Italy Beyond the Obvious

Meet the locals, but share your perspective, too

 

Mingling with locals definitely brings a foreign destination to life, but there's one thing no local has: your perspective. They will never know that you love cobblestones unless you tell them.

 

When I was in high school, our family hosted 2 girls from Yokohama, Japan. I showed them Edmonton's main sights, and we compared daily life in Canada and in Japan. One weekend, we took them to the Rocky Mountains. Breathtakingly spectacular, we promised. But unfortunately I knew the five-hour drive all too well: endless horizon-to-horizon wheat fields punctuated by a few grain elevators and random smatterings of cows and horses. It was mind-bogglingly boring.

 

But the minute we left the city limits, my Japanese friends were glued to their passenger windows. For five hours, they photographed wheat fields, grain elevators, trees, the sky, the clouds and who knows what on earth else. They exclaimed again and again, "the sky! The sky is so big!". I'd never noticed. But when I visited them in Japan, I understood: the sky over Tokyo definitely seemed smaller. 

 

The main tourist attractions are worth seeing, and the locals can add depth to your experience. But share your perspective with them, too. And if your most memorable moments after a day in Rome include the street signs and door knockers, that's okay. Share it with a local and help them see their own city in a different light.

 

Photo of poetry in the winter sky in Turin by Madeline

 

This post has been entered into the Grantourismo HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition

Italian Notebook: Look Down

Welcome, Italian Notebook readers!

 

Not tripping over cobblestones is a good reason to look down when in Italy, but that's not the main reason I suggest keeping your eyes on the ground every now and then. Check out the short piece I wrote for Italian Notebook for more.

Photo by Degia

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Five impressive trompe l'oeil in Italy

Trompe l'oeil is a French phrase meaning to trick the eye, so artists have used this technique for centuries to create the illusion of space or depth. The seaside town of Camogli is famous for its trompe l'oeil windows, but there is a lot of significant trompe l'oeil art in Italy, so I've picked five of Italy's most famous. Take note, because you could easily walk by any of these and not realize your eye was being tricked.

These are especially good to add to an Italy itinerary when traveling with kids, because they're quicker to visit than a museum, and because kids love trying to figure out the trick.

 

1. Ceiling of Sant'Ignazio in Rome is full of trompe l'oeil done by Andrea Pozzo. Both the dome (photo below) and the ceiling (photo above) were created to give the eye the illusion of depth where there is very little. There are even marble markers on the floor of the church so the viewer knows exactly where to stand for the best perspective. 

 
 

2. Palazzo Spada, Rome This trompe l'oeil sculpture was done by Francesco Borromini. The floor is actually inclined, and the columns decrease in size, making the distance between the viewer and the sculpture seem 37 meters (121 feet) long when in reality the distance is just 8 meters (26 feet). The statue seems life-sized to the eye, but it's only 60 cm (23 inches) tall. 

3. Villa Farnesina in Rome's Trastevere neighborhood is famous for its art, including some by Raphael. But it also houses a well-known trompe l'oeil done by artist Baldassare Peruzzi: standing in the correct spot, you'll see a window with pillars at the end of the room. Move a few inches away and you'll change the perspective and realize it's not a window at all, but a painting. 

4. Mantua's Ducal Palace houses a trompe l'oeil oculus done by Andrea Mantegna, in the Camera degli Sposi (Bridal Chamber).

 

5. House of the Vetti in Pompeii has three trompe l'oeil windows.

Any I've missed?

Church of San Ignacio dome from Wikimedia commons; ceiling by Xuvira; Palazzo Spada photo by Anthony Majanlahti; Villa Farnesina by @@@@@; Mantegna in Mantua by Kilo'; Photo of Pompeii by Callicrates2003. 

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Le Gattare: Caretakers of Italy's stray cats

 

If you've been to Rome, you may have noticed the stray cats hanging out in the Colosseum or the Forum. Maybe you even visited the cat sanctuary located in Largo di Torre Argentina (photo above), where cats have called home since its excavation in 1929. Look for the cats, however, and you may spot a gattara, or volunteer cat caretaker. Historically older women, the gattare have been around as long as the stray cats, and I've noticed that recently they seem to be getting more positive attention, and not just in Rome. 

In the city of Monza, outside of Milan, a new course is being offered starting May 12th, to teach potential new gattare - or "feline colony tutors" - what and when to feed stray cats, how to treat an illness, and who to contact if the cats get sick, among other things.

The city of Genoa actually does a cat census, and estimates that there are tens of thousands of stray cats in the city, and 700 volunteer gattare. This article explains (in Italian) that the city thinks it's important to care for stray cats since their health or illness affects that of both animals and people in the city.

And, for Italians living near stray cats but not near a course offered on how to care for them, they can buy a Manual for Gattare (in Italian). 

It's noticing details like this that I think adds a level of richness to a visit to Italy, so keep your eye out and see if you can spot a gattara on your next trip!

Photo of Torre Argentina by Xiquinhosilva

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Four reasons to take photos of Italian signs

 
 

Signs are one of those things we rely on and use constantly, but as tourists we often don't see them as a photo opportunity. Here's why I think you should snap a few photos of signs on your trip to Italy:

• you'll be hearing Italian all around you from the minute you get off the plane until the minute you get back on, and it can be tiring navigating a foreign language 24/7 - but when you get home I can almost guarantee you'll miss hearing it. Taking photos of Italian signs is a great way to infuse your photos with the Italian language.

• It's a great way to record cultural differences. For example, take a photo of the sign that said "chiuso" (closed) on the day you didn't know what to do when it seemed like everything was closed. Or just take photos of "pizzeria" or "bar" signs. I found this sign so culturally interesting that I wrote a blog post about it.

• If you're driving in Italy, of course you'll need to show your friends back home some of the different road signs you had to deal with, and the useful way they are color-coded.

• There are lots of pretty signs worth a photo. Made of marble, carved in wrought iron, or made of mosaics.

If you're on Facebook and you understand Italian, you'll be rolling on the floor laughing at this collection of hilarious and odd Sicilian signs!

This post is part of Delicious Baby's Photo Friday - go check out the other photos!

Photo of Attenti al Cane (Beware of dog) by Sanjay

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9 Things to do in Italy When Everything is Closed

Maybe your trip to Italy coincides with a national holiday, and you're wondering what to put on the itinerary that day. Maybe you're in Italy as you're reading this, ran behind schedule this morning, and hit the middle-of-the-day pausa, when (seemingly) everything closes for 4 hours. Whatever the reason, it's somewhat likely that during your Italy vacation you'll have planned to do something, you'll show up, and it will be closed. So, what to do? 

  
 1. Visit stores which have orario continuato, meaning they do not close for the lunch time pausa. Big department stores like La Rinascente or Coin are good candidates here. Or, visit an outlet mall, which have orario continuato and many are even open on holidays.

2. Walk into any high-end hotel and ask the concierge for suggestions. I've done this many times, and have always found them pretty helpful. It doesn't matter whether you're staying at the hotel. Or more accurately: no need to mention you aren't. 

3. Sit and observe: pay attention to detail. People-watch, ideally sitting in one of the main squares of the city.

4. Ride public transportation: trams, buses and trains can give a unique perspective on a city. This is particularly a good one for kids.

5. Window shop in bakeries to decide what you're going to try later.

6. Get lost. This is an activity I recommend for small Italian towns (and for Venice, Florence and Bologna in particular) even when things are open. Explore small Italian streets and soak up the atmosphere. Then use your map to get found again.

7. Visit a park. 

8. Do a walking (or wandering) tour to admire outdoor architecture, fountains, sculptures, and squares in the city, using recommendations from your guidebook and a map. Do a Rick Steeves walking tour or purchase an audio tour of Rome, Venice or Florence from LoDingo.

9. Take photos (or help the photographer you're traveling with.)

Do you have any other suggestions for how to spend time in Italy when everything appears to be closed? I'd love to hear them!

Photo by Sanjay

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The best graffiti in Italy

Rule #38 of Robert Reid's "44 Little Travel Rules No One Tells You" is to take photos of things that might change. I couldn't agree more (and I wish I had photos of the pink snakeskin fashion craze that hit Milan in 2001!) A fabulous subject in this category is graffiti. Pay attention to graffiti in Italy and you'll notice political themes, sports themes, the usual swear words, and my favorite: love graffiti. 

As someone who has had to scrub gang-related graffiti from my front fence here in Chicago, I don't condone graffiti per se - though street art is great - but where else in the world can you find graffiti about everlasting love?

 
 

I also find political graffiti interesting, though I'm sure a lot of it is over my head. But I'll include one example below of "good herbs / bad herbs". The lower symbol above the Erba Cattiva (bad herbs) is the political party Lega Lombarda.

And here's a photo of soccer graffiti, done by a fan of one of Milan's teams, Inter. 

I Love You photo taken in Lucca by Sanjay; Photo of bench by Auro; Photo of political graffiti by Gabba Gabba Hey; 

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3 Reasons to take food photos on vacation

Unless you're a foodie or a food photographer, you're probably like me (and most tourists), and put away the camera when food arrives on the table. Here are 3 reasons to document your gastronomic experience in Italy.

1) Recipes you can replicate at home are the best souvenir.

A lot of Italian food is really simple to make. Just by taking a photo of it, you can relive a part of your trip much later, and become a little bit more Italian. The salad below is a Sicilian salad of onions, oranges and olives, and you can literally see all the ingredients. Mix together a couple cut up oranges, some chunks of red onion, some olives, and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. Done. (I had intended post this recipe during the month of September, during the O Foods Contest for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, but alas.)

2) Food photos will help you remember other parts of your holiday.

When your vacation is long over, you'll look at the photo of the food and remember the restaurant, who you were with, the rest of the meal, and maybe even what you did that day. The Sicilian salad is from our honeymoon, and whenever I make it, I'm reminded of Syracuse, the view from our table, and of course the time we spent in Sicily.

I've probably been to hundreds of pizzerias in Italy, but when I look at the photo of the pizza below, I remember the specific pizzeria I was at in Turin, the girlfriends I was with, and the strange movie we saw afterwards.

 

3) It's a great way to get to know the locals.

Italians love talking about food. In fact, if you meet an Italian you'd like to get to know better, male or female, young or old, food is pretty much a slam-dunk subject of conversation. The photo below reminds me of a long conversation I had with the fishmonger at a local market. I was daunted by all the different types of fish, didn't know what they were (and my dictionary was no help), and least of all how to cook them. The fishmonger gave me a few ideas, recipes I still use today. 

Trout: buy the whole fish as shown below, already cleaned & de-boned. Open, add some olive oil, some lemon juice, fresh herbs like oregano or thyme, close. Wrap each fish in foil, and bake 13 minutes at about 350 degrees.

And once, a friend's mother made a delicious chocolate cake, so I asked her for the recipe. "I could give it to you", she said, "but it wouldn't help. Your oven is different, your cake pans are different. It took me 7 years to experiment with this cake and get it the way my mother used to make it."  I wish I had a photo of that cake but it was gone by the time I remembered my camera. But the photo that got away led to such an interesting - and typically Italian - conversation.

All photos by Madeline

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Why are there holes in Italian buildings and towers?

As a tour guide in Italy, I got this question pretty frequently from travelers who paid attention to architecture. The photo below is of the clock tower in Verona. If you look closely, you'll see that the tower is full of little black squares. They're sort of holes, but they don't go all the way through. They're in most towers, and in the unfinished parts of many churches. Do you know why they are there? Post in the comments, and I'll update this post in a couple days with the answer if it hasn't been posted.

Here's another photo where you can see the holes, in the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna.

See more photos at Delicious Baby's Photo Friday

Update, October 17th:

Thanks so much for all the thoughtful and imaginative comments! Let's take the towers first....

Dominique is correct in saying that the holes were slots for some sort of insert. In fact the holes were used for the scaffolding during construction. When the tower was completed, the scaffolding was removed, leaving behind the holes. Medieval towers were built as lookout posts, and their height reflected the power of the family or clan who built them (who would also want to reattach scaffolding and build the tower higher whenever they could afford it).  Most were not designed to be decorated with prettier stone, unlike church facades. 

Here's another photo, of two of the many towers in Bologna.

As for the church façades, I had to go do a little research! 

I had always assumed that the holes in churches and the holes in towers were both due to scaffolding, but after reading the comments below, it seemed logical that holes may have been for attaching the façade to a church. Rene is correct that most brick church façades were intended to be covered with prettier stones at some point. And it is true that marble and iron (and more) were pillaged from buildings. But after some internet research, I found nothing about the method of attaching church façades, and nothing about the reason behind the holes or indentations in unfinished church façades. 

So I can't say for certain what the holes in unfinished church façades were for. Since they are the same size, shape, and have more or less the same spacing as those in the towers, it makes sense they would have been for scaffolding too. (And on the unfinished façade of San Mercuola in Venice, the holes start at about 8 feet high, a logical place for scaffolding to start.) But I am now very curious, so please post if you find a good link on this!

Photo of Verona clock tower by Sanjay, photo of San Petronio by Il Cama (crop by me); photo of Bologna towers by Sanjay

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Unfinished Churches in Italy: Lessons in Project Management

Imagine leading a project involving hundreds of workers, no email, lots of big egos, and with a timeline of several hundred years. And yet many such art & architecture projects have been very (!) successfully completed in Italy over the last several thousand years (hence: appreciative tourists). But it does make sense that some projects wouldn't be as well executed as others: political errors, funding challenges, or a change in management could cause a building to remain half-finished. All of which means: you can't necessarily judge a church by its façade. The churches below are very impressive on the inside but with façades that took the hit from project management errors.

1. "What Was the Plan Again?" San Lorenzo in Florence

Begun in 1419, this church is attributed to the famous architect Brunelleschi, but due to a change in management and a lack of funds, the only part of his design that was actually implemented is the transept. Then, 100 years into the project, Michelangelo was commissioned by the Pope to design a façade out of white marble, which he did, but (as you can see) was never added. Michelangelo did however build an internal façade, and funds are currently being raised to complete the external façade according to his specification.

2. "Can't Come to Work, I've Got the Plague": San Fortunato in Todi, Umbria

Construction of this church started in 1292 but was stopped when the plague hit in 1348. The lower part of the façade was finished 100 years later. The art and wooden choir inside are worth a visit. Okay I guess when your whole team and your whole backup team are sick with the plague, it's more unlucky than bad planning. But they still didn't manage to finish the façade after everyone got healthy. 

3. "It Was Nobody's Fault" 

Neither English nor Italian Google could help me find out why the façades of these significant churches were never finished (if you know please share!):

• The church of Sant'Anastasia (photo) is Verona's largest church and is considered the city's best example of Gothic architecuture.

• The church of San Marcuola in Venice (photo above) has two incredible Tintoretto frescoes as well as sculpture worth seeing on the altar.

• Santa Maria delle Carceri in Prato (photo), Tuscany was built in the late 15th century after a painting of the Virgin Mary on one of the walls of the local prison became animated. The inside has stained glass by Ghirlandaio and glazed ceramics by Andrea della Robbia.

• The Basilica di San Clemente in Santa Maria dei Servi (photo), Siena was begun in the 13th century and altered in the 15th and 16th centuries. Inside it has frescoes, a 13th century holy water stoup, and a 14th century crucifix.

4. "Oops I Ticked Off the Pope": Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna

 

Construction of this Basilica began in the 14th century and lasted several hundred years. Then 120 years into the project, the city of Bologna decided the Basilica could rival St. Peter's in Rome, in size, footprint, and ornamentation. The building project immediately lost the support of the Pope, and the proposed Latin cross design was never finished, so the church is in the shape of a T. And none of the many proposals for finishing the façade were accepted. 

However the church has still had a long and important history. And when you visit the inside, you'll see that it had a big (just not big enough) budget: there are incredible stained glass windows, marble walls and ornamentation, two organs, frescoes, an amazing altar, the longest sundial in the world. All this, and a capacity of 28,000 people.

Photo of San Petronio by Il Cama; Photo of San Lorenzo by Rogilde; Photo of San Fortunato by Gaspa; Photo of San Marcuola by Steve Knight

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