tennis & travel

Nothing is sweeter for me than the intersection of clay court tennis and Rome, Italy.

Today Rafa Nadal won the 7th Internazionali BNL d’Italia (Rome Masters) title defeating Roger Federer 6/1 6/3 in 1 hour and 9 minutes.

The Rome Masters (officially called the Internazionali BNL D’Italia) is held at Foro Italico, the most prestigious red clay tennis tournament in the world after the French Open. Tennis lovers pack the stadium. The fans are given white Panama-style hats and paddle hand fans to beat the heat  – so chic and totally expected for a mostly Italian and fashion-loving audience.

Foro Italico, Rome

Clay courts are found mainly in Europe. When I lived in Italy, I took lessons and played at the clay courts of Rimbalzello near Gardone Riviera on Lago di Garda. Italians are crazy for tennis although the sport is a bit ”snob” with limited public access to free courts like in the States.

Europhiles have huge opportunities to combine both travel and tennis. The European tour features matches in Spain, Germany, Italy and France.

You can also go there virtually. I recently subscribed to tennistv.com for a little over 16 euros a month to watch matches live on my computer. This morning I got a special treat listening Nadal speak quite good Italian during award presentations (Bravo Nadal!), as well as to the Italian judges and award presenters. Language lovers will appreciate this aspect of Tennis TV, which also offers some nice video clips on European life.

What’s next? Brussels, Nice, Strasbourg. Then clay will turn to grass with June’s Wimbledon. Non vedo l’ora!

tagliatelle tonight

Say what you will, but I’m a fan of Giada De Laurentiis, the Italian-American chef, cookbook author and TV personality of Everyday Italian on Food Network Television.

Born in Rome and living in L.A., she’s bursting with celebrity blood  – her mother was an Italian actress and her father a producer/actor. Remarkably, her maternal grandfather was film producer Dino De Laurentiis, and if you watch a Fellini classic like La Strada, you will see his name in the credits.

Her TV cooking show features a variety of foods she grew up with and I have found the most inspiration in her simple and flavorful pasta recipes.

On deck for this week:

Tagliatelle with Smashed Peas, Sausage and Ricotta Cheese

1 pound fresh or dried tagliatelle pasta (or other wide, long pasta )

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 pound hot Italian sausage

1 pound frozen peas, thawed

1 cup whole milk ricotta cheese

1 bunch fresh basil leaves chopped (about 3/4 cup)

1/4 cup fresh grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1 teaspoon salt

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 to 10 minutes if dry or according to package directions if fresh. Drain pasta reserving 1 cup of the pasta cooking water.

Meanwhile, in a large, heavy skillet heat the olive oil and garlic over medium-high heat and add the sausage. Use a wooden spoon to break up the sausage into bite-sized bits. When the sausage has browned, about 5 minutes. Remove and set aside. Add the peas to the pan and, using the back of the wooden spoon, smash the peas. Turn off the heat. Add the ricotta cheese along with the cooked pasta and toss to coat, adding the pasta cooking water in 1/4 cup additions, if needed, to make the pasta moist. Return the sausage to the pan. Add the basil, Pecorino Romano Cheese and salt. Toss gently to coat and serve immediately.

recipe and photo credit: TV Food Network, Everyday Italian

i dolomiti

The Dolomites, or i Dolomiti in Italian, the breathtaking mountain range in the Trentino - Alto Adige region of northeastern Italy, is  one of my favorite places to visit. While not what most North Americans expect in Italy, this region feels most certainly its geographic position on the crossroads of Italy and Austria. When we lived nearby at Lago di Garda, we took day trips to Trento or weekends up to Bolzano. We hiked near Canazei and took in the panorama of the alps at the Sass Pordoi.

I have sentimental reasons for loving this place too. My favorite wine of the Dolomites is maker Mezzacorona .  I like their white wines, particularly their Pinot Grigio which I can find in my local market in Northern California. If you are in the area, take their informative - and fun – wine tour where you can learn about winemaking in the region, and have the opportunity to taste a wide range of their quality wines. The facility is modern and artistic.

In fact, it was this entertaining  wine tasting experience at Mezzacorona followed by a carpaccio dinner in the nearby city of Trento, that has become a memorable family story. (I found out the next day I was four weeks pregnant with our daughter. I can assure you that sparkling wine and raw meat didn’t harm her!).

Trento is never far from my heart and mind. My wedding band is from Trento’s historic city center by a  jeweler founded in 1872, Gioielleria D. Cortelletti.

Trento

During the winter Trento has some of the best known and beloved Christmas street markets. We especially loved to visit during this time. There we found a wide variety of sausages (like what you’d typically find in Germany or Austria) and delicious soup mixes for sale.

Bolzano farther north, was well worth the extra time in the car to visit. Its mediaeval city center, churches and castles – and mix of Italian and Austrian influence -give the city a unique flavor.

Bolzano

One of our all-time favorite trips was staying at an inn at Cortina d’Ampezzo near Canazei - long known as a winter sports center – in the northern region of Alto-Adige and hiking the upper part of Val di Fassa.

Cortina d’Ampezzo

We visited off season and hiked in unbelievably remote and beautiful parts. We rested our feet at an outdoor cafe clinging to the edge of a mountain. We took the funivia (cable car) to the unforgettable Sass Pordoi, called the terrazza or terrace of the Dolomites , at 2,950 meters. (We purchased jackets from a wise man selling them before our ascent.) It has one of the most spectacular panoramas of the alps!

At almost 3,000 meters at sass pordoi overlooking the alps.

The Trentino - Alto Adige region of Italy - its people, food and culture – may not remind you of the Italy you are accustomed to visiting or hearing about – but it is well worth adding to your itinerary. In fact, it couldn’t be more what Italy truly is, a mix of diverse cultures and history.

ave maria di lourdes

I’m convinced that you can relive memories through your senses more accurately than flipping through a photo album.

When our kids are asked what they remember most about our summer trip to Italy, they often say the taste of rich gelato. More recently, my daughter mentions the memory and sound of bells chiming from church towers.

I know exactly what day she is remembering. We were staying in the hills just south of Florence taking a walk overlooking the olive trees surrounding our apartment.

A nearby church tower began chiming. Then another joined in from farther away. And another. They played off each other and continued for a good five or ten minutes. The bell chimes bounced off the distant hills and filled the air. This chorus of bells against a backdrop of silence stopped us in our tracks as we listened. When my husband and I lived in Italy, the sounds of church bells were an everyday occurrence – we hardly noticed some days. But on that day it was a beautiful and memorable shared experience between mother and daughter.

My daughter’s memory reminds me that I do miss the church bells. I don’t hear them at home. When we lived in Italy,  the local town church chimed an unfogettable and beautiful song only on Sundays. So over the years, I’d often sit on our balcony high up on the hill and listen. I knew I could count on hearing it each week. My mother recognized the song as ”Ave Maria di Lourdes” because she listened to it as a child growing up in Germany. To confirm it was the song, I found a version on youtube.  Take a listen and perhaps it will take you back to a country or time that is special to you.

travel is the best investment for kids

It’s back to school time and I agree with whoever said public schools should sponsor and promote ‘travel teams’ much like sports teams, because of the  life lessons the act of traveling provides young people. Our trip to Italy earlier this summer has left a lasting impression on our two children and reinforced a key family value of the importance of exposing them to different cultures from an early age – even if it’s a trade-off to a bigger house, newer appliances or a nicer car.

Stazione Santa Lucia, Venice

Read about my tips on traveling in Italy with kids here through my interview this month with travel, art and culture blog, This is My Happiness.

longtime love affair with the cinquecento

Let’s for a moment pretend I’m not a carpool mom of two active school-age kids, who require school drops offs and pick ups and rides to tennis and soccer and playdates. Let’s pretend my kids don’t also have friends who require drop offs and pick ups, and backpacks and sports equipment that require storing. Let’s just pretend.

If that were me, a non-carpool-driving, equipment-lugging mom, then our next car would be, without doubt, the recently resurrected Italian-designed Fiat 500 –  or Fiat “cinquecento”as it’s called in Italy.

The new Fiat 500 in white available now in the U.S.

I, like many Europhiles, have seen these Italian iconic cars over the years when traveling there.

We’ve snapped photos and posed in front of them. They live in our scrapbooks now.

My scrapbooks over the years include photos of me posing in front of original Fiat cinquecentos when traveling in Italy.

If we could, we would tie our hair back in a scarf like Sophia Loren, slip our Armani sunglasses over our eyes and drive it home.

Now we can.

In this 2011 NY Times review of the Fiat 500,  we learn “the consensus of people I invited along as passengers was that traveling in the car made them feel young, sporty and ‘very European.’ And the arrival of such an economical car as gas prices flirt with $4 a gallon seems timely.”

A fun, new advertising campaign for the American market – “The Next Wave of Italians has Arrived” – was filmed on the Amalfi Coast and launched earlier this summer.

Small, sporty, affordable, European, easy parking?  At around $16,000? Forget the Honda Odyssey minivan that has taken over my town. Forget the kids (this time). We can use the other car for field and road trips.

 I’m not pretending.

Standing next to our friend’s red Fiat 500 in Tuscany a few months ago.

pirlo please

One of the first things I do when I’m in the Brescia area of Lombardy, Italy is order my favorite aperitivo Bresciano, a Pirlo. First, because it’s my all time favorite before-dinner cocktail. Second, because you can’t order a Pirlo by that name anywhere but in this province of Italy, as we learned when we lived there.

enjoying a pirlo - or spritz – in Italy this summer

First a bit of Pirlo trivia:

A Pirlo is not called a Pirlo anywhere outside of the Brescia province. It’s comparable to a Spritz in Venice.

It is not named after Andrea Pirlo, Italian soccer legend who played for Brescia. The name comes from the whirling, circular movement or “fall “of the campari or aperol when added to the base of white wine.

A Pirlo can be made with campari or aperol (I always choose aperol).

Brescians are passionate about their Pirlo. There is even a web site dedicated to the drink!

A Pirlo is a perfect, refreshing summer drink, in Northern Italy or out. Serve with some olives or patatine out on your deck or terrazza and enjoy. Cin Cin!

Pirlo Recipe

1/3 Prosecco or Brut  (a fizzy white wine)
1/3 mineral water (very fizzy)
1/3 Bitter Campari or Aperol
lots of ice and a slice of orange

photo credit: www.ilpirlo.com (cosi’ si beve a Brescia)

market day mementos

Inspired by ciao domenica blog’s recent post on bruschetta, I went to our local farmers market early yesterday morning to pick up some heirloom tomatoes and country bread for a batch of bruschetta I made for a party last night.

I have a confession to make. I can’t remember the last Saturday morning I was at our town’s excellent farmers market with its line up of local Northern California growers.  Why? Maybe when the weekend rolls around and I don’t have to take the kids to school,  the morning slips away. Or , with numerous local fruit stands,  picking patches and quality grocery stores, it would actually be hard not to buy fresh, local and organic.  (I know I’m lucky, my Canadian readers.)

In fact, I love visiting market days so much that when I’m traveling, I research the surrounding town market schedules and plan my itinerary accordingly. And, yesterday, somewhere between the heirloom tomatoes and the peaches, I was reminded of some of those market memories.

Earlier this summer when we were back in stunning Lago di Garda, Italy, we visited our favorite lake market in the town of Salo’.

prosciutto crudo at a good price at the market in Salo, Italy

It’s really a combination flea and food market. You can find underwear, Bialetti Mokas (we got one for 23 euros), cycling jerseys (husband got one), airplane gliders (son got one), a variety of meats and cheeses.

buying our mozzarella di bufala for the day’s lunch

Although we were nowhere near Campana in the south of Italy where fresh mozzarella di bufala comes from, we couldn’t help buy it to pair with tomatoes for lunch that day. (Northern Italy is closer to Campana than California at least and it was delicious.)  Back in California, my coffee poured out of our new moka each morning reminds me of our recent visit there.

I’ll also never forget visiting the Vucceria fish market many years ago in Palermo, Sicily.  This is a bustling market filled with smells and sounds including a dialect of Italian I couldn’t fully comprehend or speak. But the Vucceria is an exhilirating experience! Randomly, I have a hair bandana headband I picked up there that is stuffed in my closet and comes out from time to time at the beach. This great article describes Sicilian open air street markets.

Then there is my tablecloth from  Aix en Provence, France - which also has the most amazing open air markets. Olives, cheeses, meats, breads, housewares, linens, flowers, lighting, antiques and more.( The market at l’Isle sur la Sorgue is also well known for antiques). I have been to Aix twice and I would go back just for the markets. When I set our table – as I am about to in the above picture –  and lay out my tablecloth, I can see Aix!

olives in aix en provence

Market days are, for me, an essential part of exploring a village or city and an essential part of slow travel. Do you have a favorite market ?

my two favorite places to learn italian in italy

With an independent spirit, a love for European languages, culture and travel and a passport tucked in my back pocket, I have discovered the  valuable experience of participating in a language and culture program abroad.  Over the last 15 years and after much research, I had the opportunity to enroll at language schools in the beautiful cities of Siena in the Toscana region and Verona in the Veneto region.

Dante Aligheri Society of Siena

I enrolled in my first study abroad program when I was in my mid 20s. I left a career job to spend four months traveling in Europe, partly alone and partly meeting up with friends and family. For one month of the trip I enrolled in the distinguished Dante Aligheri Society in Siena. The program included daily morning language classes and afternoon cultural excursions. While I had the option to rent an apartment on my own or with classmates, I opted for a homestay with an Italian family – a good choice as it allowed me the experience of living with an Italian family and practice of the language.

Siena is a wonderful, awesome city full of history – really, strangely frozen  in time. An ideal place to study Italian language, history and art, the excursions to Siena’s old churches and private buildings normally not open to the public were worth the program cost alone.  I was there during the Palio horse race, and the family I was staying with  gave me an unforgettable  private tour of their contrada’s museum with items dating back many centuries.

palio horse race, siena

 

I also won’t forget the must-do-at-least-once-in-a-lifetime experience of seeing the Palio race while standing inside the piazza (worth the hours required to wait if you want a prime spot) or witnessing horses inside Catholic churches being blessed by priests before the race started as locals poured into the streets .  But don’t expect to immediately begin mixing with the locals. Siena locals or Sienese, to me, are quite reserved and I felt a distinct separation between students and residents.

Lingua It, Verona

Fast forward from Siena about ten years  and I find myself, in my 30s, living in Northern Italy not far from Verona, the beautiful city setting for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (the original “balcony” tucked in an alley is still a favorite of tourists).

juliet’s famous balcony in verona

By luck, I learn of the fabulous Lingua it Italian language school in Verona. There I took individual and group lessons on a weekly basis. Opened up by my Italian friend and his friends, the school has expanded from a wide range of language courses to guided tours and courses on art history, literature and cinema, cooking and more. Located in the historic center, Lingua it’s personable and passionate staff and my fellow students became  an extended family for me. In fact, the group of friends I met through this school eventually threw me a baby shower before my little girl was born. With the Roman Arena (we saw Aida there under the stars), symphonies at the local concert hall (Mozart once played there) to the numerous beautiful piazzas and gardens and nearby wineries, Verona has become one of my favorite cities in Italy.

Have you studied a language abroad? If so, where?  Do you have a favorite program to share?

Click here to learn more about the Dante Aligheri Society in Siena.

Click here to learn more about Lingua It in Verona.

Palio race picture credit: aboutsiena.com

la bella lingua

One of the best things about being back in Italy was speaking Italian again. Like riding a bicycle, words we haven’t spoken in years were plucked up from somewhere deep down, and we found ourselves effortlessly communicating again in our adopted language at dinner parties, restaurants and other countless conversations with old friends. My Italian isn’t too sophisticated –  I often take the easy road by constructing  sentences around the easier grammar tenses while my husband is much braver – but it was back. Using the formal Lei without a missed beat. Extending long greetings when you say goodbye to someone. Buon Giorno, salve, ciao, ci vediamo, grazie a lei, arriverderci, a  domani!  Getting in a heated argument- which feels even better in Italian - at the best place for a fight, a ticket booth line at an Italian train station. The Italian language is old, complicated, challenging, and different depending where in Italy you are  - but pays off as the most beautiful, expressive and delightful language to speak.

Confirming my love for the Italian language, I just finished “La Bella Lingua” by Dianne Hales.

“Learning a new language is like growing a new head…You see with new eyes, hear with new ears, speak with a new tongue.” – La Bella Lingua

  Right before our trip, I picked this book up at our local bookstore with the intimate knowledge that it’s always a gamble when choosing a novel from the travel section. But this is the real deal.

Ms. Hales has done her homework (and more). The book is a love story to the Italian language, providing anecdotes through her experiences living and traveling in Italy and pursuits in studying the language. Her über thorough research reveals interesting and little known aspects of Italy’s history, literature and culture, and demonstrates how several key Italians and scholarly groups - past and present – have contributed to helping the language develop and survive.  This book has inspired me to search at the local library for “The Divine Comedy” (or “Divina Commedia”)  by Dante Aligheri,  any film by De Sica, and the opera Madama Butterfly (which I was surprised to learn  opened in 1904 at Milan’s La Scala and bombed, then reopened in Brescia,  where we lived for several years, to then triumph in Paris and around the world!) 

Hales makes the point that while a unified Italy is fairly new, the Italian language  - which has served as  the great unifier – is very old. The 14th century dialect of Florence - the language of Dante Aligheri himself – is little changed and what is taught and spoken in Italy today.  English may be the language everyone needs to know, Hales writes, but Italian is the language people want to learn. With only 60 – 63 million native speakers Italian barely eclipses Urdu, Pakistan’s official language for 19th place as a spoken tongue. Yet Italian ranks fourth among the world’s most studied language. (Only four countries other than Italy recognize Italian as an official language.) The soaring popularity of the language is hardly surprising, she writes, with its exported food, fashion, art, architecture, music and culture … and I’ll add, Italian boyfriends.

For lovers of Italian – those of us who have lived or traveled to Italy and keep going back, who are fascinated with Italy’s history and culture and protagonists, and consider ourselves lifelong students of Italian,  ”La Bella Lingua” shares our passion and provides a new perspective and adventure through the world’s most enchanting language.

Next up: My favorite study Italian abroad schools in Italy