Italy at-a-Glance, Exploring Italy's Cuisine and Culture
Are you planning a visit to Italy?
Here is a little taste of what we experienced - from food and drink, to transportation and music.
Food
In Italy, for us American tourists, it was all about (in order of availability): pizza, gelato, and pasta. This was to be expected, but I didn’t know just how prominent these foods would be in the places we would be visiting in Italy.
It’s not expensive to eat like Italians. 2-3 Euros (the Euro is strong right now, so 2-3 Euros equates to just over 2-3 USD’s) during the day can easily get you a whole pizza “to go”, or a long bread loaf topped with tasty meats and soft cheeses. In general, the pizzas here come with thinner crusts, lighter toppings, and the pastas with light, flavorful sauces and fresh ingredients, so the meals never feel heavy.
It is definitely a haven for carb-lovers. Nearly every restaurant we visited brought out a basket of bread to kick off the meal and today, cravings for a fresh salad or a simple bowl of fruit are coming to me unexpectedly. But as soon as we are out and about, pizzas topped with thick tomato slices and mozzarella balls, or pasta dishes with cilantro and seasonings catch my eye in the restaurant windows and I am suddenly back on the Italian food train.
Oh, and don’t get me started on the gelato! On every street corner of every mid-to-high trafficked street, you will most definitely find gelato shop(s) offering you a selection of various flavor choices, priced at two scoops for two euros, most of the time. Gelato has been an everyday activity for us so far here (and we are planning on keeping it that way!)
Drink
Ordering wine with your meals is quite common in Italy, as I’d expected it would be. Even the cheapest house varieties, especially when paired with the pizza and pasta dishes, tasted like heaven in a glass after a long day of sight-seeing! And speaking of heaven in a glass, cappuccinos are the morning drink of choice here. When in Italy, I’ll gladly enjoy a cup every time there is the chance.
Lemoncello, an Italian lemon liqueur and a product of the coast of Southern Italy, can be found throughout the shops in Solerno, Amalfi and Sorrento. Lemons are produced in heavy quantities, and you can happen across the most gigantic lemons as you stroll through the markets!
Breakfasts consist of croissants with prosciutto and cheeses, gourmet yogurts and sweet pastries (heavy on the sweet!). Italians don’t skimp on the Nutella, either. Peanut butter (the toast topping choice of America) is a rare find all across Europe, but there is no short supply of Nutella.
Transportation
Italians love to honk. The drivers we came across on our trip seemed to have a “fend for yourself” mentality (walkers, “cross at your own risk!”). We laughed one morning in Sorrento when a stray basset hound, who’d been walking alongside us for a few blocks as we perused the shopping alleyways, abruptly changed courses and began to slowly cross the road, right into oncoming traffic! “He even crosses the street like an Italian!”
Anyways, onto Vespas: a common mode of transportation in Italy, as the weather is almost always warm and the roads are narrow. The towns bordering the Amalfi Coast are made up of winding cliff-side roads and sharply-angled turns. As we walked up the cliffs of Amalfi, the roads became narrower and narrower, impossible for anything bigger than a mini car to fit through.
Music
It seems most Millennial Italians prefer American pop over the more traditional Italian music their parents and grandparents listen to. On the ferry ride from Salerno to the Amalfi Coast yesterday morning, we shared the upper deck with a group of 50 or so Italian high school students who were on some sort of class break or field trip. A few girls behind us had turned their cell phones up and were singing along for most of the ride to hits from Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, etc.
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All of the Italians we met on our journey through Europe have been genuine and friendly, eager to communicate and eager to help us out if we needed some extra guidance.
One morning, as we made our way to the ferry that was to take us from Solerno to the Amalfi Coast, we missed the first ferry out of the dock. The man who had sold us our tickets noticed just as the ferry rode away, and ran out to the dock post to us to tell us the news, then threw his arms up in the air to shrug and laughed it off for us.
It seems easy to enjoy life in Italy (and not take many things too seriously).
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