The Other Italy

To most travelers, Italy means Rome, Florence, and Venice, with perhaps day trips to Siena or Cinque Terre. There are good reasons for this: those cities are wonders, with enough art, food, history, and charm to beguile the most cynical. But there's another Italy that I love just as much, an Italy that too few people take the time to see.

When we left Venice, we took a regionale train to Vicenza, where we spent three nights. Another regionale to Ferrara and another three nights, then on to Ravenna for three nights. These mid-size Italian cities (and there are many more like them, Parma and Perugia and Verona, for example) have great food with local specialities, fine art and museums, festivals and events. Each one has a population of around 100,000, so a few tourists like us can wander in and not be noticed.

We usually arrive on an early afternoon train, which means that as we walk into town (yes, they're small enough that you can walk from the stazione to the centro storico) around 2 p.m.; the streets are deserted, a ghost town with only a few stragglers and dogs roaming the narrow streets. It's the afternoon break, when all the shops are closed and everyone goes home for a few hours. We check into our hotel and put away our bags before heading out again.

By 4.30 p.m. or so people are starting to come outside and by 5 the shops are re-opened and the bars are again serving coffee and prosecco. By 6 or 6.30 the passeggiata is in full swing: everyone is walking up and down the main streets, window shopping, talking with friends and neighbors, running errands. At this time of year there are Christmas markets in the plazas, merry-go-rounds for the kiddies, and temporary ice rinks for the teenagers. Some of the happiest moments of my life have been wandering around within these evening promenades, seeing and hearing and smelling life in Italy.

Here's Corso Palladio in Vicenza just the other night:

And here's Perugia from a trip back in 2005; different city, different year, same ritual:

By 8 or so we're off to dinner somewhere, eager to try local specialities like baccalá in Vicenza or cappellacci with zucca in Ferrara. We sit down and wrestle with the menu and drink and eat and wonder whether we should get dessert. We leave by 9.30 or 10 and again the streets are dead, no one about, the city gone to bed for the night.

Altogether it's a pleasant and appealing rhythm of existence.

We'll be ending our trip in Bologna, La Grassa, La Rossa or The Fat, The Red. "Fat" because Bologna is known for being wealthy and prosperous as well as having the greatest food in Italy -- mention "Bologna" to an Italian and their eyes will light up as they speak of great dishes -- and "Red" both because of its distinctive red tile roofs and its leftist politics. Several of Bologna's mayors have been card-carrying Communists.

These photos and more over on Flickr.