Italy from a Backpack. Mark Pearson

on>

      Table of Contents

       Title Page

       Dedication

       Introduction

       Roma

       The Day I Shut Down the Vatican

       Sneaking Into St. Peter’s

       Don’t Grope the Pope!

       Becoming History

       Night Bus

       Lost in Transit

       Masters of the Southern Italy Night

       Guidebook as Gospel

       Gelato Girls

       Cinque Terre

       Shirts Off for Bill and Ted

       Ligurian Daydream

       The Way of Love

       Mirages

       Firenze & Toscana

       Worth Every Euro

       Coffee Shop Lessons

       50,000 Lire for the Room

       Get Us Out of the Tuscan Sun

       Between Naples and Memphis

       Hostage of the Hostile Hostel

       Art Appreciation

       Layering

       Venezia & ll Nord

       Forgotten Golashes

       Sleeping Like a Queen

       Pursuit in the Piazza

       Isla Bella, Solo

       High Heels From Hell

       Finding Signora Bacca

       Sicilia & Napoli

       Not As Seen on TV

       The Old Country

       Looking for Lava

       True Sicily

       Acknowledgements

       about the editors

       other books in the series

       Copyright Page

      To my mom and dad, who introduced me to Italy

       Introduction

      ask any traveler to Europe’s “Boot” (lo Stivale), “Why Italy?” and he or she responds with the almost inarticulate bemusement of someone in the infatuation phase of a love affair. Italy is irresistible. We return again and again for the cuisines, the wines, the festivals, the unique regions and attitudes—all rooted in the very soil under the traveler’s feet.

      If you live in the West or speak any Romance or Germanic language, you can trace roots back to here, in the Roman and Greek Empires, even if you’re not Italian. Your diet probably depends in part—or entirely—on Italian cuisine: pizza, spaghetti and meatballs with parmesan and crusty garlic bread, minestrone, mineral water, Caesar salad (invented in Florida, actually, but since it’s named after Caesar…) and gelato. You may have salivated over Ferraris and Lamborghinis; perhaps you appreciate Italian style and the composure with which Italians approach life. They may promptly finish their midday espressos standing at narrow, high-top tables, but Italians will take three or four hours to enjoy a dinner that doesn’t begin until at least 8 p.m. Ah, simple pleasures.

      Italy From a Backpack is full of pleasures, too—stories of young people whose discoveries make delightful, even surprising reading. My co-editor, Mark Pearson, hatched this idea for books about youthful European travels when he returned home from studying art history in Rome and backpacking around Europe. He found that people weren’t so interested in viewing his 2,200 digital photos. Instead, they wanted to hear great stories.

      At the time, few, if any, books of stories were written by and for backpackers—even though, every year, nearly two million Americans ages 18 to 29, and hundreds of thousands of Brits, Canadians and Australians, head for Europe to travel, study and work. Most carry their worldly possessions on their backs, travel on shoestring