After almost 8 years in professional practice, I am heading to Italy for my own mini grand tour. Next week, I am flying to Milan and settling into a small apartment in Florence, away from work, away from dysfunctional personal relationships, away from my familiar culture. After reading 'Italian Journey', 'Images of a Grand Tour', and your personal travel experiences here, I want to ask the dreamers out there:
If you had two months in Italy to do whatever you want, whenever you want, what would you do?
Don't mistake my intentions! I have committed to writing a blog for my friends, to show them my photos, drawings, watercolors and to write about my experiences. That alone will give me a lot to do, but I am looking for a few ideas that transcend tourism. Insider knowledge, that once-in-a-lifetime happening, hidden treasures. So please, get creative!
i'd say timing wise - you miss a lot of the tourists, a good thing.
i'd get the regional train/bus pass, if possible (you might need to be a resident, i can't recall) to make visiting the hill towns cheaper.
Thanks. I believe the regional passes can be had by visitors too. Though the idea of buying a used car seems appealing. it's only two months, but it may be worth it in time savings and freedom. I've seen some cheap offerings on good ol' craigslist.
buying a car is difficult to do legally in Italy but sounds like you are a eu citizen which might change things... definitely get a set of wheels...authenticity occurs where tourists can't go easily...do a scarpa tour to verona and outside of venice, then do a corbu tour in france, definitely do a zumthor tour as well...a renzo tour seems fitting as well...
holz, I know you like Switzerland and most of the buildings you post on "Guess the..." thread are northern and such, but a couple of points:
Florence is not northern Italy, more like north central and it's in fucking Tuscany for God's sake, and if you don't like that, Umbria is next to it (Umbria is one of the most drop dead gorgeous regions of Italy).
and, archetecton, search out food and wine, all kinds of food and wine, in little out of the way trattorias and little town restaurants and wineries: have the cheeses, the salamis and prosciuttos, the pastas, the fishes, the truffles and porcini mushrooms, the breads and desserts, and the wines, the Vino Nobile di Montepulcianos, the Brunello di Montalcinos, the Morellino di Scansanos, the Vernaccia di San Gimignanos. Try everything and don't be squeamish. Stay away from tourist trap restaurants, which means the menus are not listed in six languages, just Italian, and when you peek your head inside you hear mostly Italian.
holz, try to do that in Switzerland and tell me you'll get better food....lost its glamour and appeal....harumph.
oh, I forgot: try the "bistecca alla Fiorentina" - you'll be in the only region of Italy which cooks an amazing steak made from locally grown cows...it'll make you laugh at Texas forever after...
Thanks a ton for the advice. I am really, very excited to immerse myself in different culture and society. I am a cooking hobbyist (as well as photog and my main gig as architect/designer) so I will take your epicurean advice to heart. And I suspect there is a clear cultural line from the landscape through the kitchen, to the table and to social interaction, which I hope will lead to some new friendships.
justyell and small potatoes: Thanks for your suggestions! I am not an EU citizen (Switzerland respects jus sanguinis, in conferring its citizenship, and I was born to American parents on State business) so I suppose a car is out of the question - I won't waste my time.
Nicolas,
I have over three weeks paid vacation built up at work, and I am lucky to have no student loans, mortgage or car. That goes a long way towards my trip!
Years ago I lived in Italy for a number of months. After I had travelled extensively throughout the country, and had hit all of the tourist attractions, my favorite things to do involved taking it slow! Rent a scooter and head to the country side. Pick up some fresh produce as you pass through quaint little villages. Sample the multitute of fine wines. Emmerse yourself in the culture as much as you can, and when you return to the US you'll surely see it in a much different light.
Also, if you have the money/time, I highly recommend a side trip to Barcelona with a stop at Montserrat. Truly magical place that combines art, architecture, history and some spectacular geology and landscape features. Oh...and Zermatt, Switzerland...ski, ski, ski!
haha, I would break myself if I skied. It's been 12+ years and I am so inflexible. I would love to go for the champagne and hot tubs, tho.
You're talking about exactly the kind of immersion I want to settle into. I want to make this an experience that I learn from and can call on in my future work.
go to the Golden View (bad name, great cafe) just over the Ponte Vechhio (on the Palazzo Pitti side) from the Ufizi...sit, drink wine, eat bruschetta alla funghi, drink wine, eat tuscan bread soup, drink more wine, watch the sun set....
then stroll back over the vecchio over to the square outside the ufizi, eat gelato, drink more wine...get lost amidst the twinkling holiday street lights...find someone selling waffles...etc etc etc..maybe find a nice italian gal.
i was there just two years ago over new years...spent NYE crazy partying up in Bologna, tried to win the bull but couldn't find the contest amidst the throngs, ate many tortellonis al brodo, then spent a mere week (less even) in florence, san gimignano, lucca, etc.
if you go to lucca (which you should do) you must get the frati di san michelle which are, quite literally, to die for. buy them from the cart in the central market. the only place around i think.
but you could do all that in a couple of weeks. i say so all the way down to sicily and hang out picking castelvetranos. sounds like you need a break from life, not more of it.
I have a friend that moved there years and years ago. He was a member of the band, "The Lounge Lizzards" Steven Piccalo has alot of songs under his belt...and no hair on his head.... a true brother of invention: http://www.undo.net/stevepiccolo/download/1160943739.mp3
You should try to catch one of his giggs.. as he is illussive as a cat at night.
oooh, the gelato, how could I forget the gelato...and the espresso and cappuccino....like elixirs from the gods....oh, and the after-dinner drinks - particularly the grappa......ok, I gotta go back and soon.
(wow, snook, so your friend must be tight with John Lurie.)
Emilio....I'm not sure how tight he is with John Lurie....It was years ago that he played with him. He is into alot of different kind of things in Europe.
its funny how, archetecton, you're jumping from one reifying consumerism to another. everything is being laid out in plans and lists of certain foods and certain sights. guide-binging. bringing america to italy (and whats new about that...). i guess we all might help each other write down each and every possible step of our lives. in fact, preclude prose. maps and lists. a guide to living. certainly a preemptive remedy to time lost (nostalgia is the only sickness the modern person should feel guilty about) . we can then travel to delos to try and clarify (to divine is to further mystify ... a paradoxically necessary step in finding out one's fate - is this acceptable for this secular age) how it all ends as well. yes, even the gods can be en-listed. quite borges when you think about it. the representing maps & lists equal the represented country.
It all comes down to the diagram. And the medium we have engaged, which allows me exposure to the wider breadth of experience here, comes at a cost. We are nudged towards brevity by our nascent experience with the internet. The network's capabilities are developing faster than we can realize. Diagrams and lists are powerful signs that offer incomplete pictures.
I think most of us realize that a first-hand experience of a culture is irreplaceable; that immersion in the foreign realm is where we find the value in tourism. You are correct that storytelling is diminished, but this occurs because we can experience the world directly, and do not need to rely on others' accounts. The mature mind will seek out interactive, human experience and shun the convenience offered by consumerism that is inevitable in a shrinking world.
I like the idea of comparing foreign experiences over time, and observing the changes as the world shrinks. It is a dangerous exercise, prone to incubating that disease of nostalgia you referred to, but it may yield a glimpse of a unified future. Maybe even the next Utopian hallucination.
there is such a thing as tourism for the "mature mind" :o)
more thoughts:
in a way, there is also a fear of tourism...i mean going somewhere else for a vacation. because it would turn out to be such a contrast from daily life and that, the realization that one's life is so miserably narrow compared to what the world affords and that no matter how much i/you consume disparate moments...i/you would still be this small unknowing creature leading one world, having one self.
yes, you might learn from.but another couple of years and whats in colour fades to grey.
therefore, i think a more comforting thought would be that, despite any context or background, one's emptiness should be an easy letting-go rather than an agitated feeling of self discontent, of impatience ..of a burning desire for change. do i need to hunt out the different tastes of food when i know that little is enough for me and that taste is temporary and fleeting. and to accept that as readily and peacefully as accepting that one is bound to die somtime.
so...i tink that only after the freedom of knowing taste is not a need, not a program, not an external archinect suggestion can one really..not only enjoy, but also discover one's taste. but i'm not talking that this is a should for anyone else except myself.
Of my Italian experiences, the food I most often try to replicate is Roman pizza, but that bread is tough to figure out; its unlike anything I've ever had in America. I don't like coffee, but loved Italian cappucino. The hot chocolate is tasty as well, but served pipping hot and you have to just stare at it for hours while it cools - its as thick as pudding. But my favorite experince of the three months I was there, was just adapting to their way of life. I shopped daily for groceries, had to learn to wash my clothes and not use a dryer. Adjust the water pressure to low so I wouldn't run out of hot water when I showered. Walking everywhere (I lost 10 lbs) and being able to walk everywhere. Husband and I went back to the same neighboorhood I lived in for our honeymoon, and we only spent half a day touring the 'sites' of Rome, opting to simply live as the Romans the other 6 days.
I agree with your notion of a fear of tourism. There is a comfort in ignorance. Perhaps innocence is a kinder word, but for architects it is truly a sin to remain innocent of the world's societies and cultures. As Sarah Hamilton points out above, a favorite experience can be that act of adapting, reveling in the change rather than fearing it.
Watching so many cultures assimilate with the city, I realize my life even in New York is narrow, insular, provincial. So, I am wandering to re-affirm my conviction that I know nothing. It is a pursuit of Socratic wisdom, in a sense. It keeps me in the practice of questioning and imagining. I think you allude to a similar emptiness in your second paragraph. You turn emptiness into lightness. A trick with which I agree.
But you also remind me of the madeleine episode. As our memories fade to grey, or are edited by our recollection, they become more 'us' as effected by our experiences, rather than our experiences as recounted by us. Our fading memories become our own narratives, revealing our dispositions, preferences and priorities.
In short, there is for me a balance between taking comfort in one's lightness and taking account of one's self through one's morphing memories.
nocti, my list was not a regulatory thing, just pointing out SOME of the things that make Italian cuisine the joy that it is. Archetecton will have his own experiences which in no way can be set down in a list.
The larger point is that growing crops, food and eating were ingrained in Italian culture long before "consumerism", before plastic packaging and mega-supermarkets, and it can be enjoyed it Italy in that way still. And in my advice, the human contact was implied, since most human connections in Italy revolve around eating and talking around a table (only connect, as E.M. Forster said). My advice was NOT, in ANY WAY, a bringing of America to Italy, lists or not, it was more a way to get inside Italy inspite of, no through, the world travel industry (and your take was thoroughly depressing, btw).
the logic of consumerism can even ingest the naive pristine (whatever) this fucking beauty of this mythocreepy italy and sell it back regurgitated in its sheen of poster smiles and archinect cheers. double sheeny italy.
a part of me that finds the attitude towards places like italy, greece, spain... quite sleazy. people who want to shove their snouts into the cultural and gastronomic trough and stuff their faces full of old world experience and oily nosh. (archetecton, no offence to you. i believe the human lot can be such pigs, and monkeys, and deer, and squirrels...a pig is quite the intelligent creature).
I suppose the saving grace here is intent and conduct. Do you share your culture rather than force it? Are you receptive to what you see and learn from it? The entire motivation behind such diverse exposure is to learn respect for others, and to impress on oneself that feeling of narrowness and minority (and humility) that so many people ignore.
I don't quite understand your view of "the attitude towards places..." what is that attitude? and how is it sleazy? I am assuming a lot when I guess this attitude is to view ancient artifacts and Old World territories as a kind of Disneyland experience. I guess that only because I am completely unable to imagine the dark side of cross-cultural curiosity.
My wife and I went there in April for about 2 weeks. Just Rome and Florence... had saved money for a few years. What a great trip. We're definitely doing it again, even if it's 10+ years from now.
What a beautiful country and architecture every architect should experience at least once in a lifetime. It's just staggering how ugly our country is by comparison.
The best advice I can give is leave the television and internet off and just walk and explore and take some photographs and enjoy.
Of course some of the crowded sites can be stressful, but if you get Rick Steve's guidebooks and follow his advice you'll never have to wait in line more than 5 minutes.
ok, nocti, now you're starting to piss me off. Get your f'in nose out of Baudrillard and take a walk in the crip autumn air, might do you some good. Yea, I got your 'mythocreepy italy" right over here. You're so wrapped up with consumerism and degradation you think people actually exist there. My Italy is the land of my birth and is made up of people I love and experiences and memories. The regurgitated garbage you're talking about is experienced by people who leave home and expect to have a mini USA wherever they go, not touching or feeling or sensing anything, not ever connecting.
And this shit: "people who want to shove their snouts into the cultural and gastronomic trough and stuff their faces full of old world experience and oily nosh" borders on the stereotypical and prejudicial...trough?...oily? bite me, dude.
mightylittle has one leg and emilio the other. although different hounds have different temperaments. how a person can be an animal's avatar.
i said a "part of me"...there are other parts. althuogh that wasn't digested by the monominded saccharide-leeches. (another avatar)
if a person's body's is a zoo, then how does one peacefully die between the cages? free the animals into the ether? or is this too christian, too neoplatonic, too hollywoodish? but then again, hollywood is quite darwinian as well. the misunderstood nerd movies and the action hero movies. its all about solipsistic survival (and what is the fittest but the supremely solipsistic creature who's interior life reflects to the exterior all its weapons for pepetuating its solipsism...what is your child but the result of your interiority countering its inherent, and necessary, discontinuity...what are nerds and heros but fetishized interiorities). well, even paradise is god's exemplary darwinian musuem-zoo. zed and two noughts, the part two? nah, tacky.
archetecton, i sincerely hope your pee be clearer and healthier appearing on italian grounds.
Thanks, toast. I will be sure to include time to track down both venues during my visit. While I love to cook and eat, I think I may be distracted by the architecture.... I'll try to focus, though!
let's try to focus on the useful and positive in what we've contributed. Thank you for making me think, and lending me some of your experiences.
Noctilucent - you need to get out more ... maybe get laid. That gibberish made no sense.
Using a bunch of verbage you think you know the meaning of just because you read it in some book by a famous philosopher doesn't make it applicable to everyday life.
Kierkegaard was an elegant philosopher, but if you take his work too seriously you'll be mentally tea-bagged.
if you enjoy gardens:
within the walls:
boboli gardens
giardino bardini
giardino corsi
giardino torrigiani
giordino corsini al prato
orti oricillari
giardino budini gattai
orto botanico
il giardino del museo acheologico
outside for the best view of florence:
giardino capponi...
Florence for Two Months!
After almost 8 years in professional practice, I am heading to Italy for my own mini grand tour. Next week, I am flying to Milan and settling into a small apartment in Florence, away from work, away from dysfunctional personal relationships, away from my familiar culture. After reading 'Italian Journey', 'Images of a Grand Tour', and your personal travel experiences here, I want to ask the dreamers out there:
If you had two months in Italy to do whatever you want, whenever you want, what would you do?
Don't mistake my intentions! I have committed to writing a blog for my friends, to show them my photos, drawings, watercolors and to write about my experiences. That alone will give me a lot to do, but I am looking for a few ideas that transcend tourism. Insider knowledge, that once-in-a-lifetime happening, hidden treasures. So please, get creative!
travel to switzerland...
that's what i'd do.
after living there in northern italy for a few years a a kid, it lost a lot of it's glamour and appeal.
eh well, I was born in Geneva, so I guess we are living bizarro lives.
whoo! genf. spent some time there as well.
i'd say timing wise - you miss a lot of the tourists, a good thing.
i'd get the regional train/bus pass, if possible (you might need to be a resident, i can't recall) to make visiting the hill towns cheaper.
Thanks. I believe the regional passes can be had by visitors too. Though the idea of buying a used car seems appealing. it's only two months, but it may be worth it in time savings and freedom. I've seen some cheap offerings on good ol' craigslist.
buying a car is difficult to do legally in Italy but sounds like you are a eu citizen which might change things... definitely get a set of wheels...authenticity occurs where tourists can't go easily...do a scarpa tour to verona and outside of venice, then do a corbu tour in france, definitely do a zumthor tour as well...a renzo tour seems fitting as well...
Cinque Terre
Walk of the Gods to Positano
holz, I know you like Switzerland and most of the buildings you post on "Guess the..." thread are northern and such, but a couple of points:
Florence is not northern Italy, more like north central and it's in fucking Tuscany for God's sake, and if you don't like that, Umbria is next to it (Umbria is one of the most drop dead gorgeous regions of Italy).
and, archetecton, search out food and wine, all kinds of food and wine, in little out of the way trattorias and little town restaurants and wineries: have the cheeses, the salamis and prosciuttos, the pastas, the fishes, the truffles and porcini mushrooms, the breads and desserts, and the wines, the Vino Nobile di Montepulcianos, the Brunello di Montalcinos, the Morellino di Scansanos, the Vernaccia di San Gimignanos. Try everything and don't be squeamish. Stay away from tourist trap restaurants, which means the menus are not listed in six languages, just Italian, and when you peek your head inside you hear mostly Italian.
holz, try to do that in Switzerland and tell me you'll get better food....lost its glamour and appeal....harumph.
oh, I forgot: try the "bistecca alla Fiorentina" - you'll be in the only region of Italy which cooks an amazing steak made from locally grown cows...it'll make you laugh at Texas forever after...
and I second Cinque Terre....it's not that far from Florence...boy, do I second it...
try the anchovies and sardines there, and the local white wine.
yeah eat the food
go look at famous reniassance architecture
that's about it.
i'm impressed you made enough money to take this kind of respite.
i am jealous.
Emilio,
Thanks a ton for the advice. I am really, very excited to immerse myself in different culture and society. I am a cooking hobbyist (as well as photog and my main gig as architect/designer) so I will take your epicurean advice to heart. And I suspect there is a clear cultural line from the landscape through the kitchen, to the table and to social interaction, which I hope will lead to some new friendships.
justyell and small potatoes: Thanks for your suggestions! I am not an EU citizen (Switzerland respects jus sanguinis, in conferring its citizenship, and I was born to American parents on State business) so I suppose a car is out of the question - I won't waste my time.
Nicolas,
I have over three weeks paid vacation built up at work, and I am lucky to have no student loans, mortgage or car. That goes a long way towards my trip!
volterra, italy is cool...i was there for a week hanging with some friends,...... its a small town, but has some cool views and architecture/ruins
b
Years ago I lived in Italy for a number of months. After I had travelled extensively throughout the country, and had hit all of the tourist attractions, my favorite things to do involved taking it slow! Rent a scooter and head to the country side. Pick up some fresh produce as you pass through quaint little villages. Sample the multitute of fine wines. Emmerse yourself in the culture as much as you can, and when you return to the US you'll surely see it in a much different light.
Also, if you have the money/time, I highly recommend a side trip to Barcelona with a stop at Montserrat. Truly magical place that combines art, architecture, history and some spectacular geology and landscape features. Oh...and Zermatt, Switzerland...ski, ski, ski!
haha, I would break myself if I skied. It's been 12+ years and I am so inflexible. I would love to go for the champagne and hot tubs, tho.
You're talking about exactly the kind of immersion I want to settle into. I want to make this an experience that I learn from and can call on in my future work.
couldn't have said it better myself....
go to the Golden View (bad name, great cafe) just over the Ponte Vechhio (on the Palazzo Pitti side) from the Ufizi...sit, drink wine, eat bruschetta alla funghi, drink wine, eat tuscan bread soup, drink more wine, watch the sun set....
then stroll back over the vecchio over to the square outside the ufizi, eat gelato, drink more wine...get lost amidst the twinkling holiday street lights...find someone selling waffles...etc etc etc..maybe find a nice italian gal.
i was there just two years ago over new years...spent NYE crazy partying up in Bologna, tried to win the bull but couldn't find the contest amidst the throngs, ate many tortellonis al brodo, then spent a mere week (less even) in florence, san gimignano, lucca, etc.
if you go to lucca (which you should do) you must get the frati di san michelle which are, quite literally, to die for. buy them from the cart in the central market. the only place around i think.
but you could do all that in a couple of weeks. i say so all the way down to sicily and hang out picking castelvetranos. sounds like you need a break from life, not more of it.
have fun.
find a girl
I have a friend that moved there years and years ago. He was a member of the band, "The Lounge Lizzards" Steven Piccalo has alot of songs under his belt...and no hair on his head.... a true brother of invention: http://www.undo.net/stevepiccolo/download/1160943739.mp3
You should try to catch one of his giggs.. as he is illussive as a cat at night.
oooh, the gelato, how could I forget the gelato...and the espresso and cappuccino....like elixirs from the gods....oh, and the after-dinner drinks - particularly the grappa......ok, I gotta go back and soon.
(wow, snook, so your friend must be tight with John Lurie.)
Emilio....I'm not sure how tight he is with John Lurie....It was years ago that he played with him. He is into alot of different kind of things in Europe.
elixirs? why not ambrosia
its funny how, archetecton, you're jumping from one reifying consumerism to another. everything is being laid out in plans and lists of certain foods and certain sights. guide-binging. bringing america to italy (and whats new about that...). i guess we all might help each other write down each and every possible step of our lives. in fact, preclude prose. maps and lists. a guide to living. certainly a preemptive remedy to time lost (nostalgia is the only sickness the modern person should feel guilty about) . we can then travel to delos to try and clarify (to divine is to further mystify ... a paradoxically necessary step in finding out one's fate - is this acceptable for this secular age) how it all ends as well. yes, even the gods can be en-listed. quite borges when you think about it. the representing maps & lists equal the represented country.
noctilucent,
It all comes down to the diagram. And the medium we have engaged, which allows me exposure to the wider breadth of experience here, comes at a cost. We are nudged towards brevity by our nascent experience with the internet. The network's capabilities are developing faster than we can realize. Diagrams and lists are powerful signs that offer incomplete pictures.
I think most of us realize that a first-hand experience of a culture is irreplaceable; that immersion in the foreign realm is where we find the value in tourism. You are correct that storytelling is diminished, but this occurs because we can experience the world directly, and do not need to rely on others' accounts. The mature mind will seek out interactive, human experience and shun the convenience offered by consumerism that is inevitable in a shrinking world.
I like the idea of comparing foreign experiences over time, and observing the changes as the world shrinks. It is a dangerous exercise, prone to incubating that disease of nostalgia you referred to, but it may yield a glimpse of a unified future. Maybe even the next Utopian hallucination.
there is such a thing as tourism for the "mature mind" :o)
more thoughts:
in a way, there is also a fear of tourism...i mean going somewhere else for a vacation. because it would turn out to be such a contrast from daily life and that, the realization that one's life is so miserably narrow compared to what the world affords and that no matter how much i/you consume disparate moments...i/you would still be this small unknowing creature leading one world, having one self.
yes, you might learn from.but another couple of years and whats in colour fades to grey.
therefore, i think a more comforting thought would be that, despite any context or background, one's emptiness should be an easy letting-go rather than an agitated feeling of self discontent, of impatience ..of a burning desire for change. do i need to hunt out the different tastes of food when i know that little is enough for me and that taste is temporary and fleeting. and to accept that as readily and peacefully as accepting that one is bound to die somtime.
so...i tink that only after the freedom of knowing taste is not a need, not a program, not an external archinect suggestion can one really..not only enjoy, but also discover one's taste. but i'm not talking that this is a should for anyone else except myself.
Wow, this thread got deep.
Of my Italian experiences, the food I most often try to replicate is Roman pizza, but that bread is tough to figure out; its unlike anything I've ever had in America. I don't like coffee, but loved Italian cappucino. The hot chocolate is tasty as well, but served pipping hot and you have to just stare at it for hours while it cools - its as thick as pudding. But my favorite experince of the three months I was there, was just adapting to their way of life. I shopped daily for groceries, had to learn to wash my clothes and not use a dryer. Adjust the water pressure to low so I wouldn't run out of hot water when I showered. Walking everywhere (I lost 10 lbs) and being able to walk everywhere. Husband and I went back to the same neighboorhood I lived in for our honeymoon, and we only spent half a day touring the 'sites' of Rome, opting to simply live as the Romans the other 6 days.
I agree with your notion of a fear of tourism. There is a comfort in ignorance. Perhaps innocence is a kinder word, but for architects it is truly a sin to remain innocent of the world's societies and cultures. As Sarah Hamilton points out above, a favorite experience can be that act of adapting, reveling in the change rather than fearing it.
Watching so many cultures assimilate with the city, I realize my life even in New York is narrow, insular, provincial. So, I am wandering to re-affirm my conviction that I know nothing. It is a pursuit of Socratic wisdom, in a sense. It keeps me in the practice of questioning and imagining. I think you allude to a similar emptiness in your second paragraph. You turn emptiness into lightness. A trick with which I agree.
But you also remind me of the madeleine episode. As our memories fade to grey, or are edited by our recollection, they become more 'us' as effected by our experiences, rather than our experiences as recounted by us. Our fading memories become our own narratives, revealing our dispositions, preferences and priorities.
In short, there is for me a balance between taking comfort in one's lightness and taking account of one's self through one's morphing memories.
nocti, my list was not a regulatory thing, just pointing out SOME of the things that make Italian cuisine the joy that it is. Archetecton will have his own experiences which in no way can be set down in a list.
The larger point is that growing crops, food and eating were ingrained in Italian culture long before "consumerism", before plastic packaging and mega-supermarkets, and it can be enjoyed it Italy in that way still. And in my advice, the human contact was implied, since most human connections in Italy revolve around eating and talking around a table (only connect, as E.M. Forster said). My advice was NOT, in ANY WAY, a bringing of America to Italy, lists or not, it was more a way to get inside Italy inspite of, no through, the world travel industry (and your take was thoroughly depressing, btw).
my advice is a couple of grappas....
Salute!
I am here for 3 months-a month has already passed...you will love it! Go everywhere, see everything! Just absorb!
Thanks td,
I am really looking forward to seeing and living Florence. I'm so excited I stopped sleeping a few nights ago....
the logic of consumerism can even ingest the naive pristine (whatever) this fucking beauty of this mythocreepy italy and sell it back regurgitated in its sheen of poster smiles and archinect cheers. double sheeny italy.
a part of me that finds the attitude towards places like italy, greece, spain... quite sleazy. people who want to shove their snouts into the cultural and gastronomic trough and stuff their faces full of old world experience and oily nosh. (archetecton, no offence to you. i believe the human lot can be such pigs, and monkeys, and deer, and squirrels...a pig is quite the intelligent creature).
btw, so what?
I suppose the saving grace here is intent and conduct. Do you share your culture rather than force it? Are you receptive to what you see and learn from it? The entire motivation behind such diverse exposure is to learn respect for others, and to impress on oneself that feeling of narrowness and minority (and humility) that so many people ignore.
I don't quite understand your view of "the attitude towards places..." what is that attitude? and how is it sleazy? I am assuming a lot when I guess this attitude is to view ancient artifacts and Old World territories as a kind of Disneyland experience. I guess that only because I am completely unable to imagine the dark side of cross-cultural curiosity.
so, if you don't mind, elaborate.
My wife and I went there in April for about 2 weeks. Just Rome and Florence... had saved money for a few years. What a great trip. We're definitely doing it again, even if it's 10+ years from now.
What a beautiful country and architecture every architect should experience at least once in a lifetime. It's just staggering how ugly our country is by comparison.
The best advice I can give is leave the television and internet off and just walk and explore and take some photographs and enjoy.
Of course some of the crowded sites can be stressful, but if you get Rick Steve's guidebooks and follow his advice you'll never have to wait in line more than 5 minutes.
Have fun!
Oh, and take a rain coat - thats the rainy season.
Thanks, folks!
ok, nocti, now you're starting to piss me off. Get your f'in nose out of Baudrillard and take a walk in the crip autumn air, might do you some good. Yea, I got your 'mythocreepy italy" right over here. You're so wrapped up with consumerism and degradation you think people actually exist there. My Italy is the land of my birth and is made up of people I love and experiences and memories. The regurgitated garbage you're talking about is experienced by people who leave home and expect to have a mini USA wherever they go, not touching or feeling or sensing anything, not ever connecting.
And this shit: "people who want to shove their snouts into the cultural and gastronomic trough and stuff their faces full of old world experience and oily nosh" borders on the stereotypical and prejudicial...trough?...oily? bite me, dude.
crisp autumn air, that is...
yea, and so what to you too.
noctilucent has clearly never done any of the things we suggested emilio...hence his bitter, depressed self.
i tell you this...nothing livens the soul and opens the heart and mind like a nice gelato di nocciola in the ufizi plaza!
his loss.
tecton - don't mind him. you'll have an open mind, you'll eat the oily nosh and enjoy the old world trough of gastronomic delights!
oh man - there is this place - I think it's on Costa San Giorgio near the gardino boboli, the carpaccio is freakin' awesome...
also - the gnocchi at this place on piazza di san marco... mmm....
I'd spend my entire two months eating and getting fat in Toscana. screw architecture - the food and wine should be your priority.
mightylittle has one leg and emilio the other. although different hounds have different temperaments. how a person can be an animal's avatar.
i said a "part of me"...there are other parts. althuogh that wasn't digested by the monominded saccharide-leeches. (another avatar)
if a person's body's is a zoo, then how does one peacefully die between the cages? free the animals into the ether? or is this too christian, too neoplatonic, too hollywoodish? but then again, hollywood is quite darwinian as well. the misunderstood nerd movies and the action hero movies. its all about solipsistic survival (and what is the fittest but the supremely solipsistic creature who's interior life reflects to the exterior all its weapons for pepetuating its solipsism...what is your child but the result of your interiority countering its inherent, and necessary, discontinuity...what are nerds and heros but fetishized interiorities). well, even paradise is god's exemplary darwinian musuem-zoo. zed and two noughts, the part two? nah, tacky.
archetecton, i sincerely hope your pee be clearer and healthier appearing on italian grounds.
here you go, nocti
it might help
Thanks, toast. I will be sure to include time to track down both venues during my visit. While I love to cook and eat, I think I may be distracted by the architecture.... I'll try to focus, though!
let's try to focus on the useful and positive in what we've contributed. Thank you for making me think, and lending me some of your experiences.
Noctilucent - you need to get out more ... maybe get laid. That gibberish made no sense.
Using a bunch of verbage you think you know the meaning of just because you read it in some book by a famous philosopher doesn't make it applicable to everyday life.
Kierkegaard was an elegant philosopher, but if you take his work too seriously you'll be mentally tea-bagged.
kierkegaard? sha up
naw, he's just putting the lucid back into lucent.
but boy can he prattle on about nothing!
if you enjoy gardens:
within the walls:
boboli gardens
giardino bardini
giardino corsi
giardino torrigiani
giordino corsini al prato
orti oricillari
giardino budini gattai
orto botanico
il giardino del museo acheologico
outside for the best view of florence:
giardino capponi...
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