Okay ladies, when’s the last time your man sent you a really nice text, let alone composed a visual poem for you, expressing his love using the timeless images of Venice to help express his wordless emotions?

Guys, you can blame Rickster for getting you in trouble. Everyone else who is not in the doghouse, enjoy Rick’s ode to the Queen of the Adriatic, a city that looks amazing any way you shoot it.

Not content with the haute cusisine and celebrity chefs that permeate the dining scene in New York, the NYT’s Frugal Traveler, Matt Gross, headed off to Italy to barge in on some local families for a few but-gusting sit-down lunches and dinners (oh yeah, they were also complete strangers), all without getting kicked out even once.

But not just any dinner, but a dinner prepared by ordinary folks whose culinary skills have earned them the right to be named Cesarinas by Home Food, “an Italian organization dedicated to, as its promotional literature states, ‘the protection and increase of the value of typical Italian gastronomic and culinary legacy.’”

Who cooked your last dinner party meal?

Restaurants are great, but they don’t give transient tourists much opportunity to establish a relationship with the people making and serving the food. No, if the family is the fundamental social unit in Italy, then family meals must be the fundamental way to experience Italian society. You just have to have an in . . .

Home Food seeks out exceptional home chefs, puts them through a training course and dubs them Cesarinas — little Caesars, emperors of the kitchen. Then, a few times a month, the Cesarinas host dinner parties at which they open their homes to strangers.

And how does one get invited to such an exclusive, authentic experience such as this? Easy, pony up a few dollars a month. “All an intrepid eater has to do is register with Home Food, pay a membership fee (3.50 euros for foreigners, or about $4.60 at $1.31 to the euro; 35 euros for Italians) and scour the monthly listings for a meal that appeals. Would you like goose-meat salami in Lombardy? Fried chicken bones with red chicory in Emilia-Romagna? Rabbit in a pot in Tuscany? All are part of dozens of meals on offer throughout April, with participation fees typically 34.90 or 39.90 euros per person.”

Sample some spaghetti alla chitarra, taccozzelle alla cucuzzara, and Sagnarelle dressed in a sauce of puréed and whole chickpeas here at the full article, and sign up for Home Food here.

On a recent return to Tuscany, Danielle Pergament of the NYT discovers things are a little different in the region come the dead of winter when the tour buses have gone home and the crowds have receded from the piazzas. And what remains in the off-season when things get back to normal? None other than the “real” Tuscany.

Forget the magazine covers that promise “The Undiscovered Tuscany!” “The Hidden Tuscany!” “The Secret Tuscany!” When a place has been attracting admirers for more than a thousand years, no square inch is undiscovered. The real Tuscany, as locals have been telling me over the years, is found in the dead of winter, when the crowds are thinner and the rooms, flights and restaurants are pleasantly cheaper.

A December-time stop at the family-run vineyard, Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona, results in a private tour of the facilities (try to get that in the summer), and a visit around the village of Montepulciano — a classic notch on the tourist belt — allows a traveler to “almost glimpse what the town was like before it became a cliché.”

And just so you don’t forget it’s winter, a drive up to the volcano Monte Amiata is a trip into a classic winter scene of ski lifts and hot chocolate — a far cry from most people’s memories of Tuscany.

I know the whole point of “Europe Week” here is to gear everyone up for their summer travel plans. But it’s never too early to begin planning for the winter, now is it?

Some friends of mine are planning a trip to Italy at the end of the summer, and they recently asked me, “Where should we go?”, which, if you think about it, is quite a loaded question given the scale of the country. It’s kind of like asking, “What should I do with my life?” or “Do I look fat?”; questions that beg a serious, heavily crafted response lest your own safety becomes in peril.

What do you say? Classic (Rome), modern (Milan), romantic (Cinque Terre), iconic (Venice), off-the-beaten-path (Puglia), creative (Sicily)? See what I mean?

This Nat Geo piece makes a good argument for starting in Rome, and shows what the city’s like from the viewpoint of staying in the high-end spectrum of the lodging category (the Hotel Hassler –  Condé Naste’s Reader’s Choice for best hotel in Rome), down to the quainter, middle-of-the-road stay (the 13-room Hotel Teatro di Pompeo) where one can settle into the daily rhythm of the neighborhood and feel, at least for a small time, that they’re one of the locals. The best way to do this? Find a surrogate Italian mother that likes to feed you.

I enter into a relationship of a very different sort with an establishment next to my pensione. Trattoria der Pallaro is the localest of local haunts. From her small kitchen, Paola Fazi has been turning out meals for 46 years. A squat woman in a blue house dress under a well-worn apron, Fazi is an Italian mamma’s mamma. She wears her long black-and-silver hair pulled into a bun, which she wraps with a second apron, folded and tied around her head like a crown.

Der Pallaro has no menu. You eat what Fazi is making—and whatever it is on that particular day, she’s making a lot of it. With deep-set eyes and an aquiline nose, she patrols her sidewalk tables with authority. I dare not leave one zito uneaten. When she stops by my table and sees I’ve cleaned my plate, she puts her arm heavily upon my shoulder. With the fear of a second-grader, I look up. Deep black rings pool under her eyes. She nods, slowly. I stop breathing. Then she unleashes a wicked smile. I exhale and lean my head upon her breast.

After a little more pondering I thought, maybe I’ll just to refer them to Rick Steves. That way they can blame him if they don’t like any suggestions. But they’re my friends, of course I wouldn’t do that to them.

I just finished reading an interview with Susan Van Allen about her new book, 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go To, the second installment in the “100 Places Every Woman Should Go To” series. Van Allen describes Italy as a woman’s haven, where they can “feel at home” because they are, essentially, worshiped by men. For this reason, she created this book to recommend places visit based on “sites and artworks that glorified the female.” From Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s apartment in Florence to Peggy Guggenheim’s museum, she chose places where women can connect with a monument or piece of art on the most basic level: being a woman.

However, although I think it is great that there are more and more female travelers heading out on the road — some single, some in groups — I have some reservations about classifying destinations as gender specific. Perhaps men should be included in the title as they, too, should enjoy and appreciate the “glory” of women. (Of course this would likely cause some consternation with the publisher’s marketing department.)

Women shouldn’t need specific sites to feel empowered. Traveling, in and of itself, is empowering enough. However, thanks to Oprah and Elizabeth Gilbert — author of Eat, Pray, Love – more and more women think it is necessary to find their femininity by going abroad. I don’t necessarily disagree that traveling allows someone to experience a sense of growth, but I don’t think this is limited to only women. Doesn’t that just widen the divide?

As a North American myself, I would personally find a butt-pinch a little offensive and not at all respectful. Even coming to Buenos Aires, where wolf-whistling and cat-calling are common practice, I find I have to bite my tongue. Nevertheless, I suppose for some women it is empowering to be fawned over. Personally, I prefer two-way streets. If the men can coo at the women, I only hope the ladies are reciprocating.

Anyways, the book seems interesting as an alternative to typical travel guides. I think for either sex, it could be an interesting read. (And on sale at Amazon for $12.89.)

This week marked the untimely passing of Giorgio Carbone, the dubiously-legitimate, yet popularly elected leader/king/sandwich-moocher of the small nation of Seborga, a 2.8 square mile parcel of land located near the French border on the Italian Riviera.

Never heard of the country, you say? You’re probably not alone, though it’s reported that at least 20 other countries have recognized its independence (but not Italy).

How exactly did this nation come about? Per the NYT:

After convincing his Seborgan neighbors of their true significance, Giorgio Carbone was elected prince in 1963. He gracefully accepted the informal title of His Tremendousness, and was elected prince for life in 1995 by a vote of 304 to 4. Voters then ratified Seborga’s independence, which, by the prince’s interpretation, it already had.

Ruling with a pro-smoking, pro-tourism bent, Seborga has its own 1995-esqe website (complete with background music and flag animation), as well as its own currency, money, and one-person army. A must-visit for those looking to rack up the number of countries they’ve visited. And I thought Swaziland was small when I drove through it.

If you wander around the southern Italian city of Bari, you will most likely notice intimate, cobblestoned lanes, cafe-choked piazzas, and one of Italy’s best opera houses. Somewhere between it all, is the Basilica di San Nicola, and the actual tomb containing St. Nick’s bones. Built in 1087, the castle-esqe basilica was created specifically to shelter his stolen remains from Myra, what is now Turkey.

Didn’t know the jolly ol’ fat man was Turkish? The Times also describes a life-sized statue of St. Nicholas outside the church that may change your perception of him a little more. “It depicts a tall, dark man with faraway eyes and an elegant, serious demeanor. It’s St Nicholas — but he doesn’t look like any Santa Claus I’ve ever seen.”

What? No bowl full of jelly?

Perugia, the capital city of the region of Umbria, is home to what you’d expect from Italy: beautiful buildings, world-class art, a rich culinary tradition; but you’ll also find a boatload of students here — 50,000 to be exact.

Time to live out that study abroad program you skipped in college?

For some reason one of the things I remember most about Capri (other than the beautiful sunsets, quaint streets, and maniacal Vespa drivers), is the fact that when I was there, the rumor around town was that Keanu Reeves had just stayed on the island. Not that I have anything against the guy (except, perhaps, Johnny Mnemonic), I’d like to think that I’m traveling places not frequented by the Hollywood clientele.

To help, BootsnAll has a rundown of their favorite 8 Italian islands that you’ve likely never heard of, from the Tuscan Archipelago’s Giglio, to the Adriatic’s San Domino.

The famous Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy may have finally met its match. For years, the citizens of Bedam, Holland claimed their Tower of Walfridus, in Bedam, Holland, had more tilt. It was shorter, less iconic, and (technically) wasn’t as tilted. All true, until now.

Recently, this Telegraph article explains, after discovering the increasing lean of Pisa’s Tower, the Italian government decided to restore the building, reducing the lean by 18 inches, which moves it into second place for the title of Europe’s most tilted. Wait, was that a collective “yippee” we heard from the town of Bedam? After all the talk, their church tower is (technically) more tilted.

What is this technicality? Well, Pisa’s tower stands at 180 feet tall and has a “new” tilt of 11 feet 6 inches (formerly 13 feet), while Bedam’s is only 120 feet tall, and leans 8 feet 6 inches. It would seem that Pisa should still have the crown, but no. A geometrician crunched the numbers (thanks for that one, I wasn’t about to grab the calculator) and found out that if the two towers were the same height, the Tower of Walfridus would be more pronounced. 

Perhaps the real dilemma facing people is whether to be photographed pushing the tower over, or holding it up?  Hint- there’s no right answer.

 Photo by bjcarter (he chose to hold up the tower)

It seems like we’ve read this one before: a solitary escape to the Italian countryside, salaciously detailed descriptions of food, the name dropping of small villages, but for some reason it’s still captivating, even if one Ms. Mayes is not involved, and even if there’s no Tuscan sun hovering overhead.

As this NYT article about one woman’s summer stay in this neighboring region points out, Umbria is not Tuscany: “Umbria is to Tuscany what Sonoma is to Napa — a little less trafficked, a little less touristy, a lot less money.” But just as good food, and don’t worry, I’m pretty sure you won’t notice much of a difference with the sun here.

The deli owner around the corner from me just got back from his home on the Amalfi Coast where he escapes NYC’s cold, winter months, and my lunches have been all the better for it.

For the rest of you who have to wait for those precious summer holiday months to go yourself, the Independent has the skinny on where to escape the crowds (Atrani and Erchie), where to eat in Positano (Lo Guarracino at Via Positanesi d’America) and where you can go hiking to burn off that spaghetti alle vongole you had for dinner the night before (Castellammare di Stabia on the Bay of Naples — take the cable car to the top of Monte Faito and light out on one of the many trails). Now the trick is figuring out how to stay there for the rest of the year.

Isn’t a little disconcerting that so many animal metaphors are invoked when describing summer travel in Rome? Well, there’s a reason for it: too many people at too few sites equals cow-like tendencies. For a little help as to when to stray away from the herd, and when it’s best to go ahead and corral with the horde, see Ellen’s guide at BootsnAll on how to see the sights in Rome.

For example, the Colosseum is huge and there’s lots to see, but there’s really not much gained by joining a tour or hiring a guide; most of what you need to know can be carried around in a good guidebook. So give yourself a break and wander freely, saving time to feed the cats and gawk at tourists taking pictures with gladiators.

But when you’re at the Vatican Museum, those umbrella-toting 50-something guides who lead groups help to direct you to the prized sights in the vast museum and help to protect you from being crowded out by other mobs of art-goers, so sticking with your fellow bovine in this case may actually be okay. But make sure to ditch them as soon as possible when you’re done.