Italy Rules - Expanded

Spaghetti with Clams - Le Marche

What a wonderful and sometimes intense set of responses from my previous post - The Italy Rules. I want to take a little time today to expand and expound on some of my thoughts and provide further insight into traveling in Italy.

1. Italy Guides - Here is my short list of who I would travel with and why in Italy.

• The Rome Digest - This new and wonderful consortium of talented Rome guides includes my dear friend Katie Parla, who is my champion of all things Roman (pork, gelato, beer, wine, art, history, and life) If you are going to spend time in Rome, and you should, let the Rome digest draw a map for you

• Venice - Row Venice Nan McIlroy is one of the most knowledgeable people in Italy regarding living life, eating well, and getting out on the water. Don't pay 200 euro for a snooze on a gondola. Pay less and get out there and learn to do it yourself. Easily one of the greatest experiences I have ever had in Italy

• Tuscany - Judy Francini will cook with you and teach you what it means to truly experience life in Tuscany. Reach out to her. She has been cooking successfully for her Italian husband for years. She will teach you how to impress anyone.

• Puglia - this is a bit biased but I can vouch for the unbeatable quality of Southern Visions Travel. Antonello Losito leads this superior company leading the most authentic excursions into Italy's tastiest region. From 1 day to 1 month, these guys are amazing

• Le Marche - Mariano Pallottini - the best guides are sometimes not guides. For this truly under-the-radar region no one can show visitors the ropes like Mariano. Please tell him I sent you.

• Travel for Teens - If you would like to send your son or daughter on one of the most amazing experiences to be had. I strongly suggest using Travel for Teens. Managed and operated by a group of passionate, intelligent, and experienced men and women, TFT is the leader in volunteer and cultural travel in Italy for students. Ask for Ned or Nick and your young adult will be blown away

• For other Italian regions I have friends of friends and would be happy to do some research for you

2. Fashion - Italians for the most part are some of the finest dressers in the world. My initial post was not meant to imply they were not good as a whole. However, shitty fashion is a worldwide epidemic. I am guilty of lazy fashion choices more frequently than I care to admit. When Italians dress badly, they do it in typically grandiose furor. There is a store in Monopoli, Puglia called "Banana Store." I assume this is some sort of knockoff of Banana Republic as the clothes tend towards the tighter side, made for people with fine and youthful figures. However, the patterns are simply gaudy and the colors never really seen outside of an old Vegas casino. The parade of muffin-top women parading about in Banana Store attire, 2-3 sizes too small is rough on the eyes. I am confident that while conservative and boring in dress, those of us not up to the task of Valentino, Armani, Dolce and G, etc. can rest easy so long as the Banana Store is in business (and the many stores just like them in the bedroom communities up and down the boot).

[caption id="attachment_2138" align="alignnone" width="400"] The Castle of my Dreams[/caption]

3. Italian Driving - While the idea of driving in Italy scares the hell out of many American visitors, driving in Italy is actually about 20% less likely to result in a fatality than driving in the USA. Italians have very strict rules of the road for highway driving. There is absolutely no passing on the right and tractor trailers must drive only in the right lane and only at a lower speed than auto traffic (which is posted clearly on the back of the truck). While parking rules, signal regulations, and almost any rule inside a city zone are frequently fudged, the rules for the highway are followed in most cases and make for a much more predictable driving experience. I really enjoy driving in Italy and feel safer than I do driving in a place like Houston, for example. Italian bus drivers are simply extraordinary drivers. Watching them drive, gesture, smoke, chat, and flirt all without breaking a sweat taking a Pullman down a narrow alley or into the bowels of a vineyard is simply art.

4. Hope - Italy is in very desperate financial straits at the moment (like 20 years ago) and there is a grim light being cast upon the country in regards to its future. Many young people are jobless and without prospects for a decent wage. Government inefficiencies, crime, and corruption siphon enormous amounts of the country's GDP. Life goes on, and sometimes beautifully, in spite of this austere hell. My comments about this are not intended to suggest this is due to a lack of creativity in the Italian people. However, I will say it is up to the citizens of this important country to right the ship. Defeat is an ugly thing to witness when it comes at the hands of giving up. I believe in the Italians I know and love. I believe in the resiliency of this very talented people. I am an advocate for Italy when it seems there are few natives who are. Beat me up for my opinions on fashion, food, and driving, but do not accuse me of diminishing the chances of Italy because I describe life as chaotic. The Universe was born from chaos and so was the Renaissance. I return to Italy over and over not because I need a food fix, or a chance to play in the fields of folly and fantasy. I return to Italy year-after-year to experience living in a primordial space. I come to Italy to argue without offense, to dine with challenging people, and to grow as a person. I see the world more freshly every time I go and I have never lost my fervor for the peninsula in 20+ years of travel.

5. More Two Week Itineraries - This is where I am going to have some fun. Take a look at these if you want to explore some trips in the way of The Blissful Adventurer.

• Piedmont/Liguria - surprisingly this tremendously rich and hard-working region is not always on the traveler radar. Stay in the towns near Alba and explore Italy's finest red wines in Barolo and Barbaresco. These guys eat unpasteurized cheese any time of day. They have amazing local cows whose grass-fed meat is a dream served raw, and the prices to stay in amazing places like Villa Tiboldi are wonderfully cheap. If one must see the Cinque Terre (thanks again Rick Steves) then why not hike through there, then finish with pure luxury in Piedmont.

• Sicily - 2 weeks is such a brief time to experience the island which a friend once referred to as a "continent". Food: unreal, Wine: near the top on the planet these days. Weather: nearly tropical at times, People: alive and getting more alive with the growth of the economy (many would argue it is not growing but I believe it is really getting better). Land in Palermo and do the west. Go up to the Aeolian islands and sail out to active volcanoes. Make your way East and drink up the fine wines near Menfi or drink in the Tunisian culture in Mazara del Vallo. See the ruins of Selinunte and Agrigento before setting fire to it all on the slopes of Mt Etna. This is one of the greatest places on the planet to experience life.

• Sardinia - another island where 2 weeks is hardly enough. The bets pork I have ever eaten was here. The most dramatic contrast in life and landscape exists from the interior mountains to the sea only 1 hour away. Buy a knife, drink wines from vines older than the state of Alaska, and dip it all up with crispy flat-bread and the charming sounds of the local dialects. Sardinia is an Italy few see beyond the glitzy port towns. Get inside the island and you get inside another century. Take a boat there. Flying is boring and being on the open Mediterranean is a real high. Cagliari, Orgosolo, Orosei, Alghero, and Sassari offer the visitor a different view of the world in each stop.

• Puglia/Basilicata - I like to eat well and without blowing my entire bank account. I like to ride bikes through 1000 year old olive groves. I like grilled meats, pizza, and local beers. I like erudite nightlife and funky old towns. Puglia has it all. From the baroque of Lecce to the Sassi of Matera in Basilcata there is more to do and see along these southern regions than any guide-book can express.

These are my Italy rules expanded and I hope you continue to follow my Italian adventures.

Camaraderie -Postscript

Wow! The response I received from yesterday's post was amazing. I put out a bit of an open-door piece on personal feelings as a writer and I received such a supportive and candid set of responses I feel it necessary to keep the energy moving.

Before I dive into my thoughts for today, thank you all for being part of this. I enjoyed reading how many of you have experienced similar shifts in friends and social/work life over the years. It was fascinating to hear how some of you managed these shifts and how some of you continue to struggle.

Here is my take on yesterday's post.There is no such thing as a proximity friend. We are either friends or we are not friends. My frustration in this situation was much more with myself for being a poor judge of character. I take pride in my listening skills and my propensity for empathy. When I am wrong about someone it forces me to go back down the line of interactions and wonder where I stumbled. Usually I find I ignored a sign because I wanted the friendship or the job, in some cases more than I was willing to listen to the truth in my head.

I am not a hermit by any stretch of the imagination. My use of the word madness may have been a bit strong for such a serious piece. I used the term madness to express humor in my self-imposed isolation. Currently, I am teaching myself a level of discipline I have not had to possess in my life. I have chosen jobs at will and worked myself into the ground doing work for other people until a level of burnout then I would quit and try something new. Working for myself and creating a path into the darkest part of the forest requires the isolation I have self-prescribed. I am in this for ostensibly the rest of my life so I need a pace that will sustain itself. Having no forced work hours, no boss, and only loose deadlines makes self discipline paramount.

My hero, Joseph Campbell, went into the woods near Woodstock, NY and read alone for almost 5 years before he emerged. While I am not suggesting I go to that extreme I am easily distracted by human interaction and human observation. At this point in my life it is a struggle to be without it and yes, to take many of my readers' advice, I should get out to a coffee shop once in a while just to break the day. However, what I was suggesting I want was a bit of a pie in the sky scenario.

I would like to be in the company of like-minded friends and colleagues. I would love to put a few of my fellow bloggers in a wondrous writing space with me each day so that we could create and also interact. In essence, I want to be a writer on the Alan Brady show (and some of you actually think I am young). How great would it be if we could all have coffee, cook lunches, read, write, and bounce ideas? We could be a blog think-tank. I know this is not feasible so the isolation is part of the game at least for the time being.

Social media is not the devil as one of my readers put it. Without it I would have almost no chance to publish, I would never have reconnected with some wonderful people in the world, and I would not have developed and owned a successful travel business in Italy. Social media like alcohol, chocolate, and exercise can be overwhelming and all-consuming and must be consumed in moderation.

Perhaps I have been a bit all-consumed and at the same time I was recently bored out of my skull and wandering aimlessly towards my perceptions of joy without putting in the work. Being alone for a showman level of extrovert like me is misery. At the same time, I refuse to believe that it is not a misery of habit. I am willing and making strides to change my capacity to function without needing to periodically show off in the company of colleagues. What am I saying? I need this time to suffer and cocoon.

I will return to the stage and I will long for the time alone. I know this intrinsically. What I am doing now will lead me once again to a place where I am tethered to a public expectation. This is what I want. I want to be an entertainer and story teller. I want to be on television and selling out readings around the country. This is a lofty goal but the only one that gets me through the muck. I know this nesting space will not last and I have found it far more productive to not attempt a two front war.

What I mean by this is: I have never managed to succeed trying to do multiple things to a level of excellence. Now, my focus is to write and all the associated components. I considered returning to a simple position in a wine shop or consulting for another restaurant. However, I am not one to do a job any way other than to excel. To excel takes time and there are only 24 hours in a day. In addition, wine and travel jobs require require action and I am so easily distracted by action and especially if I am "needed". It has been so hard to realize I am not needed and at the same time it has been liberating.

I used to wake up every hour through the night checking my phone for work related emails. Those days are gone and my phone sits on my desk in another room with the ringer silenced so that I may sleep soundly and dream freely in order to create each day.

I have some amazing close friends and a wonderfully supportive family. I am of the belief that if I am your friend nothing will change that. I can see you every week or once in 10 years and to me we will simply roll right back in without missing a beat. Being a connector personality I do my best to keep my friends at no greater than arm's length; however, this is not everyone's view and some people will come and go as they will.

I now know that once again, I am not all alone in my thoughts as the amazing WordPress community showed me yesterday. I take great responsibility for what I publish here. I take your comments as loving and supportive of fellow writers and friends. I will answer all of your comments from yesterday at some point today.

For now, I may go get a cup of coffee and watch the world.

True Italy Stories - Out of Gas in Puglia (Part 1)

It was 03:45 am and my wife Juliet and I were pushing a 2005 Audi A4 wagon on the very busy SS16 from Monopoli back to our villa in Capitolo.  Cars filled with mostly drunken disco douche bags were streaming by at 150 kilometers per hour and we were making at best 10kmph into a headwind.

This was clearly a dangerous situation and we were in fact, out of gas and ¼ mile from safety.

The day had been scripted by the gods of decadence as we awoke far too early from our previous night’s excessive consumption, in order to catch a train to Lecce.

Me, my wife, and two American companions embarked on the 20 minute walk to the train station, having only 15 minutes to make the train.  One of my friends was celebrating her birthday and I was feeling the pressure of being the tour guide and responsible for this painful, hung-over half jog as the temperature was already at 90F by 8:45am.  I assured the team that we needed to double time it in order to catch the train, but I could not promise them air conditioning once we got on board.  Much to our happy surprise we made the train and the AC was cranking.  We were, as is often the case in Italia, the main attraction for the locals on their way for another day at the office.  The ladies who were heading down to babysit the bambini were all too amused to sit ears cocked to the sides to hear the not so dulcet tones of our American English.  A nun had taken up residence in the seats behind us and I am certain Rosaries were being said for the protection of the young and the infirmed from the interlopers of Treno 12571.

Hunger was beginning to get the best of the birthday quartet when we landed on the platform in Lecce.  A quick duck into the disgusting filth hole of a restroom revealed some friendly immigrant males making their way into the womens room much to the chagrin of the classy Italian gents in wife beaters and suspenders.  While no fight ensued, we were already dangerously low on hand sanitizer by the time we began to negotiate the sun drenched streets of the Florence of the south.  That term really makes me laugh.  I still even use it sometimes in our marketing materials, but make no mistake, Lecce is not Florence and thank God I say!  Florence is easily my least favorite major city in Europe and I am sure it was 2006 since the last time there has been an Italian sighting there.  I am fond of many things Tuscan, but Firenze is not my bag.  Florence has more pictures of menu items on restaurant walls than the Houston Hong Kong Market.  I come to Italy to meet, work with, argue with, and sometimes even eat with Italians.  In Florence I am rarely given the opportunity to do any of the above and while I am certain I will get a list of GFY and die emails from Florentine acolytes, I simply needed to state my case and now I can move on to really cool towns, like Lecce.

...to be continued

Italy Itinerary - May 2012

The Blissful Adventurer returns to Italy on May 7, 2012 for a 24 day run of blissful, wine-soaked, photo-laden, pursuits of new experiences to share with all of you.

Our trip this year is partly vacation and also important research for upcoming writing and photo projects. 

While on our journey I will be enlisting the services of some very fine guest bloggers on TBA as well as posting updates from abroad. Before we leave our new website will be fully functional (I hope) and I am even more hopeful that our first book will be released. Blissful Adventures - The First 5 Years in Pictures

For today I am listing our itinerary which is as much a labor of love as it is a bit grueling. I would not recommend such an undertaking to an unseasoned Italian traveler.

May 7 - Depart Denver for Venice (this will be Juliet's first trip to Venice)

May 8 - arrive Venice and explore all day with a Venice expert. Dinner likely at Al Covo (a place I have longed to try)

May 9 - Venice relaxing and exploration with a long Ventian lunch before boarding a train for Le Marche and the town of Ascoli Piceno

May 10 - Intense day of exploration in Le Marche with a foremost expert on the region, Mariano Pallottini. We will be exploring vineyards, the sea, olives, and especially the food of the region.

May 11- A busy photography morning in Le Marche and a long regional lunch followed by a little more time near the sea before heading to one of our many places we call home: Puglia

May 12-15 We will be in our beloved Puglia with our newest cameras seeking new dining experiences along the way. We have some American friends who will be there at the time and of course our very dear friends Antonello and Laura who own and operate my former company Southern Visions Travel.

May 15-17 ROME! Home to Rome to see our dear friends Katie Parla and Peter Blute. We are hoping to explore the vineyards at The University of Dallas campus at Due Santi for a little photo work and article I would like to write on the lovely wines being produced there. We will finally make it to Hostaria Glass after all these times missing it.

May 17 - We travel north to Verona to spend time with our dear friend Nicolas Emery and to finally meet his lovely ragazza Giulia Laveto. On our way will stop near Parma to dine at the world-class Antica Corte Pallavicina

May 18-19 - Running around the Veneto with our venerable foursome. We are hoping to meet some of the more exotic winemakers doing things naturally and perhaps a little off the beaten track (or a lot)

May 19-22 Friuli Venezia Giulia - Finally after so many years I will make it to Friuli to explore the region's amazing wines (I believe Friuli is at  forefront of white wine making in Europe) and to research a bit about the coffee trade in the region. The four of us will celebrate Juliet's birthday with an amazing lunch in Trieste on the 22nd

May 22nd-31st Sicily here we come! At long last I return to Sicily, a place I swore my allegiance in 2006. This time we will be running around with our favorite Sicilian winemaker - Marilena Barbera who will show us how to live life like a local. At the end of the trip we will hike and explore the amazing vineyards on Mt Etna for a photo and wine experience like none I have ever experienced. Our Etna journey will be hosted by the amazing Thomas Schuster of Quincunx. In Sicily we plan to explore Trapani, Erice, Marsala, Segesta, Palermo, Menfi, Ragusa, Taormina, and vineyards strewn about the largest island in the Mediterranean,

May 31 - We fly from Catania to Milan to DC to Denver (ugh!)

Any suggestions about food, people, or places we should see along this amazing journey please let us know. This is a very brief synopsis and there will be more details down the road.

Cheers!

Italy Memories - Photos that Make me Happy

This has been an amazing week here at TBA and I would like to share some photos I discovered researching my upcoming Photo-Travel Book. These are shots that make me smile as the memories attached are endearing. Please enjoy friends of Bliss and know that Italy has memories waiting for you to discover as well.