn't think the dog is alive).

Spotted in Rome, in the Prati neighborhood. Reward? A whopping 1,500 euros! That's some kind of reward. Must be some very sad, worried pet owners behind this flyer.

Also missing: Turbo the Cat.

Couldn't resist snapping a photo!

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In Italy for the banner hed: "Addio al governo Draghi"

I go to Italy to reconnect with the old Jeanne, the one who wasn't able to resist the siren call of il Bel Paese after her college graduation. The Jeanne who hadn't yet become a newspaper reporter or an NPR station producer or a contract editor for CNN.

But as much as I am retracing my ex-pat steps, during this most recent trip I was still the journalist I had become post-Italy. And I swooned when I saw this headline: "Addio al governo Draghi."

While I slept, the Italian government had fallen (the headline can be translated as: Goodbye to the Draghi administration). As often happens, the coalition of political parties that make up the administration could not hold.

It wasn't totally unexpected, except that when I went to bed the night before, it appeared a deal had been reached to keep the current administration/coalition in power. (Plus, the prime minister in question is a serious economist named Mario Draghi who's the country's only hope at navigating the post-pandemic financial woes.)

When I went to the newsstand the next morning, I immediately realized that deal had failed.

It's not like the time that Mike went to Italy and the Pope died (!) but still, a government collapse is pretty darn big news, and for a journo like me, it quickens the pulse.

I also love this photo:

Not all that often is an American president shown (i.e. photographed) downing a quickie coffee as the world unravels around him.

There are headlines that you will never forget. I happen to have another Italian headline that I will always recall -- tied to my semester abroad in Siena: 'L'Italia è desta.' Show of hands who remembers that one! But it's a story for another day. For now, I am merely mulling over the political fortunes of my adopted country.

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Best photos/Italy trip: Our little Roman gladiator!

At the approach from Piazza del Popolo to the Villa Borghese park, these two jump out, offering to confer official status on Leo. 

If my name isn't gullible -- I actually thought they worked for the park! Yep, until part of their schtick involved some weird move by which they passed the (fake) swords near Leo's privates -- I began to suspect then. And of course when it was over, they begged (rather aggressively!) for a king's ransom. But what a photo!

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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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