A restaurant near my home where the owner and his friends watch Soccer games on the Italian channel on tv ,during the day ,while we have lunch :)
Then he kisses both my cheeks when we leave ~

dreaming

my countdown to our may 8 trip!!
I can't wait, and I think I am
making hubby nuts in the process!

Talking with one's hands.

The Uffizi and Michelangelo's David in Florence
Gelato
Capri, the Blue Grotto, and lemons
The beautiful Tuscan countryside
The graciousness of the people we came in contact with

The amazing lemon trees and seafood in 5 terra. Also, looking at the sea glass I collected from the beach in Monterosso.

Late afternoon sun, golden and slanting across the trees. There's no light like the Tuscan Sun.

me: the calendar--only 113 days and a wake-up before we get to go!!!!
hubby: my wife-will not let me forget the above, with a daily update ((o))

That special shade of goldy-yellow of so many of their buildings. I've tried to recapture it in my living room but something about the light in the Midwest just doesn't cut it.

the language
olive trees
olives
olive oil
scent of orange and lemon blossoms
basil
wild fennel
donkeys
combination of mountains (not really high ones) and sea
unpaved switchback roads leading to hilltop towns
Greek ruins
various folkways, traditional celebrations, folk proverbs
old ladies in black
granita
Eastertime foods
things made with almond paste--cookies, marzipan, almond milk drinks
political history of independent city-states in central/north-central Italy
Dante
Machiavelli
Medici and other ruling families in other Italian city-states
some specific Florentine sculptures burned into my brain, especially some by Donatello
Michelangelo
all aspects of Da Vinci--drawings, paintings, inventions, writings, etc.
late medieval and Renaissance and Baroque painting
medieval architecture and streets
Renaissance architecture
all sorts of crafts--leatherwork, jewelry, ceramics, glass, "Florentine" paper, Sicilian marzipan figures, lace, furniture, etc.
many many writers from medieval to modern
opera--ones by Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni, etc.
old Sicilian folk songs
popular Neapolitan songs
home-made after-dinner liqueurs
wine routinely had with meals from an early age, along with traditional attitudes (in south and Sicily) that drunkenness is shameful and weird
towers (this image is partly from real-life, from travels, but also from the pictures of towers that I loved on those little boxes of torrone that we'd have after holiday dinners when I was a child)
marble
political posters
puppets--those armed traditional from Sicilian popular theater and also the Pinocchio puppets from Tuscany
little groups of retired men chatting in public places in small southern towns
women sitting outside their front door crocheting, also in small southern towns

There are really too many things that make me think of Italy or, too many things that Italy makes me think of. However, they seem to be split regionally. Most of my strongest impressions of Italy are either of central Italy and the things associated with the city states and early Italian literature and the most famous late medieval and Renaissance art, or they are things associated with southern Italy and Sicily. While I love Venice, in some ways my impressions of it are separate from my gut impressions of the rest of Italy.

Gorgeous, charming men
Warm, wonderful people
Food to die for
Biscotti dipped in sweet wine
grappa
wine
Birth of Venus
Gorgeous, charming men :)

Leather bags, stylish shoes, beautiful scenery, Michaelangelo, Piazza della Signoria, Renaissance Art, Canals, Lemon and Orange trees in clay pots, Pinocchio, Gelato, Marble statues, Endless bottles of Limoncello, olive trees, church bells, lost luggages, yachts, crowded trains (aka: refuge line), Chianti, sunflowers, warm summer breezes, ancient towers, climbing to the tops of Duomos, midnight runs for milkshakes from McDonalds with my mom :)

Whenever the air feels especially clear and beautiful in Maine (where I live) I recall standing on a terrace at the Villa Cimbrone in Ravello, overlooking the Bay of Salerno, and an unearthly feeling of peace washes over me...
Conversely, whenever we're in traffic and smell diesel exhaust, my 11 year old son says "Mom, it smells just like Rome!" LOL

Parasol pines and cedars on distant hilltops...

the smell of caffe (espresso)on a cold, crisp day...

not giving a second's thought to the cars and scooters whizzing by as I walk across busy piazzas...

conductors who say that maybe the train will be on time...maybe not...

deciding whether to have a large-portioned and rich antipasto and skip the secondi...or vice versa.

you mean what in my out of Italy experience reminds me of Italy? The sound of vespas and the sound of a bike horn. The smell of diesel. The taste of a good bottle of wine. The feeling of cold fresh air with a scent of the sea on my face.

good looking men, shoes, handbags, stylish cars.. style in general!

Since my first trip to Italy was to the Amalfi Coast, it's the smell of lemons that does it for me every time!

- Tuscan bread dipped in olive oil
- Limoncello
- drinking red wine on a balcony
- long, animated dinners that end with vinsanto and grappa
- a small bottle of lotion I had with me when I lived in Florence & still have; every time I open it and sniff, I'm taken back to my apartment on Via Venti Setembre!
- gelato, gelato, gelato - although I have yet to find any good gelato in central PA

Ice Cream - everytime I eat ice cream I wish it was the kind in Rome by the Trivi Fountain !!

- Olympic games (Torino)

- a stare that would kill if it could (the way Barbara Fusar-Poli looked at Maricio Margalio after a fall during the figure skating dance)