November 2018 Travels Part 2 – Italy: Rome, Naples and the Amalfi Coast

A photographic look at the second leg of my four-part November Trip to Europe: Rome, Naples, and the gorgeous Amalfi coast in southern Italy

This trip to Italy was my 6th, and while I once said that I’d never go back to Italy because I’d been there so many times and wanted to experience other parts of the world (which is still true), every time I do go, I have a completely new experience than my last. There’s certainly something to be said about the differences in the experience of visiting a place where you’ve never been (as I had with Catalonia) and visiting a place where you’ve been a handful of times. Catalonia was completely new and fresh; every day I found myself striving to see all the sights, eat all the food, and have all the experiences in order to grasp even a tiny understanding of the Catalonian culture. But when it comes to Italy, I’d say I’m pretty decently versed (as decently versed as an American-born citizen can be) in it’s culture, having grown up in an Italian-American family, and with relatives in Italy that we’ve visited bunches of times. I’ve seen the typical tourist sights and eaten all the classic Italian dishes. But having a well built foundation knowledge of the culture and cities of Italy left me with the opportunity to dig deeper into the experience of this foreign land – and the best part was that I got to do it all alongside the people I love. 

 

As I mentioned in my Catalonia post, this specific trip to Italy was really born when dad Joe and step mom Nicole, who are part of the Esopus Italian American Society, were told by other members of the group about a trip they had taken to Ravello on the Amalfi Coast in southern Italy. I would call a this trip a “package deal” –  an all inclusive (besides airfare) week in Ravello, with Italian language lessons in the morning, Italian cooking lessons in the evenings, and lots of excursions and experiences in between. I made my way from Barcelona to Ravello by way of Rome (where I met up with my uncle and cousins) and then Naples, but arriving the Hotel Parsifal in Ravello was the highlight of the Italian leg of my trip. The 13 of us there in Ravello had a truly extraordinary experience: we hysterically laughed through Italian language lessons, we were able to pick up invaluable tips on Italian cooking during our cooking lessons, we hiked through nature preserves dotted with waterfalls and gorgeous ivy covered ruins, and took in breathtaking views from atop 13th century villas. For anyone looking for an truly once-in-a-lifetime vacation, I highly recommend this package deal at the Hotel Parsifal in Ravello!

 

 

I am truly unable to put the beauty of this trip in effective words, and so I’m going to let my pictures do most of the talking. But, as in life, there were a few moments and feelings from this trip that I feel simply can not be summed up in photographs: The feeling I got in Rome, staying in the Hotel Panda (the very first hotel I ever stayed at in Italy) and traversing the same streets I had as an 8-year old, streets that immediately came back to me with overwhelming clarity and a strong emotion I can only describe as a mixture of nostalgia and wonderment. The feeling I got in Naples, when a knock on our hotel room door brought together aunts and uncles and cousins from New York with Italian family and friends who I hadn’t seen in 10 years, and the room immediately burst into shouts, laughter, hugs and kisses (on both cheeks, of course), meetings of family members who had only ever seen pictures of each other, and reunions of family who maybe had seen each other last week or maybe had only been able to speak on the phone for years. The feeling I got in Ravello when I looked to my right and saw an incredible coastline hugging the seemingly never-ending Mediterranean Sea, and then looked to my left and saw 16 members of my family – some I’ve known my whole life, and some only for a handful a years – clinking wine glasses and toasting to – what else – family. 

 

 

This trip gave me the opportunity to see a part of Italy that, even after 5 visits, I had never seen before. In Rome, I’d always been too busy seeing the Colosseum and the Vatican that I never stopped to explore the street art and food markets. In Capri, I felt like I never had enough time on this mountainous island filled with shopping and sightseeing to visit Anacapri, the tiny town that lies nestled above the main square, or take the chair lift to the top of Monte Solaro to experience the breathtaking views from the highest point on the island. I never stopped to truly understand the nuances of the Italian language (thank’s Italian language lessons!), or the delicate yet simple flavor combinations of the cuisine (thanks Italian cooking lessons!), or simply to take my time hiking through the rocky woods – overflowing with their own stories and history and culture – from one town to another on the Amalfi Coast. But above all that, this trip gave me the opportunity – a truly invaluable one – to be with my family: family that I was born to and family I share no blood with, family that lives thousands of miles away and family who I share a wall with. On both legs of this trip, in fact, I treasured every moment I got to spend with the people I love. From quiet dinners over wine and tapas with my mom and step-mom to boisterous meals with my obnoxiously loud Italian-American family, this truly was a trip I will always hold close to my heart.

Anyway, on to the pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers! And check out some photos from the first leg of my November travels: Catalonia, Spain. Plus a few recipes learned on our trip to Italy: Fresh Pasta Making Tips and Mini Baked Eggplant Parmesan.