There's No Place Like Italy

I dragooned my son to go to Italy with me recently. We were going to go to Spain, but when he asked, “Are there chicken nuggets in Spain?” I thought twice. If I was going to get him to Europe, I’d better choose wisely. A neighbor asked, “Why don’t you take him to Disney?” “Well,” I said, “because Epcot isn’t Europe. I want him to travel; to experience other cultures where people speak different languages, use different money, enjoy different rituals and eat different food.” “You mean like pizza?” Yeah, like pizza. Okay, I was busted. I wanted to go to Italy because it’s Italy.

We have family friends who live in Milan and who have two boys about my son’s age, who are bi-lingual and who could put us up for four days. So, we flew over there and within three hours of landing, they were playing four square and trading Pokemon cards-- Italian Pokemons with names like Picachini and Floatzilio. Then we went to a public park with a playground that had twelve trampolines laced together surrounded by a high net. We gave the mustached old man in the tiny wooden booth two euros each for twenty-minute jumps and off the boys went, each to their own trampolines; shoes off, laughing and flying like beautiful birds.

I explained to my friend that this would never work in America; that the mustached old man could never afford the two million dollar liability insurance on what he makes a year, and that he’d most likely spend his lifetime gnarled in litigation from the class action suit of parents who sued him because their child broke an arm. She looked at me quizzically as if to say, you’re joking? No, I assured her, it’s no joke. Then we resumed watching their joyful, bouncing bodies and listening to the happy squeals from our bench, in the sun, in Italy.

The next three days flew by, filled with a visit to the beach, a boat ride with a swim in the Mediterranean’s warm, teal waters, and a day and night’s stay in a midevil village high atop a mountain on Italy’s coast. The village—population 350—is pedestrian only-- it’s streets too narrow for cars-- and only two restaurants, one church and no hotels to support the whims of travelers or schools to attract young year-rounders. There were no planes overhead, no air-conditioners grinding away like oil refineries, and no leaf blowers to crash and stomp on the peace and quiet that is one of the supposed reasons why people move out of cities in the first place. And with too few trees within the village to support the chatter of frogs, crickets or cicadas, it was the single quietest place I have ever experienced in my life. It was deprivation tank quiet; simultaneously pleasing and confounding.

I strong-armed my son to visit only a few cultural touch points. At the duomo—the third largest cathedral in the world--we walked all around the roof, also a litigation nightmare by American standards. It was spectacular in an almost Harry Potter way, being so high up among the gargoyles and spires, looking down on the birds coasting below us, we felt a little magical, a little primeval. At least I did. I bored him with my meanderings on the generations of artisans and sculptors who spent their lives building and assembling this feat of architectural, engineering and aesthetic mastery. Every saint’s face, every drape of each angel’s robe was a stunning example of grace and perfection. While I tried to wrap my head around the single mindedness of an artist’s lifetime quest times thousands, my son wondered how high a rubber ball would bounce if dropped from the tippy-top .

I think he felt more magical eating gelato, which we did at least once a day under the “We’re on vacation” provision of the often-used Traveler’s Rationalizations. The gelato was outer-worldly, as was the prosciutto and the bread. At a housewarming party I accompanied my host and hostess to on Friday night, the new home-owners served a mozzarella ball the size of a large meatloaf. When three flats of foccacia bread arrived in the arms of a guest from Genoa-- bought especially from a particular baker who makes the best foccacia in all of Italy-- the room practically broke out in applause. No one ever said ‘fresh’ in four days. They didn’t have to, it’s implied.

So appreciative was everyone of the bread, the wine, the meat, shrimp and cheese, I wondered why we all shouldn’t eat this way every day, like Italians do. In fact, I wondered why Italians ever leave Italy. I mean, yes, of course, I know why they leave now—the economy-- and why they’ve left in the past—the fascism-- but why don’t we all go back? All of us! Italians and non-Italians alike!

I say we go. Who’s with me?