the cup of Cappocino that my friendly neighborhood waiter decorated with a flower on top of the cream.

By the way, my first impression of Rome was: hot, tourist-filled, confusing.
Five years later it was: elegant, challenging, human-scaled (except St. Peter's , see above), delicious and incredibly welcoming. That trip was a month after 9/11 and being not only American but a New Yorker (Italians will often ask what part of the US you come from) seemed to make everyone we met even more open-hearted than usual.

It was also Italy in the fall - this country of the perfect climate can be bitter in winter and suffocating in summer, but when it is its best, it is better than anywhere.

And one more thing!
Titian-red is a color so closely associated with that great painter that it has a place in the lingua franca of art. It is a luminously rusty red ... but you have to see it to get it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titian
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/htm...ano/index.html

To me, Titian-haired refers to color!

Hmmm, there are so many, some that stand out:
-Viewing the gorgeous town of Positano both from the sunny deck of the little boat we rented for a few hours and took around the bay, as well as from a lounge chair on its rocky beach with a beer in my hand and the town's outline and the crystal clear sea all around me (mesmerizing)
-waking up at 5AM, jet-lagged, in Vernazza, and watching the dawn creep up over the water and gorgeous cliffs from our hotel's terrace
-having a wonderfully delicious pesto pasta dinner at Gianni Franzi in Vernazza, with three close friends and tons of delicious wine that lasted for over four hours
-getting lost in the vineyard encrusted cliffs behind Manorola with jaw-droppingly beautiful views of the sea all around me, and with the air so crisp you could cut it.
-making home cooked pasta topped off with wine, wine and more wine, snug by the fireside in our small tuscan villa, as the March night slowly cooled outside our doors.
-savoring every drop of a bottle of Brunello at a small Montalcino restaurant
-all the amazing Gelato shops in Florence
-Kinderbuenos!!!!

The Sistine Ceiling is magnificent!! I could have stayed in there for hours...and, course St. Peters...the art was beyond belief. So much to take in and not enough time in a lifetime to comprehend everything. Rome is a magical place and so welcoming...great people and the food! Just don't go to the Hardrock! One could spend a lifetime in Rome and never take it all in. I'd go back in a New York minute!

--the red bra hanging from a window to dry in Trastevere. Was it laundry day or a signal to a friend?

The people and the pace

What impressed me most about Italy?

• Yes, that very first ride down the Grand Canal in a vaparetto.
• Venice’s vibrant fish market in the morning.
• A veteran lacemaker attending to her work in a little shop in Burano.
• The multi-colored tapestry of houses in Burano.
• The peace of Torcello.
• The music at night in Piazza San Marco, and all the happy faces.
• Being happy when disoriented, then lost and alone, while walking in Venice.
• The freshness and essential simplicity of many of the lunches and dinners I’ve enjoyed, including a sublimely simple linguine with clams.
• The welcome, warmth, and quiet professionalism of many of the waiters who’ve served me.
• Having morning coffee and a cornetto in Rome’s Piazza Navona and watching it come to life.
• Piazza Maggiore in Bologna.
• Piazza del Campo in Siena.
• The Giusti garden in Verona.
• Hearing a concert in Venice’s Scuola Grande of San Rocco, surrounded by Tintoretto masterpieces.
• Coming upon Venice’s relatively isolated Church of the Madonna dell’Oro in the Cannaregio in the afternoon when I was hot and tired and needed its soothing calm and coolness.
• Doria Pamphili gallery in Rome, especially the Velazquez portrait of Pope Innocent X.
• Having a sunny breakfast outside with Paula at a working fattoria in Radda.
• The many shades of blue in the water off Camogli.
• The pesto I had outside in Tellaro on a brilliantly sunny afternoon.
• Knowing that this list of favorite moments would be impossibly long, and knowing the heartache I would feel if I could never return.

I don't remember what town we were in but our coach guide pointed at a building across a canal and said that Galileo dropped some objects from that building to show how they fell at the same speed.

On the way back from another place, we passed a place selling crisps which had just been made. I tried one and they were the most intense liquorice flavour I have come across.

Like Statia, we renewed our wedding vows in Sept. 2005 (25 years) on a gondola in Venice. It was awesome!!! For so long Switzerland was my favorite place, but I now think Italy is. I LOVE Venice and Rome most (so far!).

San Clemente in Rome-a trip thru time

Florence-Florence-Florence

Frari & Scuola San Roch in Venice

Il Santo & Arena Chapel in Padua

All the Caravaggios in Rome

The Sistine Chapel

Transportation-local & inter-city

the pizza.

Driving along the Amalfi coast and seeing Positano for the first time right around sunset on a perfect evening. And relaxing on the balcony of our hotel in the hills above Sorrento with 180 degree views of the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius. Also, the Italians gracious support of the US after 9/11 (was in Rome when it happened).

The Wine!

Everything! Love Italy!

*Sitting down at the harbor in Vernazza eating focaccia bread

*sitting down at the harbor in Vernazza with the sun setting after all the daytrippers have gone home, eating gelato

*that first glimpse of the grand canal

*getting "lost" in Venice

*the scent of star jasmine and lavender coming through the window of our agriturismo

*the view of Montepulciano out the window of our agriturismo

*the fields and fields of blooming sunflowers in Tuscany

*the sound of the cicadas

*sitting outside with my family eating parmegiano-reggiano cheese and sipping the local wine

*seeing the Sistine Chapel for the first time

*last July watching the final World Cup game in Sorrento on all the outdoor t.v.'s

*sitting on our hotel balcony in Sorrento overlooking the Bay of Naples with my husband and 2 teen boys and wishing these moments would never end!

*enjoying "il dolce far niente"--the sweetness of doing nothing!

I could go on and on and on........

To many beautiful thoughts to list which is why I haven't.

But most of all what keeps Italy close to my heart are the Italians.

How about the urge to return!!!!! Italy seems to capture you and never really lets you go. I compare all my trips to italy.

Others-

- Sunsets in assissi, incredible, over looking tuscanny with st. francis' church in the forground, wow.
- Late night in a roma disco room, near the pantheon, where we befriended crazy itialians and spent the night with them, and never undrestood a work each of us was saying.
- Being in the popes audience, great feeling for a catholic.
- Did I mention assissi at night, after the buses have left

Definitely the man in the white t-shirt making pizza for years at Pizzeria Fiametti just off the Piazza Navona. Incredible pizza, and a good show watching the hardest working man in Italy!

Like others, the first sight of the Grand Canal

Driving through the Dolomites from Aviano to Bolzano.

The role reversal of visiting our daughter during her semester in Siena and her taking us on a tour of the city. It hit home she was grown up.

What impressed me about Italy?

the smile on my mom's face:
- when I asked her if she wanted to go with me to Florence
- when we flew to Florence with our faces glued to the airplane window
- when she realized we were headed to Rome with my friends
- at her first glimpse of the Grand Canal leaving the train station, and then our ride down said Canal. She told me it was a dream come true. That alone made my day.

- the sadness in my mother's face when she realized it was time to go home to NY
- walking the same streets people like Dante walked
- my first sight of the Duomo in Florence, and then our climb to the top of the Duomo
- the Ponte Vecchio
- Piazza della Signoria
- tiny cars
- handbags everywhere!

And that's just Florence!

Honestly, I can't say enough about Italy. Every corner was impressive.

Definitely, enjoy every sunrise and every sunset anywhere in Italy. And don't forget the gelato. ;)

((L))