Mamma-Mia, Bellissimo!

We had a rich and colourful month in Italy in June-July, driving through six very different regions from Milano down to Rapallo on the Ligurian sea, across to Florence in Tuscany, around Bologna and Cesena in Emilio-Romagna down the Adriatic coast to Sirolo in the Marche region and Trani, Monopoli, Ostruni and Alborabella in the Apulia, then back up to Baveno on Lake Maggiore and Lake Garda and Milano in the northwestern Piedmonte, then due east to Sacile and Trieste in Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. It was hot, hectic and often hilarious – here’s a summary of our observations on Italy followed by highlights from each region and links to an itinerary for each area we stayed in.

La Dolce Vita

We discovered Fellini was right about the Italians living La Dolce Vite as on every corner of every town there is a gelateria, every brioche is filled with custard and every coffee (especially from a machine) comes with a shot of sugar. The sweet life extends to the wine where we were surprised to hear a fizz when we opened many bottle of wine and realised that the Italians love their frizzante wine – also with a dash of sugar.

The other ‘sweet life” – the ‘sweet spot of life” for us in Italy was the evening time- once the scorching sun went down (8.30-9.30pm) and the towns came alive with immaculately dressed and coiffed people of all ages streaming into the piazzas to sip Spritz, Bierra Moretti and granitas, to promenade with panting dogs, dine on crunchy pizzas and listen to buskers, browse market stalls or dance in the park well into the early hours. The lingering twilight of summer set sandstone buildings aglow and many monuments were uplit to appear even more magnificent.

The Italian delicatessen towns

We felt like we were driving through a gourmet menu in Italy passing through Parma, Reggiano, Modena, Gorgonzola, Carbonara, Cassata, Bologna, to mention a few, and we enjoyed the regional specialties each area offered. The Burratta in Puglia, the Prosecco in Trieste, the Risotto in Milan the Ragu Bolognese in Bologna, the Pecorino in Florence, the Balsamic vinegar in Modena, the pesto Genovese in Liguria, the focaccia – everywhere! We of course, loved the Italian pizzas although we were amused to see the Italians left the best part – the crust – and do not serve the pizza sliced, but as a whole (quite a challenge when eating a takeaway).

We wondered why they didn’t serve butter with their bread and when we asked for olive oil it didn’t come with a plate…our serviettes and fingers got quite oily trying to drip olive oil onto our bread! Our daughter is Coeliac and we loved how seriously the Italians take their gluten free food. If a restaurant did not offer GF dishes (usually most offered pasta) they would always point to a restaurant that did. Many bakeries – especially in Liguria had a GF chickpea flatbread that was delicious and made a great lunch/snack on the run. We also loved the tradition of ‘aperitivos’ which started from 7pm where you get a plate of food when you buy a cocktail- the word aperitivo originates from the Latin aperire which means “to open” and the ‘aperitivo’ is designed to open your stomach and stimulate your appetite before your main meal. We often got so much focaccia, salami, cheese and olives it was a meal itself! They even catered for our daughter’s coeliac disease and brought her a GF aperitivo plate! 

Driving racing around Italy

We spent a lot of time driving around beautiful Italian towns and regions from the northern lakes to the sea in the south and along the spine of Umbria & Puglia to the tip of the boot and east to the border of Slovenia and learnt that a 1 metre car can fit in a 90cm parking spot or gap in traffic and that when a driver indicates to change lanes it  means “here I go”, not “I want to go”, and definitely not, “I’m waiting to see if you let me go” . Also, it seems most drivers are dyslexic and read the 130km speed limit as 310km and Stop as Slip on through!

We wondered why P plates were made to take up (and block) half the rear window for new drivers and if the Italian road maintenance department had been shut down (the potholes, bridge joins and road edges were stegosaurus-like and the pullouts -particularly in Puglia were overflowing with rubbish). The exception was the toll roads which were (mostly) smooth and had super fancy restaurants and gourmet food shops (our personal favourite was Eatily) and we loved the solar panel-sun shelters for parking – very environmentally innovative! We learnt to go from 0 to 130 km in 20 metres to feed onto the autostradas and from 130 down to 40 km to negotiate the spiral exits.  We loved the teeny smart cars, 1-person 3-wheeler mini- trucks and laughed at how they parked on pedestrian crossings, on corners and front in on pavements and learnt that drivers (particularly motorcyclists) won’t stop at pedestrian crossings unless you put your hand out and commit to cross. And we never did see a wild boar on the road despite all the ‘Cinghiali’ signs (that featured a picture of a deer?).

Con Permesso…or not!

We discovered that Italians hate being told off or told what to do. They live to flout rules not obey them and will go out of their way to work the system, dodge a regulation and thwart authority. If a sign says don’t do something they just love doing exactly the thing that is banned right in front of the sign. Classic examples are where they park (covered above) and we also saw bicycles chained to fences that said No Bikes allowed and skis left piled up on the snow at the entrance to chalets where it said skis must not be left on the snow and must be stored in racks.

We saw Italians drinking in parks and places where alcohol was banned, wearing thongs or sandals on hiking trails that said open toe shoes forbidden, driving down No entry streets, going the wrong way on one way roads, swimming under No bagno signs and skateboarding down pedestrian street which forbid scooters and skaters. We had to laugh every time at the futility of the signs! We also found that the Italians are very thrifty and in the Ligurian region in particular, are reticent to pay for any repairs to the home, preferring to operate on the edge of disaster – whether from a fire from jerry-rigged wiring, blackouts from old circuitry, or floods from poor plumbing. We lost electricity at the apartment we rented in Rapallo for a week in the first hour we arrived when we turned on the shower and the fans at the same time. When we finally located the circuit board to trip the switches back on the rental company said we’d just have to use one appliance at a time to prevent it happening again saying, “what can we do? The apartment is old – it can’t be fixed…” They operate on the ‘band-aid’ theory that a quick patch up will suffice rather than a proper fix. We got a true Italian quick fix when our rear passenger electric car window broke and the window was stuck down. We went to an electrical mechanico and asked if he could fix the electric window. He shook his head then disappeared, came back with a roll of black gaffa tape, slammed the window up, whacked layers and layers of black tape around the endges, demonstrated that it would now stay up and waved us goodbye! He refused any payment and I gotta say, 3 months later and many rainstorms and his tape has held fast!

The Artisan Italian

Italian have amazing craftsmanship and style. We saw their precise stonemasons skills in ancient buildings still standing strong, on ancient cobblestone streets and the tall fortified walls still straight as a rod. In Florence in particular, we were blown away by their beautifully made shoes, leather gloves, bags and jackets and by the exquisite jewellery along Pont Vecchio.

The retail shop windows are like art displays as is how they present their food from apperitivos to gelatis – we loved the gelataria in Rapallo that sculpted a rose in every ice-cream serve!

Rocking the Italian beaches – day and night

We had never been to Italy in summer before and soon discovered how committed the Italians are to their beach holidays with every inch of rock, pebble, dirt and occasionally, sand beach, taken up by clubs or rental lounge/umbrellas. Finding a publico spiaggia (free beach) became a game of ‘Where’s Wally’ that you had to start at 7am to secure a patch for your towel! We loved the spectacle of watching people do the ‘Mediterranean shuffle’ (which my father calls the process of getting in and out of the rock-pebbled water) seeing the young people scale then leap from the cliffs (inspired by Red Bull cliff diving comps in Puglia!) and working out how so little material can be used to make a swimsuit. 

At night the beach bars and waterfront restaurants leapt into life as soon as the sun went down. The Italians eat late and party even later and on a few occasions we saw people wobbling home as we went out for our morning run. Gotta love that Italian spirit!

Discover more:

We explored five main regions over four weeks and you can read about our discoveries in the post I have written for each area:

The Liguria Region – Rapallo, Portofino, San Fruttuoso, Cinque Terre

Emilio-Romagna region – Bologna, Cesena, Santarcangelo

Puglia and Marche regions – Trani, Ostruni, Arboraballa, Sirolo

The Piedmonte: Milano, Lake Garda, Lake Maggiore – Baveno

East Italy – Friuli-Venezia Giulia – Sacile and Trieste