Travel From Home: Italy
Italy is one of those places that one can visit time and again, and always enjoy thoroughly. That’s why we picked it as our next travel-from-home destination, and this time we shared the experience with friends, virtually over Zoom. Below is our digital kit for how you can recreate a similar visit.
The Music: Maurizio Carlini
To set the mood for our visit we started with Maurizio Carlini’s music and his albums Il Figlio Della Sarta and Er Futuro De ‘Sta Città. There isn’t a ton of information online about Carlini but I stumbled upon his music on Spotify and thought his mellow voice would be perfect while we made dinner.
Afterwards we proceeded with the extensive Perfect Italian Dinner playlist on Spotify whose selection of artists like Marino Marini and Carlo Buti inspired romantic visions of Italy’s bridges, vineyard hills warmed by the summer sun, and little espresso cups lingering on small round tables.
The Drinks: Negroni, San Pellegrino & Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
Before we started making dinner, we made a classic Negroni cocktail. The Negroni is a pretty simple cocktail, but we made a quick video of the process: add 1oz. of gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth to a glass. Add ice and stir for a minute. Optionally, express a lemon peel into the cocktail and rub the peel around the lip of the glass.
We also enjoyed a plain S. Pellegrino, Italy’s mineral water which has been produced for over 620 years. With dinner, we opened a bottle of Valle Reale Vigneto di Popoli Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. Its balanced flavor reminds us of the house wine we enjoyed so much with our meals in Italy.
The Food: Ricotta Gnocchi
We decided to make ricotta gnocchi and used this simple recipe from Gimme Some Oven, which is adapted from J. Kenji López-Alt’s recipe. It didn’t take long to make and the recipe was very easy to follow, but we made sure to purchase high-quality Ricotta di Bufala, 00 flour, and aged Parmigiano-Reggiano. After boiling the gnocchi, we tossed them in an Arrabbiata sauce, topped with fresh Mozzarella, and broiled until the cheese was bubbling and browned.
For dessert we sampled some Bodrato dark chocolate and our friends tasted classic tiramisu and Italian sorbet.
The Literature: Patrizia Cavalli
Initially I wanted to tell my friends about the Italian novelist Elena Ferrante whose Neapolitan novels I adore, but since this is her pseudonym and we don’t know much about her, I decided to go down the poetry route and learn about a contemporary Italian poet, so I found Patrizia Cavalli.
Born in Todi, Cavalli is much loved in Italy and is one of the most recognized modern Italian poets in the world today. The Booklist described her poetry collection My Poems Won’t Change the World (2013) (English translation is available) as a “must-read for fans of contemporary poetry.” Poetry Foundation discusses Cavalli’s style as conversational, focused on the simplicity of the everyday -
One thinks of Sylvia Plath, perhaps, or Anne Sexton: a poetry far from the great events, founded on the candor of individual confession and the intensification of the everyday, often stylistically stingy (conversational, paratactical, metrically lax), as in these lines by Patrizia Cavalli:
If you were to knock now on my door
and if you took your glasses off
and I took off mine which are just like yours
and if you then entered into my mouth
unafraid of kisses that are not alike
and said to me: “My love,
what has happened?” — it would be
a successful bit of theater.— From My Very Own Singular “I”
I also think her poem [The happy ones are almost always also vulgar] is especially relevant for our hurried life, recently interrupted by Covid-19:
The happy ones are almost always also vulgar;
happiness has a way of thinking
that’s rushed and has no time to look
but keeps on moving, compact and manic,
with contempt in passing for the dying:Get on with your life, come on, buck up!
Those stilled by pain don’t mix
with the cheerful, self-assured runners
but with those who walk at the same slow pace.If one wheel locks and the other’s turning
the turning one doesn’t stop turning
but goes as far as it can, dragging the other
in a poor, skewed race until the cart
either comes to a halt or falls apart.
The Art: “Birth of Venus”
One of the best parts of sharing our experience with friends is that we all reflected back on our visits to Italy, our favorite moments and impressions. We had all visited Florence so we spent some time talking about the Uffizi art gallery there. Our friend Ivan told us about how struck he was by Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.” Painted on canvas in the 15th century, this work of art shows Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, standing on a giant scallop shell and covering her nakedness with long, blond hair. You can zoom in on the painting on the Uffizi’s website.
The Architecture: Renzo Piano
Our friend Zhanina who is an architect told us about someone we should have probably already known about: Renzo Piano. Piano is a world-known Italian architect and his notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (2015) and Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens (2016).
He is known for his clean, simple lines, and people-centric philosophy. His firm Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) seeks to achieve a sense of lightness. As its website says,
This might mean finding innovative methods to diffuse natural light over a world-class art collection, or angling a roof so a new building does not cast shadow over a city park.
Zhanina told us that Paino designed the new wing of Boston’s Isabella Gardner Museum as well as the Harvard Art Gallery. We’ve visited both of these museums often and never realized who was behind their beauty and light.
The Dance: Tarantella
Tarantella is a traditional couple folk dance Italian dance during which the women dancers frequently carry tambourines. Britannica says that, “The tarantella’s origin is connected with tarantism, a disease or form of hysteria that appeared in Italy in the 15th to the 17th century and that was obscurely associated with the bite of the tarantula spider; victims seemingly were cured by frenzied dancing.”
While its origins sound a bit bleak, the dance is very upbeat and happy and we enjoyed mimicking the movements of these two dancers on YouTube. Especially after all of the food and drinks we had consumed, we welcomed the fun and movement this brought.
The Film: No Reservations | Emilia Romagna
We decided to watch No Reservations | Emilia Romagna with Anthony Bourdain and it was the perfect ending of this immersive experience. We learned about the making of balsamic vinegar, Sangiovese wine, and a variety of meats and cheeses. It was so refreshing to see the craftspeople featured in the episode show such passion for and pride in their work.
Our trip to Italy was a dream, and sharing it with friends encouraged us to reflect on each component of this experience and made it richer. Hope these suggestions help you design a special trip to Italy, even if it’s just from home.
