Spending time in Italy has been on my mind for quite some time. Was it always Italy? No. but it was always somewhere. In fact, Italy sort of grew on me since my first – well, longest – exposure to Italians was in Toronto. Toronto where Italian was the second most spoken language for many years before the massive immigration of those from Asia. I’d go to Little Italy and look for restaurants, always ending up in small, hole in the wall, eateries.
I’d check the windows to see the garish furniture and knick knacks on sale. I’d wonder at the old fashionedness of it all and I found the bits of it I did like – like some of the pizza, hot veal sandwiches from San Francesco (unheard of in Italy, it turns out) and brio, a popular Canadian sort of Chinottto. Walking around the streets of Little Italy, I’d marvel at the vines and vegetable gardens, the over the top decorations (especially at Christmas) and dodge the speeding, honking cars along with the inevitable yelling, always in Italian. I thought it all rather interesting but definitely not aspirational.
My first visit to Italy was to Rome. A friend had rhapsodised about it. There are things I remember about it. The terrible hotel – it looked promising on the surface but failed in so many ways including never making up the room even when I deliberately piled the linen on the floor only to have to make my bed with it later that night. The beggars, especially around the Vatican, eyes cast down, heads bowed, bodies almost bent double as if in supplication, hands outstretched. Just creepy rather than sad. I remember the tiny buses scurrying along the little streets in the older town, everybody surging for a spare seat. Finding out that the food wasn’t that great – what?? The terrible stink of the Tiber. The absolutely astounding sight of the pillars in the square at the Vatican and the joy of finding cheesy papal mementoes in the little shops there. But this sounds mostly negative so I’ll give you my best memories.
Discovering Trastevere – if I ever return to Rome, I shall head straight there. While in Trastevere, I found a street named for my dad (not really but I liked to think so) and an absolutely terrible but wonderful little band played a particularly corny Italian song as we ate our lunch there. The complete surprise of the Trevi Fountain – suddenly there after a narrow alley leading to it – at the side of a small square, absolutely dominating the space. And finally late one night returning to the hotel, a little partly sunken room with just a table and a bank of bread ovens and there in the centre, a baker dressed in a white vest, white shorts and a big white apron making bread for the morning, the floor completely dusted in flour. If only I had taken a photo. This was the star moment.
And the food – pizza, pasta, pizza, pasta, rinse and repeat. Some friends have told me ‘and what’s wrong with that?’ Nothing too much, I suppose, but this constant diet didn’t suit me. Yes, there were ‘secondi’ – meat or fish, but they seemed overcooked and overpriced. One day we ordered fish cooked to order only to discover that it was priced by the gram. It cost a fortune in the days when money was so scarce.
Mostly Rome was crammed with tourists. They were everywhere. They were loud. They got in the way. They meant I couldn’t really see anything. After all I wasn’t a tourist…was I? Sadly, a visit to Venice some years later proved the same. Tourists! I joked that it was really Epcot (not that I’ve ever been there).
Speaking of tourists, let’s talk about Venice. It’s an amazing city. I was captured by its canals and quiet side streets. The fish market was just outside and we found some wonderful tomatoes. The food was tourist hell and yes, the tourists. They were everywhere. They crowded the streets, the bridges, the courtyards outside the restaurants, the shopping streets. The gondolas and grand and small canals were there as promised but the tourists made it impossible to enjoy them. And yes, I was one of them.
Florence wasn’t so full of tourists in those days and here I finally found a city I could enjoy. I liked the university area and the Duomo which was so dominant in an otherwise narrow space. I enjoyed looking at the river and finding old buildings with beautiful inner courtyards. I had been watching David Rocco’s (a Canadian chef) Dolce Vita about this time living and cooking in Florence and read his sound suggestions about what to see and where to eat. The gem was Rocco Trattoria – basically a large stall space inside the Mercato San Ambrogio. The tomatoes simply stewed were magical, the tripe delicious, the lasagne tender and savoury. A standout meal for next to nothing. We had broken the pizzapasta circle.
Italy had won me over.
It was time to try somewhere new, so I did.
First it was Genoa. We stayed in an ultra modern flat complete with displayed scooter – in the middle of the old town. Contrast! Downstairs in the late evening the noise began – the bar filled with people who yelled loudly till the morning hours. Annoying yes but said something about the culture of this otherwise quiet town. Sadly I got a chest cold while there. I was stuck in front of Italian television for four of our seven days. What I do remember loving is: The first taste of Genovese trofie (a hand twisted pasta) topped with loads of the best pesto I’ve ever eaten. It’s never been equalled. We went to the market and saw the bunches of Genovese basil – such small fragrant leaves compared to what we used to in Toronto and in the London shops. As well, I was fascinated by the red light district. This was nothing like Amsterdam. Many young South American women dressed up and loitered outside what turned out to be tiny rooms that opened directly to the narrow streets. The rooms had a large bed and nothing much else. I also saw some elderly ladies – madams or still working girls, not sure. I could spend hours here observing this side of human nature.
My friend, Esmeralda, had gone to Bologna to teach and so it seemed an obvious choice. Bologna turned out to be a small but interesting city, dominated by its university (or so it seems). I liked how small and navigable it was. I also liked the old churches – I somehow enjoy churches better when they are plain and if crumbling. Bologna delivered. Mortadella (= baloney) was everywhere but mostly used inside the ubiquitous tortelloni. I didn’t like the salty taste. At dinner with Esmeralda, I had an osso buco that was nothing I was used to – a slippery sort of scrappy meat – oh well, then. Then one night before dinner four of us went to prosseco and the display of aperitivo was stunning. Why oh why did I eat dinner afterwards – although it was house made pasta so who can complain?
Then it was Naples. My dear friend, Denise and her husband David had gone there several times and raved about it. Naples was not as crazy as I was led to believe in my readings. Sure, it had a somewhat dangerous, renegade quality but it intrigued me. I spent ages watching the motorcycles speeding along the narrow streets outside our window. I watched them weave and dodge each other and the pedestrians. Some of the riders were very young and sitting with them often even younger children. It was like they were born there, like mermaids in the sea, only on land and as at home on the saddle as the mermaids under the water.
My love for dereliction was well satisfied too. I’d not seen anything like the expanse of slum dwellings and little flats whose front rooms opened right onto the street – there’s a name for those, which I shall find and add later. My friend, Melida’s father was born in Sanita so I knew I needed to go there, although it was clear no tourists strayed onto these streets. No really memorable meals in Napoli – only pizzas, pastas and surprisingly nice sushi meal with my niece, Adrianna. What I do remember is the fried foods – fritti misti – arancini and the like. And yes, that bay is gorgeous to look at, breathtaking in fact.
I had resisted the idea of Pompeii but decided to go there. The journey was on a packed train, a rickety old thing that climbed up to the ruins past some broken down neighbourhoods. It was raining that day and Pompeii didn’t have its best face on. I just found myself fascinated by the idea of this place having been vital and thriving amost two thousand years ago before life was wiped out there. I could almost picture the homes still intact and the children running over the cobblestones and the men finding their way to the brothels, clearly signposted with a carving of a penis. Why not? Maybe I’ll go back on a sunny day. Maybe.
