Best Of Archives - Page 4 of 15

Best Of Archives - Page 4 of 15 - Itch.world

A three-minute escape to Italy.

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March 27, 2022 In Best Of, Live By Nancy

The affair

When Donella was in high school one of her favorite classes was art history. This was curious to me as I’d tried to interest her in this subject throughout her life with absolutely no success; I used to be fairly passionate about art history and had even done a yearlong work/study program at a London auction house. After we moved to Italy it seemed relevant that she could tell a Parmesan from a Parmigianino, but she was deeply disinterested. One day when we were in Arezzo and she took me into a church to see the Cimabue Crucifix and I knew something had changed.

It all had to do with her art history teacher. There’s a certain type of small-town Italian beauty aesthetic that I find endlessly fascinating. The opposite of the French less is more mantra, this type of Italian woman believes that more is more—there’s nothing shiny, sparkling, towering, tight, or colorful that’s ignored, often in the same outfit. I adore this as it’s completely independent from natural beauty, designer trends, or idealized body type. When the Italian small-town woman is wearing gold stilettos, a tight leopard-patterned skirt, and a purple fur jacket, and is properly made up with heavy makeup and perfectly-styled, vibrantly dyed hair there is simply nothing she can’t do, no head she can’t turn, no man she can’t have. I watch in endless fascination, clothed in my uniform of jeans, oversized sweater, and distressed sneakers, wondering if I’ve ever felt this kind of female superpower.

In this realm, the art history teacher reigned supreme. She was in her seventies and Donella would often report the day’s curatorial choices to us. “Tight leather pants, over the knee platform boots, and a gold lame sparkly, tight sweater.” The class was mainly girls, and they all followed this woman’s every move closely, like groupies.

She obviously was covering the curriculum, hence the Cimabue detour, but as in all things in Italian education most of the real learning was off-syllabus. One day a female student was obviously upset and not paying attention. The teacher halted the lesson and asked what was happening in her life. The girl, tears pouring down her face, revealed that she’d just had a breakup with her boyfriend. The teacher promptly said that they needed to turn their focus from Renaissance perspective to much more important things, and to circle the chairs around. The couple of boys in the class sat in the perimeter.

The relationship story was revealed, with much commiseration, and then it was the teacher’s turn. She counseled the girls that they really had to watch who they fell in love with because the wrong choices could bring great complication. She, for instance, had been married for many years, but also had been having a long-term affair with another teacher down the hall, in the same school, who many of the students also had as a teacher. Her husband and lover even shared the same last name. Although she loved both men this romantic triangle had made all of their lives difficult and perhaps this romantic situation might have been better to avoid.

Donella came home that day with her eyes particularly wide as this was the kind of curriculum she hadn’t run across in school in California.

……. More to come on educating kids in Italy.

January 23, 2022 In Best Of, Live By Nancy

My own private theater

Descriptions of modern high-end houses often brag about having a private theater where one can gather with friends and watch a movie. Starting in the Renaissance, wealthy Italian home builders also had the desire to share entertainment with their friends, but instead of small screening room they built actual theaters in their houses, sometimes including stages with sets, an orchestra pit, and box seats, so they could host theatrical productions or operas in the comfort of their own homes. Or, uh, palaces. Even our small village of around 6,000 people used to have six different private theaters, and recently I did a walking tour that visited them all.

The most mysterious one of them (pictured above) was one I’d only heard about only once or twice over the ten years we’ve been here. When we were looking for a house to buy a couple of people asked if we’d seen the place for sale with the theater, right in the middle of town. A friend said she was walking around the rundown rooms and she opened a door that she thought was to a closet and BOOM, there she was, in the middle of a private theater. Seemed kind of too good to be true, but we couldn’t find anyone to show it to us and when we finally saw plans of it we reached the same conclusion that friends had—the layout was very difficult to convert into a house. So when I had the chance to see this place on the tour I jumped. It’s on the main floor on a smallish palazzo on the distinctive steep, straight street of town that descends and then crossed the valley in a perfect line. Inaugurated at the beginning of the 18^th century, The Ulivi Stefanelli Palace theater is pretty humble. It was designed for a standing audience and has its backdrops painted into the walls instead of changeable, but the backgrounds are full of perspectives where your gaze loses itself in the search of imaginary places dotted with bizarre and fantastic characters. It has a petite balcony surrounding it where guests could watch from a different angle.

Today, the old palazzo has been divided into flats so the main floor now holds the theater, a couple of other rooms that could be used as bedrooms, a place that could be a kitchen, and a back garden. (Apparently the floor above is also for sale which could make it much more liveable.) And yes, it is for sale if your home owning dreams include your own spettacolo.

This desire to see a mysterious piece of real estate in the village made me curious about theaters in Italy. Turns out that Italians invented theaters as we know them, as well as some of the widely-credited art forms that are still performed in them, like opera and the Commedia dell’arte.

Theaters started to boom in Italy during the Renaissance as the passion for perspective that was taking over painting naturally extended to backdrops for performances, setting the stage (OK, I will stop) for a flood of innovation as they brought their theories into this three-dimensional space.

The first permanent modern interior theater, the Teatro Olimpico, was designed by Palladio and is still in existence in Vicenza, near Venice. Opened in 1585, the theater has an elliptical shape with tiered seats so everyone could see and hear well. The design was a reflection of Palladio’s love of Roman antiquities.

The scenery could not be changed, but the set incorporated the latest thinking about perspective and vanishing points, emphasized by a tilted floor to force perspective. Every seat was aligned to marvel at one of these views.

The demand for spectacle drove even more innovation and in 1618 the Teatro Farnese was designed in Parma and had the world’s first proscenium, creating a window around the action, the standard in most theaters today, and it also allowed for scene changes. First used in 1628, it hosted about everything you’d want to share with the 3,000 people you’d invited over for pizza and a beer: drama, opera, and ballet were performed on the stage; equestrian acts and sumptuous balls were held in the large arena between stage and seating—this area could also be flooded to a depth of two feet and used for mock naval battles; and, when not floating little boats, hosted court ceremonies and princely extravaganzas.

Competition heated up across Italy and noble families were quick to put the artists they had on the payroll, including Michelangelo and Da Vinci, to design costumes, scenery, and stage machinery for their private events between the big assignments, like the Sistine Chapel.

The ultimate piece of scene change high tech, the chariot and pole system, hit in 1641. Giacomo Torelli designed a set of slots in the stage floor to set backdrops into that were connected to a set of understage “chariots” on casters to roll them back and forth, all engineered with winches, pulleys and ropes so that scenes could be changed with a single winch. This clever bit of engineering quickly spread all over Europe and was the standard until the end of the 1890s. This technology was more than just pretty—it allowed for the use of specific scenes rather than a general static backdrop—plays could now be written about much more specific places and situations.

Back to the village, in addition to the small gem I talked about at the open, the theater craze hit hard and six theaters were built over the years. According to the director of our local theater, Andrea Merendelli, in 1631 Italy was in the throes of yet another round of the plague, which had killed 10,000 in Florence out of a population of 75,000, and one out of four people in Milan. At that time wooden blockades were put up at the village gates to check health passes that travelers carried to prove they had not been to plague-ridden towns, and to keep anyone suspect out. On February 17, local records show, not only were a troupe of performers admitted to town to put on plays but the wooden planks forming some of the blockades were repurposed to extend a stage. Merendelli assumes that they must have been a well-known troupe for this exception to be made—actors were beginning to be stars during this period and often cannons were shot off to announce their arrival in larger towns.

The main theater in the village is well-used and loved to this day. We’ve been many times to events ranging from a Pink Floyd tribute band (Pink Floyd is huge here) to school plays, to film screenings, to all sorts of performances.

Lola loves evenings at the theater.

Sebastian’s fifth-grade play packed them in.

Built in 1789 as a part of a grand compound that included a palazzo, a private chapel, and a garden leading to the private theater, the grandness has gone—the garden is now a parking lot and a road through town—but the theater remains as an historical setting for a vibrantly alive local events.

The other four theaters in town did not fare as well. One burned, two were broken up and converted into unrecognizable civic offices. One tiny piazza still hosts events, now mainly musical, as it has since the 1500s. A tunnel leads in from one side in which, during the Renaissance, a large machine was placed to produce an echo.

I had so much fun uncovering all of this and realizing how much the Italian love of spectacle and beautiful spaces, that has been a constant through the centuries, adds to life daily life. I wonder when they were creating these spaces if it ever crossed their minds that villagers would be enjoying them, and making them their own, hundreds of years later. Somehow it seems unlikely that will be the case for most of what we are building today.

December 29, 2021 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Little treasures of 2021

Here are some of my favorite adventures and discoveries of the year. If you’ve stuck with me this long you know that as much as I love an over-the-top Relais & Chateaux-type joint I find even more delight in small places that may be a little rough around the edges, but are one of a kind. A couple from this year have stuck in my mind with such fondness that I figured you have to know about them.

Greater Bologna

The photo above is from Ca’ Lo Spicchio, a house from the 1500s in the mountains about 45 minutes away from both Bologna and Modena that offers one room for rent. It’s almost impossible to find, but worth the drive down one-lane unpaved mountain roads, except when Google Maps is insistent that you turn up a goat path. Run by a retired advertising executive and his fashion-industry partner every detail is thought through and done with an attentive eye, from the building restoration to the guest room touches. Their home also includes two dogs, seven cats, two horses, chickens who are the focus of attention from the fox they befriend, and one of the best situated pools I’ve seen. The guest suite has a bed and lounge up more of a ladder than staircase located above the living room with a big fireplace and wood-burning stove. Definitionally cozy.

The Truffle Hunters

One of my favorite films of the year, The Truffle Hunters is a documentary with intelligence, heart, a poetic eye, and humor, beloved at Sundance and Cannes. It’s a breath of fresh air —not one cliched drone shot—with every frame filled with creativity. I laughed out loud several times the first time I saw it as each new scene was a surprising delight, and I could feel the fun the filmmakers had creating it. The film follows a men hunting white truffles in Piedmont, Italy—a notoriously closed and suspicious group who somehow opened up to these two American filmmakers, Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw—who shot the documentary over three years. Dweck and Kershaw were able to capture the men’s trials and joy, as well as the cutthroat, competitive world of selling and marketing this high-priced delicacy when supplies are dwindling due to climate change and competition. It embodies so much of what I love about Italy, and the Italians, and I hope you get as much joy and inspiration from it as I did.

Tivoli

On a trip to pick up Sebastian at the Rome airport we spent a night in the small town of Tivoli, which is more car-friendly than driving into the center of Rome. What started out as a night of convenience turned into love. Tivoli is the nearest town to two of greater Rome’s heavy-hitting sites—Hadrian’s Villa and Villa d’Este—but it turned out to be charming in its own right. The modern outskirts that you spiral around to reach the historical center on a plateau are not promising, but once you get to the old town it has that mix that I love—real, working, a little dingy, and bursting with life.

At night we walked Lola down a dark, narrow medieval street when from behind a shuttered second floor window we heard “Alexa, spegni la luce” (“Alexa, turn off the light”). Perfect moment.

We stayed at the Residenze Gregoriane, which is part of a palace from the 1500s. It has only three rooms, decorated in an older Italian aesthetic, and serves breakfast in a perfect courtyard adorned by frescoes and mosaics created by some of the same artisans who worked on the Villa d’Este. The family who runs it is one of warmest and most welcoming we’ve run across, which is saying a lot in Italy.

We visited Hadrian’s Villa on a very hot day and we lost our breath in more than one way. Another visit is in the cards during the cooler months. Built between 118 and 138 AD the ruins of this single palace are extensive and gorgeous. It has been revered since Renaissance times and I had one of those moments, which I occasionally get in a Roman ruin, where I am overcome with the sophistication, beauty, and grace of the lives of the elite Romans. This architecture had a goal of impressing visitors, no doubt, but it transcends its “look how rich and powerful I am” mission into something profoundly pleasing. Which many of other such palaces don’t. Looking at you, Forbidden City.

Also near, and somewhere I am excited to visit, is the Villa d’Este, started in 1560. A masterpiece of Italian garden design, it’s known for its fountains, including one that is an organ fueled by water.

Tivoli is a great base for those seeking a deeper experience of Rome beyond the main sites in the center. Close by is also the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, among the other UNESCO sites.

Maremma

This part of Tuscany, bordering the Tyrrhenian Sea, is not very well-known. On the mainland there are many Etruscan sites and gorgeous beaches. Just off the coast are the islands of the Tuscan archipelago. We went for an a couple of nights to the Hotel Torre Mozza, with seven rooms. Our room was in the 16th-century watchtower that juts into the Mediterranean and had a door cut through the thick defensive walls opening over the waves.

The island of Elba is a short ferry ride away from Piombino. I had spent several days on the island a couple years ago, but this trip we just went over to the island for memorable lunch on a small square at the Trattoria Moderna di Matteo in the tiny town of Capoliveri.

“Ancora Tu” by Lucio Battisti

Sebastian introduced me to this Italian mega-hit from 1976, “Ancora Tu” (“You Again”), from one of Italy’s biggest musical stars of the 1960s and 70s, Lucio Battisti. I just love the poignant way it captures the magic of a familiar love.

You again, it doesn’t surprise me, you know. / Ancora tu, non mi sorprende lo sai.

You again, but, weren’t we supposed to not see each other any more? / Ancora tu, ma non dovevamo vederci più?

And, how are you? Useless question. / E come stai. Domanda inutile.

You’re like me, and we can’t help but laugh. / Stai come me, e ci scappa da ridere.

My love, have you eaten or not? / Amore mio, hai già mangiato o no?

I, too, am hungry and not only of you. / Ho fame anch’io e non soltanto di te.

How beautiful you are, you seem younger / Che bella sei, sembri più giovane

or perhaps you’re just nicer. / o forse sei solo più simpatica.

Oh, I know what you want to know. / Oh io lo so cosa tu vuoi sapere.

No one, no, I just restarted to smoke. / Nessuna no, ho solo ripreso a fumare.

It is still you, unfortunately the only one. / Sei ancora tu, purtroppo l’unica.

Still you, the incorrigible one. / Ancora tu, l’incorregibile.

But to leave you is not possible. / Ma lasciarti non è possibile.

No, to leave you is not possible. / No, lasciarti non è possibile.

To leave you is not possible. / Lasciarti non è possibile.

No, to leave you is not possible. / No, lasciarti non è possibile.

It is still you, unfortunately the only one. / Sei ancora tu, purtroppo l’unica.

It is still you, the incorrigible one. / Ancora tu, l’incorregibile.

But to leave you is not possible. / Ma lasciarti non è possibile.

No, to leave you is not possible. / No, lasciarti non è possibile.

To leave you is not possible. / Lasciarti non è possibile.

No, to leave you is not possible./ No, lasciarti non è possibile.

Desperation, joy of mine, / Disperazione, gioia mia.

I’ll be still yours, hoping it’s not madness. / Sarò ancora tuo, sperando che non sia follia.

But, let it be what will be. / Ma sia quel che sia.

Hold me, my love, / Abbracciami amore mio,

hold me, my love, / abbracciami amor mio,

‘cause now I want it too. / Ché adesso lo voglio anch’io.

You again, it doesn’t surprise me, you know. / Ancora tu, non mi sorprende lo sai.

You again, but, weren’t we supposed to not see each other any more? / Ancora tu, ma non dovevamo vederci più?

And, how are you? Useless question. / E come stai? Domanda inutile.

You’re like me, and we can’t help but laugh. / Stai come me, e ci scappa da ridere.

My love, have you eaten or not? / Amore mio, hai già mangiato o no?

I, too, am hungry and not only of you. / Ho fame anch’io e non soltanto di te.

How beautiful you are, you seem younger / Che bella sei, sembri più giovane

or perhaps you’re just nicer. / o forse sei solo più simpatica.

Il cantautore italiano Lucio Battisti 1969

December 5, 2021 In Best Of, Live By Nancy

The ties that bind us

The echoes of WWII are all around us here. The war is not an abstract thing—I have a friend who found a bomb in the woods when he was a kid and he and his brother were thinking of hitting it with a large stick before they decided to show it to their parents. The bomb removal experts came and said it was unexploded, and if they had pounded on it they would likely both be dead. Occasionally, a discussion with one of the oldest members of the village will disclose a great wrong done during the war to their family by another family in the village. The shadows are everywhere, including which coffee bars and grocery stores people frequent; some bars are known to be more fascist or communist. I know people who will not shop at the Co-op grocery store as it is owned by the communist party.

This year’s village play, Tovaglia a Quadri, picked up on some of these themes. When, and how, is it appropriate to make our way back into society after having been a refugee hiding away—or in quarantine; how do people create a plan for the future after a catastrophe; and what role do elections, and politicians play (or don’t play) in such times? The performance, as I’ve covered before—go to Itch.world and search Tovaglia a Quadri for other editions—is a witty, sardonic look at events in the village and nation, always freshly written a few weeks before it’s performed. The thread that united the series of vignettes this year was the importance of the links between people that tie us all together—and how to find it again and restore it. The title of the play, Filocrazia, alludes to the power of the invisible ropes, or cables (a filo), that bind us to one another, and to a place.

The play is usually staged in a tiny square in the village, but due to Covid restrictions they had to move the location for the first time to an old castle a kilometer or two out of town and stage the play in its larger courtyard. This castle, which is now a popular place for a pizza or a large gathering for Sunday lunch, is on a site that dates back to pagan times, but the present structure was built in 1234 and passed from one powerful family to another. It was the summer home of a famous nobleman and soldier from the 1400s, Baldaccio Bruni, who was murdered in Florence in the Palazzo Vecchio by another Florentine noble family who was concerned about his growing power. His body was thrown out the window, dragged through the streets, and then beheaded in the Piazza della Signoria. His ghost is said to haunt this castle, which actually seems possible when you go down in the dungeons at night. Considering what happened to him I think he has every reason to be a ghost.

The castle had a rich history during WWII as well. It was the German headquarters, into which an Allied pilot, who was shot down, accidentally parachuted.

The site informed the play as it featured a group of refugees who have moved to the castle in the countryside to hide from an undisclosed great danger. They think the danger has now largely passed but are split into factions between those who are eager to return and take up the old ways, those who want to remain sequestered, and those who want to use this opportunity to reinvent and improve their community.

The play took place during the runup to the election for mayor in the village and the playwrights couldn’t resist adding a bit current political commentary. Two candidates come to the castle to campaign during this pivotal moment for change, one from the right and one from the left. One is dressed in white and one in black, but they are indistinguishable in every way—they say exactly the same dialogue to the same people, making the same promises. The pilot who parachuted into the castle makes an appearance, as well as a philosopher who comes to help clarify matters, holding a large book called The Book of the Future. It turns out all the pages are blank. A particularly fitting symbol for our current situation—the future is always unknown, but right now it is more unknown than usual. The conclusion of the play, which I profoundly agree with, is that only our ties to each other will get us through and allow us to move forward.

This year’s audience included Ralph Fiennes, right, with director and playwright Andrea Merendelli.

On the topic of the echoes of WWII John and I finally stopped in the lovely hilltop town of Lucignano, between Arezzo and Siena. We went to a little square for lunch and I noticed an interesting inscription on the wall. I am always trying to decipher signs, but this one was particularly intriguing.

“QUANDO SI È FORTI SI È CARI AGLI AMICI E SI È TEMUTI DAI NEMICI.” “When you are strong you are dear to your friends and feared by enemies,” is a quote from Mussolini from March 26, 1939 during a celebration of the twentieth anniversary of fascism. I was intrigued so I investigated and found that this phrase is thrown around even now. In October 2020, when Italy briefly opened gyms during one of the waves of Covid, the anti-fascist journalist Paolo Berizzi, whose work uncovering neo-fascists has forced him to live under the protection of security for over a year, managed to anger almost everyone with a single Tweet. “Robust support from the center right in defence of gyms. ‘When you are strong you are dear to your friends and feared by enemies.'” This linkage of gyms to political extremism went too far, according to one person who responded “This tweet, frankly, does no honor to anyone, neither to you, nor to anti-fascism. You know that I often love to talk to you, so I think I can afford it: it really fell down …”

That’s it for now from the village.

November 14, 2021 In Best Of, Live By Nancy

An accident

Friends of ours have a daughter who is a fairly new driver. She borrowed her parents’ car to drive a friend to the train station. A series of things made the drive to the station tense—they were running late, her friend had to make this particular train, and the car was almost out of gas. They arrived at the station with minutes to spare. The station had been newly renovated and she wasn’t sure where to go and pulled into the old passenger drop-off and said goodbye to her friend, tired and stressed. She got back into the car and as she tried to drive away there was a problem: a car was parked in the very small roundabout in front of the station with no driver in sight. A line of cars behind her was growing, as was her uncertainty about how to handle the situation.

She waited for a minute and no driver appeared, so she decided to edge past. She hit the inner side of the roundabout, hard enough to put dents in the car, bend the traffic sign, and lodge the car on the curb.

At this point the owner of the parked car reappears. He’s in his early 60s and with a younger woman. They head for their car to drive away. A person in the car behind gets out to shout that she needs to stop them and get their information. She calls her mother, who in the quick exchange assumes that her daughter had hit the other car, rather than the center post, also says that she should get the information of the driver in the other car. She approaches the two in the car she had needed to get around, who refuse to give her their information, as they had done nothing legally wrong.

She’s desperate. She’s wrecked her parents’ car, there’s a line of people shouting at her what to do, the people in the other car are refusing to give her the information she thinks she needs, so she physically stands in the way of the other driver’s door, blocking him from closing it.

Then things go really wrong. He grabs her to get her away from his door. She feels under attack and scratches his face. She calls her parents to tell them what has just happened. And that the police had been called and were arriving at the scene. Our friends say that they will be there as soon as possible.

When the parents arrived at the scene there were around ten police officers there and several police cars, lights flashing, and blocking the entrance to the station. They learned what had unfolded while they were driving and it was about as unexpected as possible.

They are met by a policeman who comes up with a big smile and says that he lives in their village and that his daughter had been in a local advertising video with their son several years ago when they were both kids. He had just had a long talk with their daughter that she needs to learn to approach life con calma. Their daughter is standing next to the woman, who turns out to the the daughter of the man who was scratched. Our friends’ daughter had been sobbing uncontrollably about what she had done and this woman had held her for five minutes while she cried. Their daughter had immediately recognized that she had gone too far in her anger and fear and kept going to the older man asking if there was anything she could do, each time crying harder as she saw the bleeding scratches. The man and his daughter were consoling her, saying that she could have been a member of their family, mistakes happen, and that we all react emotionally sometimes. The man’s daughter confesses that when she was the same age she actually hit an old man with her car, and that the scratches don’t really matter as her dad was already old and ugly. He agrees, and laughs. Our friend’s daughter learns that the man had double parked in order to come into the station and help his daughter with a heavy suitcase. Our friends tell us that this results in a fresh round of crying.

The officer who had had a long talk with her tells her that she needs to learn to expect that everyone is good and to always look for that. Another officer is preparing a police report and takes their daughter’s statement. Although she doesn’t say anything about the other factors that contributed to the situation the officer puts in the report that the girl was upset because she’d wrecked her parents’ car; the crowd, and her mother’s erroneous advice, had added to her reaction; and that she was a young driver and this was her first accident. The officer doesn’t mention the scratches, only that she defended herself with her hands. The officer remarked that she’s never seen such identical statements as of the girl and the older man. Three different officers apologized to the family and the girl that they need to issue a ticket for entering into the wrong place in the newly rerouted station layout, as well as for damaging the sign.

All begin to disperse and the man, and his daughter, come up to the parents and their daughter. There are warm wishes, forgiveness, humor, and graciousness.

Our friends’ daughter told her parents that this was one of the biggest lessons she’s ever had—that things like a double-parked car might not be a selfish thing but a father helping his daughter with a heavy bag; that is it possible to find the common humanity even after crossing into a dark abyss of rage; and that people can accept mistakes and move on; and, mostly, that people are almost always good. Also that sometimes you need to give yourself a time out before responding. Not bad lessons for a Friday night.

October 24, 2021 In Best Of, Live By Nancy

On elections, mayors, and boars

Italy’s largest cities—Rome, Milan, Turin, Naples, and Bologna—recently held mayoral elections, as did our village. Perhaps our election was less covered in the international press, but that doesn’t mean that it lacked drama.

Rome’s election was largely about trash and wild boar. The incumbent, Virginia Raggi, the Five Star Movement candidate (an anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic, right-wing party), was elected in 2016 but didn’t even qualify for the 2021 runoff election, largely because of Rome’s handling of basic services. When I’ve been to Rome over the past few years, especially in the suburbs, I’d see piles of overflowing trash surrounding groups of dozens of mounded dumpsters every couple of kilometers. This plentiful availability of food is heaven for rats, of course, but also wild boar. The wild boar population in Italy soared during quarantine as hunting was suspended, made worse by climate change and a longer breeding season, and boar from the countryside around Rome have started to make their way into the city providing many moments that were perfect kindling for social media.

A video shot in a parking lot of a grocery store near Rome of a woman being pursued by a group of boar, who are after her groceries, got international attention.

Then, several days before the election, unfortunately for Mayor Raggi, thirteen boar decided to stroll down a busy Roman street, which launched a Twitter storm, including helpful suggestions that the bike lanes be replaced by wild boar lanes.

The mayor’s race in Rome was won by the center-left candidate, Roberto Gualtieri.

Which brings me to the photo at the top, which I cannot resist sharing, as we are on the subject of wild boar. As reported in The Guardian this hapless man was sunbathing in a park in Berlin in the nude when a wild boar ran away with a plastic bag that contained his laptop. The nudest gave chase. The photographer, Adele Landauer, stated he “gave it his all.” After he successfully got the swine to drop the bag, and his laptop was recovered, he returned to his sunbathing spot to the cheers of onlookers.

But closer to home, and back on topic, our own incumbent mayor was running against two challengers. (He is the first non-communist mayor the village has had since the war.) From when we moved here nearly ten years ago the election norms have changed. It used to be that the only sign of an election were a few posters in the square featuring the smiling faces of the candidates. But now glossy, color, multi-page booklets of campaign promises started to invade our mailbox several weeks before the election. A friend of ours declared that he was going to vote for the candidate who’d made no promises, said nothing, and published nothing. The day after our friend’s declaration the biggest, fatest pamphlet of them all, from candidate #3, appeared in our mailbox, nixing our friend’s well-thought out plan.

One of the candidates positioned himself as the outsider challenger, although he had been mayor before. One of his vows was to replace our centralized trash depositories, which some deem unsightly in “One Of The Most Beautiful Villages In Italy,” with door to door trash collection. As popular as this ideas was, the village has a strong collective memory and I kept hearing the stories of how when he had been mayor before he wanted a stronger connection between our village and the neighboring town. As much sense as this might make on a practical level he somehow overlooked the fact that we’ve always hated them, and they have always hated us.

They are a flat, larger town surrounded by the necessary modern bleak morass of car dealerships, gas stations, and grocery stores. They have a Renaissance center with a pedestrian-only main street that runs from one end of the old town walls to the other that is perfect for the passeggiata. A well-known artist friend of ours who grew up between our village and Milan has defined the passeggiata as the fatal flaw in the psyche of our valley neighbors. As they gather several times a week to parade up and down the main street, all dressed up to see and be seen, they have come to think of themselves as fashionable and superior, even though, according to him, they are mere bourgeoisie.

We are, to them, insular, brutish, simple mountain folk (probably inbred) who sit smugly in our steep, walled village and look down on them. This is true, both literally and figuratively. They are also jealous of our superior cultural events. This animosity is not a recent thing. In 1450 a group of raiders from the town breached the main 13th-century gate to our village and stole the gate key, which was not returned for two centuries and is now safely housed in a local museum. It was viewed as an act of hostility and the echoes lasted for centuries. In 1685, Federigo Nomi wrote a 11,848 line rhyming heroic/comic poem about the great key stealing event, and other hostilities between the towns, and was not afraid to name names of prominent local families.

This very gate was defiled in 1450 by the neighboring town when they stole the key. For 200 years.

I don’t know how deeply this historical slight influenced the election or not but the candidate advocating for closer ties lost to the incumbent.

We had a dinner party a few nights before our election and the most pressing topic was one of the candidate’s proposal to replace some of the paving stones in the square. The discussion of this went on for longer than one would imagine, largely having to do with how thick the proposed new, large pavers would be. Another hot topic is the state of repair, or more often disrepair, of the two elevators which whisk people from the lower parking lot up to the level of the town. The debate about these kinds of issues can get brutal, especially on the village Facebook group, where some of the election debates have not yet subsided and allowed us to get back to the usual discussion of lost dogs, weather, photos people take of the sun rising and setting over the village, and photos of transgressions to the beauty of the village of things like electrical boxes being placed over frescoes in historical niches.

The day of voting is always wonderful. The elections take over the village school, which to the delight of the kids is closed for election day and also the two days following so that the classrooms can be adequately disinfected. We always vote in classroom number 3, where our son attended fourth grade. One wall is all windows, has a door open to a grassy area outside, and is usually filled with sun. There are about five people running voting in each room. We happen to know everyone in number 3 so no IDs are needed. They hand us the ballot and a pencil. There are three small tables with little curtains and you unfold the paper ballot and put a huge “X”, in pencil, over the name of the person you are voting for. Then you fold the paper back up and drop it in a box. You know almost everyone walking to and from the school to vote, as well as having a coffee in the nearby cafe after voting. Voting here always brings a huge smile to my face.

The election, as well as re-entry to the world from quarantine, was the subject of this year’s village play, the Tovaglia a Quadri, which I will write about next week.

October 3, 2021 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

On the road again

The Second Annual French Road Trip—also known as The Paris Haircut Trip—concluded recently. This time John was with me and I wanted to share with him the sites of the discoveries and adventures I had last year, including the Mt. Blanc helicopter rescue, the mountain top with grazing cows and the hut that makes and sells fontina cheese, and one of my favorite hotels in the world—as quirky and a bit odd-smelling as it happens to be. If you’d asked me last year if Covid was going to be equally on my mind in twelve months time I would have seriously doubted it. Sad to still be going around in masks and in fear, but I thought you might be interested to know what it’s like to travel in France and Italy at the moment.

American readers might have missed that both countries have instituted a Green Pass system, a QR code-based golden ticket that documents your vaccine status, Covid antibodies, and test results. In both countries you need to show you are vaccinated, have antibodies, or a negative test within the last 48 hours to eat at any restaurant, go in a museum, theater, gym, indoor pool, attend a conference or event, take a high speed train, and more. The pass makes travel within the EU much easier too. In Italy, Prime Minister Draghi has gone all-in and required that all public and private employees have the vaccine to stay employed. And in France, your Green Pass is checked even sitting outdoors at cafes and restaurants. There have been a few sputtering protests in both countries but the measures have been very popular. And looking at the data it is easy to see why.

Recent Covid case trends: France on the left and Italy on the right

The peaks and falls in the fourth wave coincide with the widespread use of the Green Pass, and the resulting surge in vaccination rates. And it’s not just about new cases, yesterday it was announced that the proportion of Italy’s intensive care places occupied by Covid sufferers was down to 5.1%.

On our travels through northern Italy, the Alps, Burgundy, and Paris people were being remarkably careful. In addition to the Green Pass being checked without exception people were all masked indoors, and pretty universally with N95 masks now, not the flimsy little surgical ones or cloth. On the Paris metro we didn’t see one person unmasked. Testing is easy; Paris has tents on the sidewalk every few blocks where you can drop in and get a free test with results in a couple of hours (nonresidents pay $35), Italy has Covid tests widely available at pharmacies for about $25. The big question to me is about indoor dining at restaurants, which were packed everywhere we went (at this point we are only eating outdoors). I was surprised to see how popular sitting indoors was, given how often Covid is spread in such settings—certainly cut down by the Green Pass requirements, but still a lottery with the Delta variant.

We decided to go to London on the Eurostar for less than 24-hours to see Donella’s new flat and meet her puppy, Nora. Although the paperwork and requirements to get into England were epic, once we got off the train we were in a different world. No checking of Covid status at restaurants, lots of unmasked people everywhere, even on the Tube, and packed restaurants.

We spent a couple of days in Beaune, France this trip, in the heart of Burgundy. It was a town we’d been to years ago, and it was fun getting to know it a bit better. Driving in we passed a store that looked intriguing so we doubled back to go in and found a gem. With two small windows facing the street, a narrow room lined with wine, and things like sets of antique meat cleavers and copper pots artfully displayed on a center table it was a little hard to determine what it actually was selling. Turns out, quite a mix. It’s called The Cook’s Atelier and is a family-run cooking school, shop, and wine store. Started by a woman from Phoenix, Marjorie Taylor, and her daughter, Kendall Smith Franchini, whose French husband gave us some excellent advice about wines, the place intrigued me. Everything was carefully curated and had a story, and the shop and cooking school is in a 17th-century building with a lovely carved staircase. They ship internationally and have a beautiful cookbook of favorites from the cooking school that I bought and am enjoying.

Gorgeous photo from The Cook’s Atelier website.

One night I poured through the cookbook to find any special things that I needed to be on the lookout for the next day at the Saturday farmers market. This is a truly lovely French farmers market with lots of very small stands selling just a few exquisite things. One stand was full of different squashes and I remembered a recipe for a squash soup from the cookbook so lugged two large Potimarron squashes around in my market bag along with 8 jars of unlabeled but glorious looking raspberry and strawberry jam, a bunch of cheese, some figs and plums, and mushrooms. These all got carefully packed into the car for the return trip. After we got back to Italy I was shopping at our unexciting local grocery store and I spotted the Same Damn Squash, but now called a Zucca Hokkaido.

I made the soup, with the French squash thank you very much, and I’m quite sure it spoke with a more delicate and nuanced Gallic accent. Anyway it was delicious.

We visited the Hospices de Beaune, a hospital for the poor founded in 1443 by Nicolas Rolin and his wife Guigone de Salins, who in additional to funding the hospital bequeathed some prime vineyards in Burgundy to the hospital. They have an auction every fall where they sell the young wine in bulk. It is the most important wine auction in Burgundy and an indicator of how that year’s wine will be valued. In the 1970s the hospital relocated to a modern structure at the outskirts of town.

Hospices de Beaune

We happened to be staying with friends in Paris who live very near the L’Arc de Triomphe so we got to watch the Christo and Jeanne-Claude project wrapping the monument being installed and finished. It was fascinating to see it come together during dog walks and watch the workers rappelling off the top of the monument.

L'Arc de Triomphe Chriso wrapped

The other highlight was a chance decision to duck back into the Romanesque (and oldest in Paris) church at St. Germain-des-Pres which has been glowing from its recent cleaning and restoration. I want every single pattern and every single color in my life every single day.

church St. Germain-des-Pres

One thing I love about doing this trip is the excuse to stop in Italian cities we wouldn’t normally visit. We stayed in Parma on the outbound and Turin on the way back, both beautiful, walkable, and with a surprising thing to see in Italian cities—a wide age demographic.

Turin after a storm

Treasures we discovered, or rediscovered along the way…carefully edited. This is only the good stuff in case any of it ever comes in handy.

—Lovely wine bar, Croce di Malta Caffe and Cucina Vini in Parma on a cute courtyard. We had a really good starter on fresh focaccia, ricotta, and Parma ham. Ah yes, the ham. A 30-month Prosciutto Crudo di Parma Sant’Ilario.

— In the Val d’Aosta, the valley in Italy that butts up against Mt. Blanc, we returned to stay at the Maison de Saxe in Courmayeur and this time snagged the room with the balcony nestled among the massive roof tiles in the 17th-century hamlet and a view of Mt. Blanc.

Maison de la Saxe room balcony with Mt. Blanc view

— On the way up to Courmayeur we stopped in Aosta and had a lovely lunch in a courtyard at a little restaurant called Stefenelli Desk. Interesting, refined, and delicious menu.

— Over to the French side we stayed at two places in Burgundy, Chateau du Saulon, and of course John had to stay at the Chateau d’Island with me, which is the subject of a past Itch.

— In Beaune, on our return, we stayed in a lovely hotel inside the town walls for two nights, Les Remparts.

And, oh yes, the hair. Thanks to the ever-masterful David Mallett who makes it worth the trip.

Now my glam trip is over and I am back to mowing.

One more gratuitous shot from Chamonix of Mt. Blanc cause it’s so Wes Anderson.

Chamonix

September 5, 2021 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Are some places cursed?

We had to ask ourselves this question about a bucolic, beautiful, tiny island in the Stockholm archipelago, Rödlöga, four hours by ferry from the capital. The reason we’d even asked ourselves this question is because a friend, the inimitable Meg Ray, baker extraordinaire, author, and founder of Miette bakeries in the San Francisco area, loves this island and she’s run a small cafe on it for a few weeks every summer for five years. In a cafe with no running water, indoor plumbing, or electricity she is able to work magic with a generator to power a clunky oven and convert Baltic sea water for kitchen use. She loves this place so much that last summer during the uncertainty of Covid travel restrictions she rode her electric bike from Paris, where she lives half the year, to Stockholm as to not miss a summer at the cafe.

So we had to find out more and planned a trip with a couple of friends to visit and film in June. Even in the planning stages odd things began to happen. One of the crew that our director friend had booked stopped returning phone calls and never surfaced again—a first for all of us with years of production experience. Another crew member pulled out at the last minute; a friend who was going to come found out her Italian visa had expired, and if that wasn’t enough, fell off a rock wall onto a rock staircase and had to go to the hospital for stitches on her face. A friend’s child had a school crisis that almost derailed the June trip, and ultimately we had a health emergency that precluded any travel for John and me.

Despite all of this a brave skeleton crew persevered with the June trip, including Donella, and they had a complete immersion into the Swedish island summer lifestyle. Donella ended up loving it so much that she stayed for the rest of the summer to bake in the cafe with Meg, so in late August we were quite confident that the curse had lifted and it was safe to proceed with a trip. We ignored that one of the chefs had just been thrown off the island, almost literally, for outhouse misuse—”You and your stuff will be on the 4:30 ferry or all with be thrown into the sea.” And that Balthazar, the commercial oven, broke down and needed a hard-to-get part, leaving the crew to bake in the few private ovens around the island. And that a staff member had a mental health crisis and needed to leave the island.

But still believing in rationality over curses John and I landed in Stockholm, a city of water, bridges, islands, inlets, ferries, and boats. We checked into the lovely Hotel Lyd ma r, directly across the street from the ferry to Rödlöga. The next morning we boarded the Sjogull, or Seagull, which was the cutest ferry I’ve ever been on, complete with potted plants on the tables. Islands unfolded as far as the eye can see, reflected in the calm Baltic, with larger and more formal Swedish summer homes giving way to smaller cabins the further we got from Stockholm. Two colors dominated, the now-protected shade of Swedish red, which originally was a stain created from the remnants of iron mining, and a golden shade of yellow, which was a color used by the wealthier families who had gold mines and could use the runoff as a paint stain. Common to all were the small, individually-built sauna buildings located to make the jump into the cold Baltic a short step away from the sauna—tiny, doll-house like echoes of the larger houses they were paired with. Here the Baltic is so far inland and distant from the ocean that it’s half salt and half fresh water and there are no tides, so buildings are only a foot or so above water level, making for an intimate relationship between the buildings and the sea.

The archipelago numbers somewhere around 25,000 islands. I asked a few Swedes what counted as an island—when we were on the ferry we saw rocks barely breaking the surface with only room for a couple of seagulls to large inhabitable islands—but no one I asked was certain of the definition. Although undefinable in number the islands are undeniable in beauty. The rock formations are smooth and undulous. The glaciers shaped this landscape, which is still rebounding from the weight of the ice; the elevation raises by three millimeters every year. Something about the newness of the landscape, which only emerged in today’s recognizable form during the time of the Vikings, feels otherworldly and distinct to this part of the world, like the glaciers have only recently retreated.

The ferry pulled into Rödlöga and our suitcases were loaded in a wheelbarrow, the only way to move things around the island. Rödlöga is inhabited for six to eight weeks during the summer months by Swedish families, many of whom have been coming here to family houses for generations. There are about a hundred houses scattered across the island, some located on nearby small islands accessible only by private boat. The tiny harbor with its circle of red wooden houses and buildings and large boulders was gorgeous.

Rodloga Sweden

It had been misting and we were instructed about how to walk across the glistening, perfectly smooth large granite formations which were as slippery as ice. Our red wooden guest house was the size of a shed, with twin beds head-to-head. Water for washing and drinking was pumped from a green hand pump in the yard. The lengthy instructions for the outhouse were intimidating. Let’s just say that liquids and solids go in different places and must never meet. Not taking this seriously is what had caused the chef to be cast off the island. Any bathing during our visit would need to happen in the Baltic. Poisonous snakes and ticks were rumored to outnumber the people and were taken seriously as Lyme disease was prevalent.

Meg was drawn to the island because she relishes a challenge. She wanted to take this rough gem and with the help of the locals—including a long history of the island teens working at the cafe—marry traditional Swedish cuisine and baking with her experience and creativity. When on the island Meg lives in a tiny cabin about a ten-minute walk from the café and when she walks to work at 4 a.m., in broad daylight, through the trees and along the water she tries to get a sense for the weather to determine if the ferry will be crowded and how many people will be arriving on sailboats for lunch to plan for how much bread and food they need to make.

Donella’s cabin next to the sea

Watching Meg and Donella at work was like seeing a dance unfold. The two of them working almost wordlessly with Edith Piaf’s “Je Ne Regrette Rien” blasting on the speakers, simultaneously making multiple delicious things based on their drawers full of sourdough starters: Doughrien Greg, the rye starter; Tillsbury Doughgirl, or Tilly, for walnut and raisin bread; Hank The Farmer, used for a simple milk bread; and Love for the cardamom buns. The baking was fueled by strong coffee, seemingly the national drink of Sweden. On Meg’s first year on the island the coffee machine broke and she had to figure out how to rig up a new one using gravity and water heated by the sun.

Some of Meg and Donella’s creations

Meg has fallen in love with fermentation and Sweden is a good place to explore it. She’s been experimenting in new types of sourdough as well as pickled vegetables, kombucha coffee, and fermented ginger beer. With such a short growing season the Swedes had to master food storage to survive the long winters, going back to ancient times. Remains of fermented fish stored in an early Mesolithic settlement in eastern Sweden that date from 9200 years ago were recently found, according to the Journal of Archaeological Science—the oldest fermented food yet discovered. Today, Sweden offers sourdough hotels for bread-baking travelers to drop off their sourdough starters to be fed while they are out of town. One is conveniently located in Stockholm’s Arlanda airport.

We got invited to go out on a 1930s wooden boat with the photographer shooting Meg’s cookbook, Tomas Södergren, which revealed the island to be even more beautiful by water.

Settled into our red cabin and watching our daughter work while we idled we assumed all was good, but before we were able to eat our first cinnamon bun the curse continued. Meg revealed that she’d been having nerve pain in both arms and that her fingers were getting numb. The nurse on the island insisted that the medical helicopter come and take her to the hospital to be checked out, and as she’d recently had a tick bite and had had Covid in the winter, there were a lot of possibilities for what could be causing her symptoms. She arrived at a small local hospital by helicopter in the evening and at 2 a.m., after they determined she wasn’t dying immediately, the doctor told her she had to leave despite the fact there were no hotels open and she knew no one. She successfully pleaded for a morning release, we went to work finding her somewhere to stay on the mainland as she was in excruciating pain, and we set to work trying to pack things up on the island as it was clear she wasn’t going to be able to come back to finish up the remaining week that the cafe was scheduled to be open.

This is where I wish I could say the island banded together to help and support Meg but sometimes things in tiny towns get complicated. Usually when someone wants to improve somethings there’s a group that prefers the old ways, and they came out in force, voicing in equal parts that store-bought bread had always been just fine and frustration that Meg wouldn’t be there for the final week or so of the season to continue to bake fresh bread and pastries. It got uncomfortable enough that we were all delighted to board the ferry back to Stockholm, complete with all Meg’s bags.

Meg is now back in the California working on finishing her cookbook about her experiences in Sweden and trying to solve her medical mystery.

A few finds from Stockholm that were a highlight of our trip—two nursery and garden centers with lovely restaurants featuring produce grown on site, Rosendals Trädgård and Ulriksdal Trädgårdscafé. We stayed at the Hotel Nofo which was lovely.

And we now believe in curses.

July 11, 2021 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Venice discoveries

I love Venice but I’ve always hated the area around the Rialto Bridge. It’s too crowded, usually hot, and lined with the kind of restaurants where they try to lure you in as you walk by waving menus in English coated with plastic. My preferred neighborhood, Dorsoduro, feels more local and I’ve shared my favorite haunts here. But when we decided to go to Venice recently for John’s birthday to take advantage of the lack of crowds, we booked a hotel a friend had recommended that was smack dab in the middle of the Rialto Bridge area and we discovered a couple of gems.

The Hotel al Ponte Antico is a restored palazzo right on the Grand Canal next to Rialto Bridge. We went a little nuts for John’s birthday and booked their Junior Suite with Patio with glass doors that opened onto a private quai on the Grand Canal. No railings, no separation, just the traffic and trade of the canal passing by at eye level. The main photo above is the table outside our room. They also have a memorable porch for breakfast and aperitivi. No long lens in this shot—Rialto really is that close. The hotel has less than 10 rooms so it is lovely and intimate. We were lucky enough to have had the whole place to ourselves.

al Ponte Antico venice

The restoration from a nearly empty shell took years and unleashed all the monkeys in the zoo at the Venetian Planning Department. The two brothers who own the hotel were completely hands-on during the restoration and were joined daily by at least one Venetian official who watched over everything. One day they were painting the exterior wood trim of a multi-paned glass door overlooking the Grand Canal a certain city-approved shade of brown with a hint of red. On the inside the owner asked the painter to mix in a touch more of the red which they applied as a test to a small section of the door. The planning official then stopped work because the color had too much red. They offered to paint it over immediately with the approved color they were applying outside but the damage had already been done. All work on site was halted for two weeks and they had to pay a penalty. He recently received a certified letter saying that he must report to jail for the offense. This he shrugged off saying that the jail sentence would be reversed with yet another fee.

Good food in Venice is hard to find as so many restaurants are geared to tourists. We found Ai Mercanti in a tiny, nearly impossible to find square that offers innovative, local, and delicious food. And we discovered that even a stone’s throw away from the main tourist thoroughfares this area of Venice has its share of locals, quiet streets, and hauntingly beautiful canals.

The islands are always fun to explore and easy to access via the Vaporetto line 1. We headed out to Burano, nestled next to Torcello. Burano is a fishing village famous for its brightly painted houses and lace. The houses were even more vibrant in color than what I was expecting and a visual delight.

But what really made the trip special was a destination lunch at Venissa, which is on a tiny adjoining island accessible by footbridge. Venissa has a Michelin star and a large garden where they grow their own grapes for an acclaimed white wine. We ate next door to the one-star at their more casual Osteria Contemporanea.

Venissa Burano Venice

The tasting menu was diverse and delicious but most interesting were the paired wines—all whites— which were unusual and lovely. We’ve ended up tracking several down to have at home. Two of the four were from a small winery near Padova, Maeli, who takes advantage of their highly volcanic soil to produce some interesting sparkling wines featuring yellow Muscat grapes. We had their Dila Sparkling Wine and their Diloro Fior D’Arancio dessert wine—both fabulous—and I saw that they are available at a couple of US retailers. Maeli is headed by a woman winemaker, Elisa Dilavanzo, as is one of the other whites we loved, Arianna Occhipinti’s SP68 Bianco, from Sicily. Venissa has a small hotel and offers cooking and wine courses.

Venissa Burano Venice

July 4, 2021 In Best Of, Chow, Roam By Nancy

The Venice I love

When we first moved to Italy several years ago we lived in Venice for six weeks in August and ended up loving it more than ever. Several of you have asked for Venice advice so I thought it warranted a story. We love Venice, and feel protective of it, and want friends to experience the things that make it so special for us.

John rigged up a camera obscura in our rental apartment in Venice which projected our small view of the Grand Canal on our wall.

No umbrellas:

Groups of tourists following umbrella-equipped guides has to be a feature of the inner circle of Hell. One of the keys to enjoying Venice is never to be where these groups are. That means sticking to neighborhoods during the day and exploring anywhere near the Piazza San Marco only at night. Once you leave the Stazione-Rialto Bridge-Piazza San Marco superstrada of humanity you can get into neighborhoods and experience a whole different Venice. Piazza San Marco is ravishing at night, and it’s even worth it to splurge on the most expensive coffee you will ever have and sit at Caffè Florian at least once. The only time I’d recommend breaking the Piazza San Marco only-at-night rule is for the Secret Itineraries Tour at the Doge’s Palace, where you go into some special places in the Palace—including where Casanova was held prisoner, and inside the Bridge of Sighs. (If you book through the museum it’s half the price of doing it through a private tour, but places fill up fast.)

Our hood:

We love the Dorsoduro area near the Accademia museum. With quiet streets, interesting stores, and cafes and restaurants that have more locals it was an easy place for us to feel at home and we’ve returned many times. We lived near Campo San Barnabas and Campo Santa Margherita, both of which are lovely places to linger. There’s a university right by Campo Santa Margherita so it has a nice student vibe in addition to the local families with kids playing soccer.

Campo Santa Margherita:

—Caffè Rosso (photo above) on Campo Santa Margherita—no formal name, just a red painted facade with white “Caffe” painted over the door. It’s my favorite place to have a Spritz (the classic Venetian cocktail with Aperol, soda water, and prosecco) in the afternoon.

—As you face Caffe Rosso, several doors to the left, there is a place with a floor lamp placed outside, and a little white dog, called Osteria alla Bifora. The space is beautiful with ancient beams and it has a nice selection of simple things to eat. The tagliere (literally “cutting board”) of prosciutto, salumi, and cheese was our dinner many a night.

—Pizza Volo is great, and take out only, if you are in the mood to get a slice and sit in the piazza.

Campo San Barnaba:

— In Campo San Barnaba, there’s a little street that leads off the square called Calle Lunga San Barnaba which has several of our favorite restaurants. A famous one, 4 Feri just went out of business due to Covid and a rent dispute, but fortunately the next door restaurant, La Bitta, another of our favorites, is still going strong. A dessert that we make often—an amazing spice cake with hints of pepper, red wine, paprika, and cumin—is from this restaurant and the owner gave us the recipe.

— Ai Casin dei Nobili is good for pizza. They have a retractable roof over one of their dining rooms that is lovely on a hot evening. There’s also a branch on the Zattere.

— GROM ice cream on Campo Santa Barnaba is a chain, but really, really good.

—Between Campo Santa Margherita and Campo San Barnaba you pass over a canal on the Ponte dei Pugni, or ”Bridge of Fists.” They used to have fist fights between the youths of the two islands, outlawed in 1705, because of the injuries and fatalities.

—Here’s an extra credit, super great spot, if you can find it. If you cross the bridge slightly down from the entrance to Ai Casin dei Nobili, find the Calle dei Cherieri, and take it all the way to the end you’ll be on a dock on the Grand Canal, right at water level. I think it’s the most intimate view of the Grand Canal in Venice and a great place for a picnic.

Accademia:

—As you head back toward Accademia you need to find Ponte San Trovaso and Cantinone Gia Schiavi. It is one of the most famous places for bacari, also known as cicchetti, which are small, seasonal, freshly-made bar snacks and a large selection of wines by the glass, and grappa. Go around dusk when everybody gets a drink and cicchetti and hangs around outside. Alessandra, the mom, runs the place with her four sons. (This place just headlined a recent New York Times article. The other suggestions for cicchetti in the article look promising to investigate on my next trip.) There’s a boat yard opposite which is one of the last remaining gondola repair yards in Venice, which will be the topic of a future Itch.

Markets:

—I hate the crowds right by the Rialto bridge, but the outdoor market is invaluable for cooking in an apartment kitchen or provisioning a picnic. There are some high-end food stores in the area. Also, the produce boat parked at Ponte dei Pugni has a great selection.

I loved this lunch straight from the Rialto market.

Other parts of Venice, and islands:

—To go far off the tourist path take a vaporetto (line 12) to Torcello, the first of the inhabited islands of the Venetian lagoon. (Founded in 452—after Attila the Hun razed mainland villages. Most people left for other islands in the 1300s after malaria got too bad on Torcello.) There’s an inn and restaurant called Locanda Cipriani that is a fabulous destination for lunch. It was started by the founder of Harry’s Bar in 1935 and has been run by the family ever since. Ernest Hemingway lived there for a season while he wrote Across the River and Into the Trees. It’s a haunting, gorgeous, nearly deserted island with a beautiful “cathedral” from 639 with some lovely mosaics.

—The Jewish ghetto is interesting and there’s a famous Jewish restaurant Gam Gam. You can even get a table outside and eat right on the Canal Cannaregio. The streets in back of it are a quiet and haunting place to get lost.

— The Lido. Late one summer afternoon we decided to go for a swim and headed to the Lido. Very Italian scene—the beach is totally occupied by beach clubs with small bathing huts and chairs. Groups of families rent the same cabanas year after year, share the cost, and invite dozens of relatives and friends, so the beach was so crowded with towels, chairs, and people that we could hardly make our way to the water. We started swimming and by the time we turned around an hour later we were shocked to discover that the beach was empty. It was after 6pm and there is obviously an unspoken rule not to be on the beach after 6. That’s where we also started to notice that Italians love to do things in packs. Why go anywhere alone when you can go with a crowd?

—The Libreria Acqua Alta bookstore has ended up on a lot of “most beautiful bookstores in the world” lists on social media, but it is worth seeing in person if you love books. Plus, when we were there one of its fabulous cats was standing guard over an honest-to-GodREAD MORE