From Our family to Yours… Experience Italy with the Eyes of the Local
Laura Massoni
I have lived in the US for over 18 years now and there isn’t a day that I don’t think about my family, the smells of food being cooked, the loud discussions and the unpredictable laughs. I miss all of that indefinitely with the good and the bad.
This is why I like to go visit my family as much as I can, I don’t want to miss Italy and I certainly don’t want to miss them! I try to go 3-4 times a year to be able to see new sites and old ones to remember what’s not fresh anymore in mind.
When I think about sending people to Italy for their first or multiple time, I always hope to leave them with memories and I hope to touch their hearts. All of these people become like family to me, I want them to experience my country with the eyes of a local and I really want them to come back with lots of good stories.
Feelings are part of our being and they help us remember episodes that we want to tell over and over and hopefully we remember who we told the stories to.
Last time I went home, I traveled to the region of Emilia Romagna, flew to Bologna and then traveled south to Rimini, about an hour away by car. Rimini is a famous city on the Adriatic coast that gets filled in the summer with tourists from all over Europe and Italy. It is a busy town with lots of places to go partying and eat good rich food.
At the end of my annual trade show, I took an educational tour of Florence, Turin and the surrounding areas under a different eye, the eye of a Savoy aristocrat in the late 1860’s, right before the Italian unification.
Florence was the second capital of Italy. The Savoy family, one of the oldest ruling family in Europe and certainly in Italy, decided to move their first capital Turin to Florence thinking that if they were further south from the French border, they were going to be safer.
When we got to Florence, we toured Palazzo Pitti and its museum, visited the city crossing the Ponte Vecchio and ended up lodging in a wonderful hotel near Santa Maria train station.
The next morning we took the high speed train, the Freccia Rossa to Turin and visited the historical city with some of the most important meeting places that helped make Turin (Torino) the first Italian capital. Italy is a fairly new country, this year, we celebrate the 150th birthday celebration and there will be a huge celebration that will take part from March ’till October.
I have to say that I have never experience those cities in a more deep way and this is probably one of the reasons Italy is repeatedly visited, there is always something to see even if you have been there once before.
Live big, love big, dream big, travel big and especially…discover everything as if it was your first time!
Laura @ Pappalecco Travel – 619 255 6165