JandaO

I can't pick between these 2.......

My friend Julie and I got up early one morning in Venice to go and find the Museum of Modern Art. It was foggy and delightfully eerie. Not alot of people about. Just walking down the little lanes and the misty little canals is something that is forever in my minds eye. Senses overload. Magical.

The other was in Sorrento during a downpour when lemons were literally rolling down the street. We picked up a huge one and made rum and cokes with lemon back at the hotel room.
Yummy.

Cant wait to hear all of yours on this beautiful relaxing Seattle morning.

Hi Jennie and Capo

lscott

Have had many unforgettable moments in Italy from 2 trips 40 years apart!
From the "young and poor Army wife trip" when our borrowed car broke down in a farmyard and a friendly family helped us put it together with baling wire...when we strolled from our cheap hotel and lucked on to the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon without looking for them... and the night we drove from Venice, cross country not knowing where we were, just looking for a place to stay at midnight, and suddenly came into the square in Pisa with the leaning tower and baptistry with a full moon behind them..

More recent trip, with tour group: Our bus was not scheduled to stop on the Amalfi coast between Sorrento and Sicily, but serendipitiously we left 2 ladies behind in Sorrento and had a long unscheduled stop on the coast with restaurant, gift shop and a most gorgeous view.
At Siracusa in Sicily, after we sat in the arena where Plato had spoken and then walked to the island of Ortigia..we stood before the ancient spring of Greek legend and walked past the ancient buildings, and I suddenly had a sense of deja vu and could not remember what century I was in..reincarnation memory according to one friend, or a simple "brain fart" according to my husband.

simpsonc510

My favorite moment? I think it would be my comfortably full tummy after a 2 hour lunch in Cetona at Da Nilo Osteria Vecchia. Mmmmmm... the wine, the cheese, the pasta... I want some right now! It was marvelous!

Weadles

Because of a substantial air delay, we arrived in Venice nearly 23 hours after leaving from New York. The moon was full that night, and as we zipped through Venice in a water taxi, all the buildings were lit up with their reflections shining in the water.

2) First trip to the Amalfi Coast. We were staying at the Hotel Poseidon, extremely jet-lagged, sleeping in when there was an insistent knock on the door. When I opened the door, a waiter in a tux walked into the bedroom carrying a tray full of fresh cut flowers, lemons, expresso, and cornetto. I tried to explain to him that we hadn't ordered breakfast, but he kept shushing me and pointing to the bed where my husband was still sleeping. On the way out, he glanced at my husband and said in perfect English,"He looks just like Chevy Chase!"

jor

My favorite Italian moment was when our Roman friend Paulo lent us his car and we broke down on a small road in the countryside near Rome. We broke out a bottle of wine on the hillside and laughed it away!

lyb

Just being in Italy was a 2 week favorite Italian moment...but...specifically.

1) A warm summer evening at the Pizzale Michelangelo overlooking Florence all lighted up, and in the background tango music.

2) Piazza San Marco (again warm summer evening), sitting at Caffe Lavena listening to the musicians drinking champagne. I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

3) Walking from the parking area over a bridge to our hotel in Venice. It was my first time in Venice, though loaded with my handcarry luggage (luckily we didn't have to bother with our suitcases), I had to stop on the bridge and take it all in then asked my friend, ?Are we really in Venice or is this Disneyland?? It seemed so surreal to finally be in Venice. I'll always remember my first look at Venice.

grandmere

Attending a performance of Aida under the stars of a warm Roman summer night at the Caracalla Baths, many years ago when they allowed performances there. Etched forever in memory.

jimcolorado

I will never forget sitting on the upper steps of St. Peter's at the Wednesday Papal Audience. Our local bishop requested special seating for us at the audience. I had seen countless pictures of the audiences and fully expected to be somewhere among the thousands of onlookers on the lower level. When we picked up our tickets at the American College, the Monsignor told us that we had "very special seating", little did we know how special. When we arrived at the Vatican early that morning, all we needed to do is show the envelope with the colored tickets and each Swiss Guard would point us toward another Swiss Guard, each increasingly closer to the front steps. Finally we were directed to an usher in formal clothing who motioned us up the steps to a seating area just to the Pope's left. We were seated in the front row and had an absolutely unobstructed view of the entire audience. The special moment came when the Pope passed directly in front of us in the Popemoblie, literally only 10 feet away. I ended up supporting some elderly Italian grandmother type who was crying so hard she couldn't stand. There wasn't a dry eye anywhere.

My next best memory was my wife and I sitting on the steps around San Marco Square listening to the Dueling Orchestras our last evening in Venice. She just leaned into me and we held each other. How can anybody say that Venice isn't the most magical city in the world?????

Statia

My husband and I renewing our wedding vows for our ten year anniversary, in the tiny canals of Venice on a gondola.

lyb

JimColorado...

Ahhh...those dueling orchestras!!! I wanted to stay there all night...

jsmith

I'm almost embarrassed to relate my favorite Italiam moment because it is so pedestrian. My wife and I were disoriented (ok, lost) in Venice when we realized we had to get back to San Marco. The only help we saw for directions was a woman outside her little shop replenishing her postcard display.

Outside of the usual greetings neither my wife nor I speak any Italian nor did the shopowner speak any English. Somehow we managed to convey our need to get to San Marco at which point this delightful woman began with pointing and hand directions to guide us.

After the first few gestures we all knew it was hopeless for her to continue. We laughed, she laughed and with one last point of her finger and a sparkle in her voice declared "corragio".

uhoh_busted

1) Standing in our open window raising a glass of red wine in a toast to the folks waving back at us from Vaporetto #1 as the sun set. Wow.

2) The drive through the Dolomites on a crisp bright May day. I think we saw half a dozen cars between St Ulrich and Cortina. It was simply stunning.

russ_i

We spent a week one year traveling around Umbria. Among the towns we visited were Urbino, Gubbio, Spello, Trevi, Spoleto, Todi, and Orvieto; however, I had the best time in Montefalco. Montefalco didn't have the nicest church, the most prestigious museum or the most beautiful landscape. What it had was authenticity. While all the other towns, with their racks of postcards and souvenir shops had their "must see" sights, Montefalco was a town which went about its business indifferent to the occasional tourist. Not that the people were unfriendly, on the contrary they were some of the friendliest people we met. But one gets the feeling that you could close the gates of their circular Medieval wall and they wouldn't care one way or the other.

We stayed in Montefalco two nights during the weekend of their annual "Fuga del Bove", Flight of the Bull. We never did find out what exactly happens during this flight. Does the bull run through town, does it sprout wings and fly, do they sacrifice it to pagan gods, who knows? There were posters all over town with a bull on them, so I know, at least, that there actually is a bull involved.

This weekend was also the Catholic celebration of Ferragosto, or the Assumption, when it is believed that the Blessed Virgin Mary rose, body and soul, into heaven. The celebration involved the 4 quartieri, quarters or neighborhoods, each of which sponsored an outdoor taverna in their part of town. This required a huge wood burning barbecue, several dozen picnic tables, and the best tasting, least expensive food of the trip. We had bruschetta (grilled bread with olive oil and garlic) topped alternately with tomatoes, truffles, olives, or roasted peppers; gnocchi or polenta in a hearty ragu; grilled veal or lamb; followed by fresh fruit. We thought we would burst. This was consumed with 8 or 10 of the towns people around the table. We were a big hit, being from L.A., and one talkative woman told us, in Italian, all her impressions from a past visit to New York and Toronto, while one of the men, seeing our occasionally blank faces, kept reminding her to slow down.

After dinner, we wandered into the central piazza in time to see the local orchestra readying itself for a performance. We were all prepared for some nice Baroque or Renaissance music, or even some traditional marching music (having noticed that the band was composed entirely of only brass and woodwinds). The conductor lifted his baton and we were treated to the opening bars of the Beatles' "Michele". From there we laughed along with "Ticket to Ride" slipping away just in time to miss an absurd rendition of "Oh Bla Di, Oh Bla Da".

When we returned to the piazza the music had stopped. In a perfect blending of the sacred and the profane, a procession of townsfolk began to shuffle up one of the streets that radiated out, spoke-like, from the central piazza. The street was lined with burning candles and the processioners were also each holding a candle. There was no music, which gave the mood a beautiful, somber tone. Finally, a quartet bearing a statue of Mary, followed by a priest, entered the piazza. We listened for a few minutes as the priest mumbled a few words in Italian and the congregation responded. Over and over, the same two phrases were chanted, until I finally recognized the last two lines from the "Hail Mary". Content to have witnessed, if not actually participated in, a local celebration not designed to pander to tourists, we headed back to our farm house.

Sitting in our room, each reading a novel, we heard what sounded like gun fire echoing across the valley. We opened the door and, looking up at the town on the hill a quarter mile away, we were treated to a twenty minute fireworks display. A giant multicolored punctuation mark at the end of a perfect day.

ira

>.. Piazza San Marco (again warm summer evening), sitting at Caffe Lavena listening to the musicians drinking champagne.<

Ah, yes. The tinkling sounds of the musicians slurping their champagne. Delightful.

ira

Mine is
Very early morning in Venice. Just walking around. Came upon a small side canal. Water perfectly still. Small church about two blocks away at the end of the canal. Sunlight just touching the top of the building and reflecting onto the water.

sandi_travelnut

Sitting at a table in the Piazza Commune in Assisi, watching an older gentleman walk with his dog. He leaned against the wall and his dog lounged in the middle of the piazza. Suddenly another gentleman and his dog appeared (obviously old friends) and the dogs romped and played for several minutes. As we watched them, the bells began to toll and both dogs stopped playing and howled with the bells. We couldn't help but wonder how many years this meeting had been taking place in this very spot.

Giovanna

Oh so many favorite moments in beautiful Italy, but I'll try.

When we visited Tricarico, the small town in Basilicata where my father-in-law was born. There is a small obelisque in the piazza, where we found both his name and his brother's name engraved as veterans of WWI. We posed for a picture in front of it with tears in our eyes.

On our first trip to Rome, coming out of the metro stop and seeing the coliseum for the first time.

Walking into the Accademia in Florence and catching our first glimpse of David.

In Sorrento, we have dinner at the same restaurant on each visit and try to get the same table. There is a musician who plays the mandolin and sings, as he walks about the restaurant. There are apartments across the street, and we watched with pleasure as he serenaded an elderly woman at the window in one of the apartments. We asked him about her on our next visit and he said she had died. We felt as if we had lost a friend.

There are so many others, but JandaO asked for one and I already went beyond that so will stop now!

lyb

Ira,

>>Piazza San Marco (again warm summer evening), sitting at Caffe Lavena listening to the musicians drinking champagne.<

Ah, yes. The tinkling sounds of the musicians slurping their champagne. Delightful<<

Oops, LOL, the difference a little comma and a few words can make.....let me try it again...

>>>sitting at Caffe Lavena listening to the musicians, while I was drinking champagne.

It sure does sound better....though I had a vision of those musicians slurping champagne and it was kind of fun too.

i_am_kane

Dusk in Fielsole overlooking lighted Firenze. I could imagine what Michelangelo felt like when he when up into the hills and looked down on his beloved Florence.

Natalia

One moment I always remember is when a girlfriend and I caught the bus at daylight in Sorrento heading for Rome. We had decided to take the bus instead of the train nightmare we had been through getting down to Sorrento.

We had to wake up the doorman at the Loreley to unlock the doors in the dark, then we dragged our too heavy suitcases down the cobblestone street to Piazza Tasso where the bus was waiting. He tossed the luggage on board and we headed off in the early sunrise. As we neared Napoli the sun was rising and it was a spectacular sight.

Another moment was when I was driving back from Rome to Volterra at night and somehow missed our autostrada and ended up near Cortona! I stopped at a rest stop and our sleepy little group and I decided to go all the way to Florence and then backtrack down the right autostrada. After some shots of expresso, I drove through the night and as we neared our villa it was getting to be daylight and the fog was still in the valleys. I would drive through these fog banks and it would be so eerie and silent. Then we would emerge and start to see the rolling hills of Tuscany as sun rose higher, we were all silent in the car and it was a magical journey.