There’s a reason that song about amore highlights the big pizza pie. It’s the same reason that those who have ever tried one of those pies at an Italian pizzeria will most likely continue to gush about it for the rest of their lives. We at Select Italy are no different – each of us holds dear the memory of our first Italian pizza, whether it be during our childhood growing up in the Bel Paese or the first time we as grown visitors had the pleasure of trying our first bite. Although words are often not enough to describe the joy of eating your first Italian pizza pie, we’ve done our best below to put it down on paper, and want to hear your stories, too!

Michaelanne Chapel

Michaelanne enjoying a day at the Colossem

I’m thinking about this blog post like I am undertaking a step program: I must relive my first time eating the most delicious food created my humans, and then somehow not go out immediately and find said thing (which would normally be the next step for me, but since I foolishly cast off the chains of pizza for 2 weeks, I must suffer this memory for 7 more days… 6, if you count this day as being over already, which I do). I most assuredly had pizza in Italy when I visited in high school for a beatification ceremony, but that entire week is hazed over by organized meals and lengthy sermons, that I don’t count it.

The first time I really HAD pizza in Italy was when I lived in Rome as a student. I was new to the city, in Campo dei Fiori, and I was hungry – not enough to convince a new friend to go find food with me, or trek all the way back to my apartment to have a real meal, but still, enough. Then I look up and see the words “Pizza a Taglio.” My Italian was passable enough to figure out the meaning of the sign, if I had thought about it more than the 5 seconds it took me to walk through the doorway – I honestly saw the word “pizza” and moved at the same time. There, like the finest of jewelry shops, were pans and pans of golden pizza behind glass partitions.

There was every type of pizza I could imagine (and some I hadn’t even dreamed of!): cheese, onion, potato, spinach, sausage and broccoli – and all I had to do was point and it was mine! In what seemed mere moments, my selection was heated up in the oven, wrapped in parchment paper (with the cheese facing, like a sandwich), and handed to me. I sat in that piazza ingesting pure ambrosia, already planning the next time I would come back to get some more, but certainly not thinking that I was having a life-changing meal.  Incidentally, the first time I had pizza in Italy was the first time I cried in public in Italy, because as I made my way home that night, I realized that there was a “Pizza a Taglio” on almost every street in Rome, and my happiness could not be contained.

Lisa Zacchia

Lisa loves her pizza!

Describing my first pizza is like asking to remember the day I was born. Impossible!

What I do remember though is that as a kid, the most popular pizza among our group of friends was the “Americana,” which basically is a pizza margherita topped with French fries. I recall our parents giving us a “bad look” for ordering such a monstrosity; who could have thought that a simple pizza could have represented so effectively the generation gap? But  - let’s be honest – nothing is simple when it comes to Italian and food. After this “rebellious stage,” my taste buds became more sophisticated and the grilled vegetable thin-crust pizza earned a soft spot in my heart.  My round-shaped memories (yes, the only pizza I know is round, pizza by the slice is a concept I don’t understand) bring me back to my Sunday nights when my family and I used to pick up our pizza from our local, trusted pizzeria. Sunday, after all, is a day of rest and the weekend is too short to spend the last precious moments of it behind the kitchen stove and all the mamme have the right to enjoy a well-deserved time off.

So although, I’m pretty sure my first pizza was probably a margherita mignon (a kid-friendly size of a margherita), my real experience with this dish goes back to every pizza I shared with family and friends, after all the fondest memories are made when gathered around the table. And every bite shared can be considered to be the the first, as it relates to a unique moment.

Alison Turner

Alison working in Paestum

The first time I ate pizza in Italy was the same moment I discovered pizza a taglio and even better, Potatoes on Pizza. I went for a three-week exchange program in high school with a group. Our hosts were the families of students we had likewise hosted in the fall. They crammed as much Italian culture into those three weeks as possible. Toward the end of our visit, while shopping in the San Lorenzo Market for souvenirs and gifts for friends and family back home, the late afternoon hunger overcame us. Prior to collapsing in the midst of a cash transaction, our Italian hosts shuffled us behind a few of the market stalls to a “pizza by the slice” joint.

Unlike back in Oak Park, IL where the slices were just a typical triangular slice, from the typical round pizza, in Italy we were able to choose from large sheets of pizza. Not only could we choose from a wide variety of toppings, we could select how big a rectangular slice we wanted as it was all priced by weight in the end. They had  the standard sausage or pepperoni we were familiar with but they also had bell pepper pizza, margherita, ham and cheese pizza, and half a dozen other “flavors.” My favorite, of course, and the one I would dream about in subsequent years, was the “white” (no red sauce or tomatoes) potato, herb, and cheese pizza. This was heaven for me, combining two of my favorite foods into one tantalizing series of bites. This discovery was made in the last few days of our tour, but we still managed to go back a couple more times.

When I returned a couple years later and then two years after that, it was one of the first meals of the trip each time. After a few years of living in Italy, the novelty wore off a bit, but the fond memories of early discoveries periodically drew me back for a quick bite.

Now it’s your turn! How was your first pizza experience? 

The post How Pizza Changes Select Italy’s Life (Part I) appeared first on Select Italy Blog.

-Sergio Esposito, Passion on the Vine

Fresh cheese from the Piedmont

Gathering around a table is for Italians a sacred ritual that not only feeds the body, but also connects the participants spiritually with each other and with the earth on which they live and from which the products came. As a Roman about her carbonara and her eyes will gloss over, her voice will turn whimsical, and she will not only tell you about the dish, but the times and places and people connected to it. Food in Italy is not just food…it is Italy itself.

There is no word for “foodie” in Italian; Italians are all foodies in the deepest sense of a word. This strong connection between and Italian and his or her food has resulted in a long-standing culture of emphasis placed on the freshest, highest-quality of products, cooked into dishes in which their flavor is not masked by an array of spice and seasoning, but simply prepared to make the ingredients shine. In fact, traditions has it that all you needed to cook a great Italian meal is five ingredients or less; more, and you begin to mask the perfect flavor of fresh products.

Sharing a meal in the Umbrian countryside

However, in the past decades with the rise of supermarkets, multinational corporations, and mass-produced food, Italy has not remained untouched. Sprawling ipermercati began to replace local food stands as Italians also enjoyed the convenience of a one-stop shop for all their needs. The stores were stocked with the products of global corporations, conventional products whose flavor did not reflect the vibrancy of the Italian family, culture, and land, but whose blandness faded into the background of a mediocre meal.

It didn’t take long for citizens of the country to take action against what they considered a personal offense to who they were at the core, and in 1986, one man from the Piedmont took a stand. Carlo Petrini, born in the province of Cuneo in one of Italy’s most famous food regions, founded Slow Food, an organization directly against fast food, promoting regional cuisine, the farming of products in the local ecosystem, and going back to putting the time and energy into what goes on the table. This movement has gained momentum, now with members in over 150 countries over the world, and in its Italian home it is being adhered to by more and more people, both young and old, who refuse to tolerate the trade of their beloved products for low-quality multinational substitutes. (If you are intrigued by the idea to take an hands-on cooking lesson in the birthplace of the slow food movement, check out this Cooking Class in Bra)

Local wine production in Tuscany

The momentum of the Slow Food movement continues to increase, in the last decade a phrase has graced the lips and writings of those up and down the peninsula: km0. “Kilometer zero” is today’s catchphrase that is further propelling the farm to table movement in Italy, suggesting that there be minimal transportation from the farm to the restaurant or food store, and therefore that the product is fresh and local. Km0 also usually results in lower costs for the producers and minimal impact on the environment, as long transportation routes are reduced and eliminated.

Many an Italian celebrity, restaurant, and grocery store has backed this cause, and in the recent years, several have declared their locale “green,” “slow,” or adhering to the km0 standards. These are not out of the way, unknown places, but hot spots in major cities which attract a large clientele and whose fresh dishes satisfy not only nutritional needs, but which link those who have the opportunity to experience them to the people, land, and culture of Italy.

White truffles from Alba are a local delicacy

Want to eat a km0 on your next trip? Here are three of our recommendations, one in each of the most popular cities, where you can enjoy the freshest of local cuisine:

• Urbana 47 (Rome): a trendy spot dedicated to uniting friends, family and strangers with their local Lazio cuisine
• La Raccolta (Florence): a vegetarian lunch restaurant that attracts locals and tourists alike with its fresh dishes and adjoining grocery store
• Anice Stellato (Venice): this trattoria features the tapa-like cicchetti  and homemade pasta dishes to its steady stream of clientele.

Do you have a km0 story that is close to your heart? Share with us below!

The post Saving Italy’s Culinary Roots with Km0 appeared first on Select Italy Blog.

The little ear pasta

When a menu is placed in front of you in Italy can you tell the difference between “cavatelli” or “paccheri”? An Italian can. Italians are very picky on what pasta goes with what sauce, and insist that each pasta has to have a story to tell.

Present-day pasta tradition in Italy dates back to the early second millennium when it was hand-made by women in Sicily. This delicious simple Italian staple food is made from unleavened dough of durum wheat flour mixed with water and then molded to the desired shape. Today at the stores you can find pasta made out of many different cereals (rice, farro or whole wheat) and also of difference kinds for example dried (secca), fresh (fresca) or Egg pasta (all’uovo). There are also more than 500 different types of pasta eaten in Italy and today we are going to delve into the stories behind a few of them.

Sit back, taste, and enjoy these fun facts and recipes of our favorite short pastas…

1. Cavatelli

Enjoy some delicious cavatelli

 This pasta has several different names depending on the dialect : cavadeel, gavateel, cavatelli. Let’s just say that cavatelli are the “rock stars” of the dry pasta world of southern Italy.

There is a legend surrounding cavatelli about a bride to be who had her thumb inspected by her future mother-in law. Do you want to know why? Because if the finger looked well-used and somewhat worn, it was the tell-tale sign that she knew how to make cavatelli and this would maker her a great match. Talk about pressure!

For those of you who want to try this at home, try this easy recipe: Cavatelli with Tomatoes and Marzotica Ricotta.

2. Strozzapreti (Priest Strangler) 

A pasta with a delicious twist!

This pasta mainly hails from Emilia Romagna and Tuscany, which include two famous destinations you can’t afford to miss, Bologna and Florence.

One of the most famous stories surrounding this pasta is about a gluttonous priest who was so enchanted by the savory pasta that he ate too quickly and choked himself to death. This story was told especially in Romagna were there was a hateful attitude towards clergy.

A second story involves the “azdora” (“housewife” in the Romagna’s dialect), who “chokes” the dough strips to make the strozzapreti: the “azdora” could express such a rage that she could even strangle a priest!

This pasta is delicious with fresh tomato sauce and pancetta.

3. Croxetti

A pasta that you don’t see around much, but originated in Liguria along the border with France during the middle ages is Croxetti, which was traditionally made by hand for aristocratic families as a display of their wealth and status. Today you won’t find the shape much but there is a small production of it near Genoa. It’s usually used for weddings or a special event, so it might be hard finding it on your store shelf or even at the mega-Italian superstore, Eataly. 

A typical recipe with this pasta is Croxetti with white sauce

4. Schiaffoni or Paccheri (Big Slaps)

Paccheri marry perfectly with seafood!

This pasta is well known in the south where many dishes are made with fish. Fish fit to perfection with it since the chunky fish sauce will fill up the large hole, giving you a satisfying bite of the combined sauce and pasta: don’t waste any time buying seafood and tomatoes to make a delicious pasta sauce.

Legend has it that the paccheri shape was invented as a way to smuggle garlic cloves in each piece. Italian farmers, being very patriotic, thought no garlic had the same taste as the one from their own land and when the Prussian government banned the trade of the cloves they would smuggle it inside the pasta to make sure to have only the best.

This story still rings true today: how many Italians and Italian visitors still leave their country wanting to bring back olive oil, pasta and cured meat?

 5. Orecchiette (Small Ears)

This pasta comes from Apulia, a region of Southern Italy very famous for the trulli, or old stone houses with a conical roof built without mortar. (Want to witness these peculiar houses? The town of Alberobello has so many trulli that it has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List!). Inside these houses, Pugliese women made orecchiette, which simply means “little ears” and which goes excellently with vegetable sauce.

Watch Select Italy’s Andrea Sertoli cooking some delicious orecchiette in this video recipe!

Now do you feel ready to be the pasta connoisseur at your next dinner party? Stay tuned for more shapes and tell us which kind of pastas you are curious to learn more about!

The post Which Pasta Is On Your Plate? (Pasta Corta) appeared first on Select Italy Blog.

An unexpected place where we recently had a small – but very welcome and tasty – surprise was the Milano Centrale Railway Station. We took note of it because so many Select Italy clients pass through this station on their way to see Leonardo’s Last Supper, or simply to reach another destination (travel by train in Italy is one of the most enjoyable ways to see the country.)

Eating in a railway station is, by and large, something to be feared and loathed due to the lack of decent establishments. The norm is sad, limp sandwiches consumed standing up at the bar counter or, even worse, industrial food from vending machines for the traveler in a hurry to take on board: these are the images that come to mind when one thinks of train station meals.

But, rejoice! The recently opened (April 2013) Bistrot Milano Centrale provides travelers with the opportunity to enjoy a state-of-the-art facility with some of the best that Italian cuisine has to offer, to eat or to shop (or why not both?). The Bistrot is the result of a project that, among its various partners, includes the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenza, right outside Bra, the Piedmont town where the Slow Food movement was born.

Conceived as an indoor marketplace in a typical Italian town, the only challenge upon entering is to decide where to go among all the counters and specific thematic areas. Here you’ll find Il Forno (the Baker’s Corner) where bread and pizza is baked daily, prepared with selected flours from Lombardy and all-natural yeast (not the horrendous, industrial-chemical kind). Sweet cookies, cakes, and croissants are not missing, either, while next to Il Forno is the coffee and tea counter where espresso finds its natural home of excellence.

There’s also a Fresh Groceries corner with freshly squeezed juices, salads, and fruit salads made on the spot with fruits and vegetables acquired every day. And of course there is a Pasta corner, a Cheese and Cured Meats Counter, and one dedicated to Wine and Beer too.

But in addition to the variety of food options, special mention needs to be made of the comfortable space and its décor. Designed to be welcoming and eco-friendly, the Bistrot is embellished with natural, recycled materials such as reused wooden parquet, original counters, and old armchairs that have been re-upholstered in jute bags. The tech aspect leaves nothing to be desired, offering customers free (and fast) Wi-Fi and iPad stations, together with power plugs and books, magazines, and train timetables for consultation. And all this is available daily from 6:00am to 9:30pm at night!

Upon leaving the Bistrot to catch our train, we realized that this is the kind of place one might want to go, even if there is no train to catch. A added bonus is the train station location that adds to the Bistrot’s charm, offering myriad opportunities for people watching that only railway stations provide.

What do you think of Bistrot Milano Centrale? Leave a comment and let us know.

The post Foodie Prayers Answered: The Nightmare of Train Station Food is Over appeared first on Select Italy Blog.

Discover Italy in a whole new way!

WhaiWhai, an interactive Game Tour book, led me through my discoveries of the beautiful city of Florence. I could not think of any better way to uncover the magic Florence has to offer. As a college student studying abroad in Florence for four months, I wanted to really learn about where I was living, the history, and maybe, more or less, become mistaken for a real Florentian. (Fingers crossed!) So when I had the opportunity to unveil this city in a whole new way I was up for the challenge! I assembled a group of friends and introduced them to WhaiWhai.

What is WhaiWhai?

WhaiWhai is an interactive guidebook that leads you through secrets buried in various Italian cities. It’s perfect for tourists, explorers, or even locals who are looking for a one of a kind experience. They’re different from any other guidebooks because they give fascinating information about the city while you search for clues, and every city has its own unique spirit with different stories waiting to be told. With WhaiWhai you won’t follow the normal tourist path, you’ll actually venture into the authentic character, traditions, and secrets of the city. And all of this is possible through a variety of short stories and a couple text messages.

How does it work?

WhaiWhai App now available!

All you’ll need is the WhaiWhai book, a map of the city, and a cellular phone to send and receive text messages for clues to uncover hidden secrets around the city. First you will need to send a text message to the number provided in the book with which mode you would like to play. There are a variety of modes depending on how challenging or how long you would like to participate. You can always start and stop your game or change your mode. Once you decide the mode and length of your game, you will receive texts with hints to read different short stories and clues to answer a question at your discovered destination, building, or object. You can always play with a group of friends, alone, or as competitive teams to see who can uncover the clues first.

My WhaiWhai

Discover Florence in a whole new way!

I, of course, played the WhaiWhai Florence 2054 version and I had so much fun during my experience. My friends and I all joined together to really get to know our “home away from home,” in such a fun exciting way. With each new clue or destination, my friends and I became so eager to learn more and become real Florence “experts.” Florence is such spectacular city with mounds of history, breathtaking views, and rich delicious food; WhaiWhai genuinely helped me build such great memories. After my experience with WhaiWhai I have a deeper understanding and love for Florence.

Thank you WhaiWhai!

Share your experience with WhaiWhai!

The post The Perfect Way To Discover Italy appeared first on Select Italy Blog.

Harry’s Bar is a classic Venetian establishment

This week Jacopo is back with his twist on one of Italy’s most well-known and beloved drinks: the Bellini. Invented in Venice in the late 1930′s by Giuseppe Cipriani of Harry’s Bar, a favorite spot of brooding American and English writers, such as Ernest Hemmingway, the drink was named after its color, an inviting peachy pink that reminded Cipriani of a saint’s toga in one of the famed Venetian artist Bellini’s painting.

Today the drink is served throughout Venice, using the traditional ingredients of Prosecco, the Veneto’s sparkling white wine, and peach puree. It’s sweet taste and satisfying bubbles also offer a desirable alternative to those who pass on the Veneto’s other popular aperitivo, the bitter Spritz. Below, Jacopo explains his take, showing the traditional recipe’s versatility by substituting a local American sparkling wine for Prosecco and using pears instead of the traditional peaches.

 Notes from Jacopo: 

Jacopo’s Pear Bellini’s are a fresh new spin on an old favorite

As everyone knows, Italians love to enjoy their drinks and the best time of day to sip on a cocktail in Italy is during the aperitivo. The ‘apertivo,‘ for us Italians is synonymous to ‘Happy Hour’ for Americans. For this drink, I took my inspiration from one of the most famous aperitivo cocktails, the Bellini. The Bellini is a classic Venetian cocktail made with peach puree and Prosecco. My spin on this classic cocktail substitutes poached pears for peaches and a delicious cinnamon sugar rim. I am constantly searching for the perfect cocktail to compliment some of the most popular dishes in my restaurant. This drink pairs beautifully with poached pear salad… its light, refreshing and classy.  This elegant yet simple concoction is also perfect for any cocktail party that you are planning to host at home.

Ingredients

Preparation

Tried your own take on the traditional bellini? Share your spin below!

The post Jacopo Falleni Bar Therapy: The Pear Bellini appeared first on Select Italy Blog.

Golf in Italy

They say you can learn a lot about a culture from their language. Take Italy’s term for golf tourism, for example: turismo golfistico. The obvious English borrowing of “golf” as the adjective describing the kind of tourism is reflective of the peninsula’s “borrowing” of the sport. In a land where soccer is king next to the sport of eating and drinking (which, if you have ever sat down to a true multi-course Italian meal, you’ll agree that it takes a certain degree of fitness to make it through), golf is a relatively new introduction into the country. However, Italy’s been bit by the bug golfistico, and one of its pioneers, Donato Ala, is making strides in bringing Italians and Italy to the world’s golf stage. In this installment of Select Italy blog’s Expert Series, we sat down with Donato, journalist for and director of golfitaliano.it and director of Golf & Lifestyle LIVE IN MAGAZINE to talk to us about the sport of golf in a soccer-driven Italian peninsula.

SI: You obviously have a pretty significant interest in the sport of golf in a place where it’s not the most popular pastime. How is that you became interested and why is it an attractive sport to indulge in while spending time in Italy?

Ala: I began as a journalist twelve years ago and slowly began working with golf because not only did I enjoy the sport itself, but also I believed in its substantial potential to appeal to all types of people. Its attractiveness is not only in the game but the sport’s ability to foster a social connection, to allow its players to travel to new and exciting places, discovering new cultures and landscapes.

SI: What are the best golf courses (campi da golf) or regions to play golf in Italy?

Ala: Italy has various courses designed by the most prestigious architects, even American ones such as Arnold Palmer who designed the course Le Pavoniere in Prato [located in Tuscany near Florence]. Other examples would be the Golf Royal Park in Turin, Golf Bielle (also in the Piedmont), Las Arenas in Sardinia or Verdura Golf in Sicily. The best regions to golf in would be obviously the islands, Apulia, Tuscany and Latium. The northern regions are desirable from about the end of March to November before the winter weather begins.

SI: You are an advocate for “golf tourism,” but what exactly does that mean?

Ala: I would say that golf tourism means that in addition to playing a nice round of golf, one can also include cultural excursions, discovering the culture, history, art, and enogastronomy of the place where they are playing golf.

SI: What does Italy have to offer to Americans in terms of golf that cannot be found in the United States?

Enjoying a day in the field

Ala: It is exactly that which I was saying before; Americans have a unique opportunity with golf tourism in Italy to enjoy a true vacation, which consists of the thrill of enjoying the new and exciting culture and history that the nation has to offer, while also taking part in a familiar, relaxing pastime of playing a round of golf. A part of this familiarity is that the staff at all of the major golf courses is fluent in English and ready and willing to help any American customers.

SI:   And who is your favorite golfer?

Ala: Tiger Woods. No matter what kind of a person he is, he is the person who has time and time again reinvented what it means to be the top for golf.

The post Turismo Golfistico: Donato Ala Talks Golf in Italy appeared first on Select Italy Blog.

A beautiful view of Florence

When I passed through the Porta San Frediano the other day, I noticed a discreet brown metal sign stating that UNESCO has included the entire centro storico of Florence on their list of World Heritage Monuments. UNESCO’s website describes the city “as a treasure chest of works of art and architecture….defined by the 14th-century walls” (Porta San Frediano is one of the gates piercing these massive stone walls) and praises the “unique coherence” of Florence’s historic center.

Coherent it may be but Florence is overwhelming, too, especially for a tourist trying to make some sense of all this Art with a capital “A.” It’s no wonder that a condition dubbed Stendhal Syndrome affects a certain number of visitors each year with symptoms including rapid heartbeat, fainting, dizziness, and even hallucinations! Real or psychosomatic, local hospital staffs are accustomed to treating tourists experiencing the symptoms of what is basically “art overload,” proving the point that too much of a good thing is not good.

But what is a conscientious tourist to do, surrounded by all this magnificent art and with only a couple of days in Florence? My advice is not to look upon art as medicine – meaning that you shuffle through the Uffizi to gaze at Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” because it must be good for you – or even worse, you check off items from some predetermined bucket list of the world’s “greatest hits” that should be seen before you die. Better to admit to yourself that you can’t see it all and spend some time really LOOKING at the things you do go to see (hint: snapping a photo with your iPhone is not really looking!).

So, traversing the centro storico from north to south, here are my suggestions for approaching the treasure chest that is Florence without risking Stendhal Syndrome and ending up in the hospital. And because food and wine are such a large part of any trip to Italy, each art stop has a corresponding food stop where you can sit on a bench and refuel.

1. Accademia Gallery

Bucket list or not, nobody should miss seeing Michelangelo’s white giant in the Accademia Gallery: the marble “David” is 17 feet tall without its pedestal, and is carved with such sensitivity and finesse that he almost seems to breath. I once toured the Accademia with an orthopedic surgeon, and he marveled at how all the bones, muscles, and tendons perfectly link up, lending weight to the story that the teenage Michelangelo was allowed to dissect corpses by the prior of the Monastery of Santo Spirito. But it’s another monastery right around the corner from the Accademia that I urge you to visit now.

2. Monastery of San Marco

Annunciation painting by Fra Angelico

Unlike the Accademia, the Monastery of San Marco is blissfully uncrowded, as befits a place where Dominican friars once lived together in an atmosphere of meditation and prayer. Just walking through the door plunges you back into the world of the early Renaissance, where palm trees grow in the central cloister and the whitewashed walls display masterpieces from the brush of Fra Angelico. His remarkable frescoes, painted in restful pastels, adorn the friar’s spartan cells upstairs while on the monastery’s ground floor hang a number of recently restored altarpieces, also by Fra Angelico (as member of the Dominican order, he lived here himself from 1438 to 1445, and so did the fiery friar Savonarola before his public execution in Piazza della Signoria).

3. Food stop #1

Now it’s time for a break and Focacceria Pugi is perfectly placed, directly across the piazza from the Monastery of San Marco. Since 1960 the name Pugi has been synonymous with schiacciata all’olio, the famous Florentine flatbread made with olive oil. This bakery also bakes bread and pizza al taglio with a huge variety of toppings. At lunchtime the place is packed with students from the nearby University of Florence, but it’s worth waiting in line to grab a hot slice and take it to a bench in Piazza San Marco to eat.

4. Palazzo Strozzi

Inside Palazzo Strozzi

Walking south towards the river, you pass the colorful, marble-encrusted Duomo and then Piazza della Repubblica. Behind the piazza sits one of Florence’s biggest and most impressive Renaissance palaces, the Palazzo Strozzi. Like a lot of the real estate in this part of town, it was built by a banker who rivaled the Medici in power and influence. Nowdays the palace is used as an exhibition site: every show I have seen here has been beautifully installed and curated — the current one, “The Springtime of the Renaissance. Sculpture and the Arts in Florence 1400-60,” is a show for sculpture lovers and connoisseurs that moves to the Louvre in Paris after closing in Florence on August 18th, 2013.

5. Palazzo Davanzati

The Palazzo Strozzi isn’t furnished as a private residence any longer, but the nearby 14th century Palazzo Davanzati is and it is well worth a visit, especially if you are traveling with children. Who wouldn’t love the charmingly-frescoed dining room with an all-over pattern of red-and-green parrots? Or medieval plumbing  as represented by the private bathrooms on each of the three upper floors — a real rarity for this time period! An added perk if you visit the Palazzo Davanzati between April 20th and May 25th is that in honor of the 700th anniversary of the birth of the Tuscan poet, Boccaccio, every Saturday at 11:30am musicians from l’Ensemble Musica Ricercata and actors from the Teatro Oranona di Certaldo will be giving free performances in the palace’s gaily-decorated rooms.

6. Food stop #2

When you exit the palace onto the Via Porta Rossa, walking down the street in the direction of Via Tornabuoni, you will pass a narrow alleyway off to the right called Chiasso de’ Soldanieri. Tuscany’s only claim to fame isn’t just celebrated poets like Dante and Boccaccio; it also boasts the Tuscan Chocolate Valley, stretching west of Florence all the way to Pisa. One of the very best of these chocolatiers is Roberto Catinari whose Florentine boutique, Arte di Cioccolato, rivals the fancy designer shops on Via Tornabuoni.

The difference is that Roberto’s art is edible so buy some of his beautiful bonbons shaped like wine corks, acorns or porcini mushrooms and go around the corner to eat them, seated comfortably on the wide stone bench attached to the facade of the Renaissance Palazzo Bartolini-Salimbeni on the corner of Piazza Santa Trinita (wealthy merchants in the 15th and 16th centuries included places to sit out in front of their palaces, a boon to footsore tourists in the 21st century!).

7. Church of Santa Felicita

Inside the church

If you haven’t crossed the Ponte Vecchio yet, now is the time to do so. Dazzled by all the gold in the shop windows, you can continue down the pedestrian street called Via Guicciardini until you see the church of Santa Felicita on your left. The first chapel on the right as you enter the church, the Capponi Chapel, contains a masterpiece of Mannerist art that outshines anything by Pontormo hanging in the Uffizi. The eccentric artist’s altarpiece of the “Descent from the Cross,” with its incredible day-glo colors, anguished facial expressions, and unbalanced figures, is a strangely contemporary image that is not soon forgotten.

8. Palazzo Pitti

Luca Pitti, the man who built the Pitti Palace in 1450, went bankrupt before it was finished so 100 years later the Medici moved in and used the place to display part of their enormous art collection. They also lived here so the rooms are sumptuously adorned with over-the-top frescoed ceilings, acres of gilt, and enough inlaid marble tables to furnish ten Park Avenue penthouses! All this, plus masterpieces of oil painting by Raphael, Caravaggio, Titian, and Rubens can be seen in the Galleria Palatina, my pick among the Pitti’s several museums (but on a sunny spring day, follow up a visit to the Palatina with a stroll in the Boboli Gardens).

9. Food stop #3

It’s gelato time

Now it’s time for a gelato break and I know just the place to go! Gelateria della Passera, located in Piazza della Passera on the corner of Via dello Sprone, makes 20 flavors of gelato daily — the nocciola has whole hazelnuts in it and the selection of fruit flavors changes with the season. Buy a cone or a cup, and plunk yourself down on one of the piazza’s new wooden benches to eat it.

The post 9 Reasons to Rediscover Florence appeared first on Select Italy Blog.

As we said in the blog post, on Friday, Spring has Sprung, and with the good season Italians usually emerge from Winter hibernation crowding tiny streets and outdoor cafès.

I think everyone of us feel a little bit lazy and reserved during Winter time and turn in an active person once the sun shines and the weather gets warmer. I love that, especially on the weekends, when you can see people enjoying their time walking around streets markets, doing shopping or indulging in a fresh gelato.

Why this colourful introduction of what happens in Italy when Spring comes? Because it’s when Italians are outside, together, in the streets, in the markets, in the cafès, that they express themselves at their best. The voices are louder and the gestures more emphasized. Do you want to be part of this orchestra of sounds? Read on!

13. Perfetto! - That’s perfect!

Perfetto!

This gesture should not be confused with the one Americans use.

I mean the “OK sign”, the one starting with the round “O”. Instead of having it round all you have to do is to flat the “O” down a little bit, and turn your hand. Then the movement happens at the chest level, as if you were pulling a string out of an invisible short, from the left to the right. The teacher this time is Alison, our Business Developer.

14. Mi sono dimenticato - I forgot

Mannaggia.. “mi sono dimenticato”

Have you ever seen an Italian putting the lower part of their palm on the front in a flash and screaming “Mi sono dimenticato!” I forgot about it?

This is done typically when you forget something really important or not necessarily important.

Wife: “Have you called the plumber to fix the bathroom?”

Husband (palm in the front): “Mi sono completamente dimenticato, I completely forgot, I’ll call him tomorrow, amore”.

Can you feel the emphasis?

Our Senior Accounting Coordinator, Phil, is perfect in doing the “I’m really sorry, dear” husband!

15. Ti sto avvertendo / I’m warning you

Intimidating “ti sto avvertendo”

Going on with the previous conversation, I guess the wife would tell to her husband pointing the index towards him (yes, that’s how you do this gesture!) “Ti sto avvertendo, I’m warning you, I want this done by tomorrow, otherwise no dinner for you tomorrow night!”

We didn’t find any warning wife, but you have to admit our Web Developer, Tony, knows how to warn someone!

16. Faccio le corna - Horn

“Faccio le corna!”

You know Italians are superstitious people. For this reason they have to come up with kind of “rituals” in order to chase the bad luck away. The horns, corna, are a protective gesture to ward off a curse or the evil eye.

To keep yourself “safe” you just need to close your hand and leave only the index and the little finger open (yes, it might be mistaken with something you throw up at a metal concert). The most famous horn in an Italian movie? The one made by Vittorio Gassman in “Il Sorpasso“. Liz, our Associate Web Designer, chose this move for you to learn.

17. Non ce n’è

I am sorry but.. “non c’e’ niente”

This is a really particular gesture. You use non ce n’è when comparing two things, you consider one definitely better than the other one.
Example:

“Who is going to win the derby this year, AC Milan or Inter Milan?”

“AC Milan, non ce n’è!”

Paige, our Intern at the Chicago office apparently is a AC Milan supporter as me!

18. Non capisco - I don’t understand

Arianna “non capisco”

Sorry “non capisco!”

Cosa?…”non capisco”

Now you are almost a pro in Italian gesture, however the illimited world of Italian gesticulation in way broader than what we are able to teach you here. All you need to do is to gain experience on site and give yourself a challange. But if you really find yourself perplex with everything is going on, simply open your arm and start shaking your head from left to right, as if you were disagreeing, coming out with “non capisco”, I don’t understand.

Me, Marianna, Andrea, our Digital Marketing Director and Arianna, our Social Media Assistant, are showing you how to do a perfect “Non capisco!.”

Now, the lesson is over, is time to uncover the secret gesture of our General Manager, Paul:

The post Move like an Italian! Final 6 Italian Gestures Decoded appeared first on Select Italy Blog.

The Colosseum remains one of the largest and most recognizable buildings in Italy’s capital

My love affair with the Colosseum began in 2006, coincidentally the same year that I left my birth country and visited Italy (and thus, Rome) for the first time. I was in awe with the city: its antiquity was strikingly evident in every corner and yet the vivacity of the Roman people was so in the here and now. And of the places in the Eternal City, I was most in awe of the Colosseum, which was the pinnacle of that trait of being so old yet so alive.  I remember my first time seeing it, left gawking at the colossal structure whose famous form was as familiar to me as any building in my hometown, but whose affect on me was something entirely new and magical.

Visiting Colosseum at night during the summer is a cooler way to discover the ancient monument after the sweltering Roman days

The Colosseum continued to touch me during this time, powerfully drawing me into its mystery, and I would route my walks through Rome past this structure, pulled by a unsatisfied curiosity. I couldn’t get it off of my mind, and as these were during the days that I was still drawing and painting, I even went home and made a quick sketch of the amphitheater in chalk pastels (a piece that is framed and hangs in every apartment I have lived in since).  The place was an enigma, and one that I couldn’t help but continue to return to often but never quite figured out.

And how could one figure it out? The layers upon layers of history and stories of the people who laughed, cried, and (most significantly) died in that theater were far too thick for me to even begin to feel like I understood what this large stone mass in front of me was. I never took a tour or read a guidebook about the building during my first visit there, and left Rome in 2006 still wondering. However, I returned to Italy often in the following years, this time doing my research, and one by one, the layers of the onion of history that is the Colosseum began to slowly peel away.

In 2012 found myself back in my favorite city giving tours of the Italian capital, my favorite part of which being leading groups through the Colosseum, helping the people who felt the same magnetic pull that I did to peel the layers from the structure’s profound past.

The Dungeons of the Colosseum hold countless stories to be told

Construction for the Flavian Amphiteatre (as the building is officially named) began in 72 AD by the emperor Vespasian, in attempts to raise moral and build loyalty among the Romans, whose recent  experience with the former emperor Nero bulldozing their public space to build his famous golden house had left a sour taste in their mouths. Built on the back of over 12,000 Jewish slaves and financed by spoils of Vespasian’s sacking of Jerusalem a few years before, the Colosseum was finished in 80 AD and stood at 160 feet, the tallest ancient Roman structure to ever be built.

As Vespasian had died before the finishing of the amphitheater, his son Titus took over and inaugurated the masterpiece by throwing 100 days straight of games, during which over thousands upon thousands of animals, gladiators, and prisoners were slaughtered for the enjoyment of others. The years to follow held games for 50,000-70,000 Roman spectators at a time, financed on by the emperor or different members of the state in hopes of winning the votes of the electorate. These were usually full-day events, usually beginning with beast hunts in the morning, followed by a lunch break of public executions, and finishing with the main event, whether it be gladiatorial fights or spectacles such as naval battles, during which an intricate network of canals flooded the arena. The spectacles were the place to be in Rome at the time, and remained so right up until the fall of the Roman empire, when the city itself turned to ruins for a period of time….

The Colosseum’s floor supported naval battles at one point in time

But I’m not going to divulge all the Colosseum’s secrets. I’ll let you go on your own tour, being in its presence and feeling its effect first hand. My favorite tour is the Dungeon’s and Upper Tiers tour during which a representative from the Colosseum leads you and group through not only the main area open to the public space, but also the highest and lowest areas closed to the general public, revealing the deepest and darkest secrets of the museum. For those visiting during the summer months, it is possible to opt for the Night at the Colosseum from May 2 – November 2, a refreshingly cool nighttime tour of the main areas and the dungeons that stuns visitors with an ethereal beauty that only the nighttime can emit.

What did you feel or experience when you were in the Colosseum? What tidbits of history were your favorite?

The post My Love Affair with the Colosseum appeared first on Select Italy Blog.