there were two people who met, fell in love and got married. Instead of presents, they asked for help honeymooning in Italy. This is our site all about our families adventure. We hope it will inspire you to love Italy just as much we do!

To Leave and to return home.

Leaving Italy is similar to leaving a lover one had grown found of and cannot forget. Every other experience pales in relation to this experience for all of us, in every sense.

You're reminded in the weirdest places. Standing in line at the grocery store, or perhaps frying an onion on the stove. You are no longer satisfied with flower shops or sculptures of any kind. You find yourself working out travel budgets in your head. “I really don't have to eat for all of say... April.”

Be warned!

Let the traveler be warned; least you fall entrapped by the ancient stone streets and walls; the medieval architecture and the modern lifestyle. My sense of history is radically altered by the experience of Italy. I used to think that 'old' meant a hundred years, maybe two hundred. In Italy it was not considered old unless it was from the age of the Romans. “Sure that Cathedral is magnificent, but you should come and see the Aqueduct!” In Rome I looked over and I saw a roman statue, a catholic church and a modern building lined up in a row.

Taste

Be warned least you too fall prey to the subtle touch of Italian food on your taste buds. Be warned that you too may eat a slice of pizza and think 'No pizza I ever eat again will compare to this pizza,' or 'Pasta will never taste the same.' Such is Italy; it fills the pores of being, the soul and the body giving us a new European view that life is not lived unless you have those two hours off for lunch. 'Don't forget the mozzarella and olives on you way home, dear.'

Why does food taste different on a different continent? Are American cooks that bad? Or have are taste buds nearly fallen into disease through generations of deep fryers, meatloaf and 'pass the ketchup? I do not think I saw a single ketchup bottle in all of Italy. I’m sure they are were, somewhere - probably in a MacDonald’s - the American contribution to the Italian international cosine. But still, certain foods do taste different.

Take for example

Cheese - I pity the fool who thinks that his or her high prized specialty deli has anything that can compare to a fresh ball of mozzarella still warm from the cheese makers hand. Perhaps you love olives as I do. Then do not go to Italy, unless you plan to stay.

If you do go to Italy, stay away from Puglia because if you go to Puglia, you are sure to meet Pina and she will offer you an olive picked from one of her uncles orchards and hand marinated in a secret family recipe. For once you taste this olive all other olives will pale in comparison.

Suddenly when you taste another olive your mind will remember. Ahh that was good, but not as good as the olive Pina gave me when I was in Puglia, Italy.