A taste of Italy

Whee, what a fabulous week in Italy we had. Where to begin with the stories? Every meal could be the subject of its own post. We squeezed a ridiculous amount into our 8 days, from Rome to Tuscany to Venice, with a few other stops in between. Normally I wouldn’t advocate such a ridiculously quick travel schedule, but somehow it managed to work out crazy well.

The highlights of the trip were definitely the Tarot Garden and the days we spent in the Tuscan countryside. Indeed, the entire trip was planned around the idea of visiting Niki de St. Phalle’s sculptural masterpiece, which is located pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I had never even heard of this garden when we were living in Italy. I think it was at the Espace Jean Tinguely – Niki de Saint Phalle in Fribourg that I saw a video about her constructing the garden, and I’ve wanted to go see it in person ever since.

Since visiting the garden required renting a car, it made sense to also spend a couple days driving around Tuscany – something we had never done before since we didn’t own a car when we lived in Milan. Observing the driving situation in Milan, neither of us was particularly eager to get behind the wheel in Italy at the time. But the Tarot Garden and tiny Tuscan hill towns definitely proved themselves worthy of the effort.

I’ll end this post with some of the questions that kept running through my mind during this trip:

• How did the Italians manage to construct so many buildings that look more and more beautiful the older and more run-down they get?
• Why is espresso (and gelato and pizza and pretty much everything else) so much yummier in Italy than in other countries?
• Why don’t we live here anymore?