Trip to Italy - Part 1
Did you guys watch that short series on CNN, “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy”? It was literally the one thing my husband and I looked forward to all week long. We would wait until our baby went to bed to have our dinner (a guilty pleasure… wild, right?), open a bottle of Chianti and enjoy it while silently drooling watching the show. It was soothingly entertaining - the kind of innocent joy you feel when you watch The Great British Baking Show. It was packed with regional history (think: the wine windows of Firenze) and culinary masterpieces created with the simplest of ingredients. I just read that the series got picked up for a second season (!!!!!!!), but not until 2022 (likely until travel becomes less restricted).
So, to fill the gaping void in my week, I thought I would start blogging about my trip to Italy 4 years ago. I wish I knew then that 4 years later I would sit behind a computer screen recounting my visit to 3 cities - Rome, Siena and my Dad’s hometown of Montepaone in Calabria - because I would have journaled my entire trip. I should have done that anyway. But since photography is such a natural part of my day and especially my vacations, I’m lucky to have enough photographic content to jog my memory and to give you robust content.
What inspired me to even book the trip was my cousin, Stefania. She was traveling there with her parents for a few weeks in the Summer of 2017 and hinted (probably less discreetly than a “hint” implies) that I should consider it. I remember sitting at my desk at work, texting my husband basically saying, “wtf not?” We really didn’t have any excuse to not go. We lived a modest life, lived in an apartment at the time with no kid and no dog and we both had been dying to go. But probably like many people, we always considered it more of a dream than a realistic vacation.
For me, it seemed important that I make the trip. My dad grew up in Southern Italy in a village called Montepaone. Growing up, I never went. For one reason or another, it just didn’t happen. But in 2017, I found myself to be a 29 year old married adult who could make the decision to go on her own (well, with her hubs). So after not-a-whole-lot of debate, we bought the tickets. God, it felt good to know that we were actually going to be there. In Rome, walking through the Colosseum. In Siena, driving through the Tuscan countryside visiting wineries. And finally, in my dad’s hometown, walking the streets he ran as a kid.
Saying I couldn’t wait would be the understatement of the century.
A daily snack during our 12 day trip to Italy in 2017.
