Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers, that the mind can never break off from the journey. — Pat Conroy

It’s true. The trip sticks with you: the stories, the sites, the smells, the food, the mishaps. Where you were when you lost your husband. What you were doing when he showed up again. How you bothered the shopkeeper time and again to use his phone to find your husband because you decided not to take your phone to Europe. How your husband’s phone was not ringing . . . oh yes. The voyage stays with you. Take Milan.

I could never do the city justice in one post, so we’ll be visiting Milan again. But I can tell you about a certain day in September when the stars were both wonderfully aligned and not so wonderfully aligned, simultaneously. And how these trials always work out for the best, anyway.

Four of us were traveling to Milan from a week-long stay in a lovely villa to the east. I had found a B&B through my LinkedIn connections and booked two rooms for us a few months before. I had heard that September was very busy in Milan due to several fashion industry happenings: Fashion Week, Shoe and Handbag Week, and so on and so we needed to book early. Would that we could have attended any one of those events . . .

We arrived in the early evening at Villa Magnolia Bed & Breakfast in Milan’s trendy “canal” (Navigli) district. The owners are New Englander Ann Marinelli Del Pero and her Italian husband, Pier, an architect. Ann and Pier live at the B&B with their daughter, Elisabeth, where Ann helps run the place while she pursues her journalistic career. Ann is also one of the dynamos behind Slow Travel for Women. The inn’s three elegant rooms, breakfast each day in the room and private car parking available made this a perfect place to rest and set off for the city.

The very first night, after settling in, we called an old friend and met him at his new apartment before going for dinner. Ann was very helpful in directing us to the right bus line and the downtown to find our friend’s apartment. It all worked beautifully. Roberto, an author and energy expert, took us to a wonderful place called da Puccini, a few blocks away, and directly across from the historic Teatro dal Verme. (Well, it was more than a few blocks away, to be honest, but Italians like to walk.) We had some good wine and classic food and were exhausted by the time we left. We slept well that night, eager to get started on our full day in the city.

The day began with a typical Italian breakfast in our room: strong coffee, blood orange juice, a little yogurt and a cornetto (croissant). Off we went, armed with the correct bus number and our first destination: Piazza del Duomo, where we would find the wildly ornate Gothic cathedral and also the very chic Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, home to Prada and Tod’s and arguably the most elegant McDonald’s in the world.

But since our travel never takes a straight line, we jumped off the bus and were immediately sidetracked by a pastry shop. Now, we didn’t expect to find a collection of exquisite Sicilian pastries (and marzipan and wines) in the heart of Milan, but that’s exactly what we got. Pasticceria Fratelli Freni has been in Milan since 1914 and its proprietor, Mario Freni, honors his family’s traditions beautifully and runs the establishment with great care and well-deserved pride. Windows filled with magnificently creative marzipan creations (fruits, vegetables, animals) drew us in. But it was the pastries that made us stay. And as we stayed, I noticed the typically Sicilian fig and pistachio spreads and a few familiar Sicilian wine labels. When Mario offered us some samples, we were hooked.

Tim and I told him that we were great fans of Sicilian wines and raved about one of our absolute favorites (Carlo Hauner’s Malvasia delle Lipari) which we actually discovered in Sorrento. Needless to say, minutes turned into too many minutes and we left Tim there to place an order for some of Mario’s most favorite wines while we headed towards the Duomo. Tim would meet us there directly.

We crossed the piazza and headed towards the Duomo. It was a bright autumn morning and there was already a line outside the cathedral, but not too bad. We sat on the steps and waited for Tim. And waited. And waited. We could not have missed him: we were the only people sitting on the steps and were in direct view of where he would be coming around the corner from the pasticceria. It was puzzling. Eventually, we decided to get in line (which was growing) and save a place for him. When we reached the door to the cathedral, we went in. We would surely see him inside.

By now you must realize that we never found him inside the cathedral. But it was Sunday, and there was a mass going on, so we were in no rush to leave. The chanting and singing were amazing to listen to in the marble surroundings, even for us non-Catholics. This Duomo, Europe’s third largest church, was built over a 600-year period beginning in 1385, and boasts 135 spires. Atop the highest spire (355 feet) is a gilded statue of the city’s patron, Madonnina. Visitors can climb (or take a lift) to the top for an up-close look at the stunning stone carvings and spires and a breathtaking view of the city.

I didn’t make it up there on my first trip to Milan, but I was determined to go this time. A little vertigo set in — and there was no way I was going to walk up the stairs to the very top — but I am proud to say that I went.

Inside, we ooh-ed and aah-ed at the stained glass windows, the shrines, the candles and the (surprisingly) beautiful tiled floors. But we found no Tim.

We went outside and sat on the steps again. The piazza grew more crowded as lunchtime approached, and I was getting a little nervous. He had a phone, but I did not. I decided to go back to the pasticceria and Mario kindly let me use his phone to call Tim. There was no answer. I walked back to the Duomo, then over to the Palazzo Reale because there were Bellinis inside and he is Tim’s favorite painter and I thought perhaps he was there. I hung around outside for a while and, just as I was about to give up, I saw Tim walking toward me. He was furious. I was furious. It had been hours. But we got over it. He had been lost (or had we been lost?) but now was found. And he had, of course, seen his Bellinis.

Tim wanted to go up to the top of the Duomo and the rest of us decided to go over to the Galleria to window shop. But we didn’t get very far, since there was a long line of Ferraris revving their engines on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II between the Duomo and the entrance to the Galleria. We found out that they were on their way to Monza, for the parade and festivities marking the last day of the Milan Grand Prix. Gentle reader, if you have never witnessed a long line of shiny red and yellow Ferraris revving their engines in unison, Italian drivers at the wheel, outside the Duomo in Milan, I simply cannot explain the sensation to you.

It was crazy. It was magic. And it was totally Italian. And Tim got to see it from the top of the Duomo!

We walked through the Galleria and all met up before long. We ventured into Prada and Tod’s and bought scarves and ties at a much more economical store. We stopped for coffee, bought gorgeous fragrant soaps at Coin and walked around the city together for the better part of the day. We stopped for a peek at Milan’s famed opera house, Teatro alla Scala — next time, our friend Roberto says, he can get us tickets. We will take him up on it.

Because of our post-breakfast foray into the pasticceria earlier that day, we had not been very hungry through all of this. But then it hit us. We needed lunch. And we needed it soon. But another sidetrack was about to happen, and it is a marvelous story. For next time.

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list”— Susan Sontag

Four years ago this very month, Tim went to the Winter Olympics in Torino to see our nephew, Anders Johnson, compete as the youngest member of the US Ski Jumping Team. At a scant 16 years of age, he was certainly the pride of our family for those two special weeks and Tim wanted to be there to cheer him on. I wanted to be there, too, but I knew that the trip was going to be a little tough for me, both accommodations-wise and getting-around-wise. I’m not good in cold, snowy weather. My joints ache, I’m terrified of falling and I get cranky real fast. Best to stay home. This year we’ll both be watching the Vancouver Olympics together from the warmth of our living room — and our nephew will be back on the hill for a second run at a medal.

But Tim couldn’t get away with crossing the pond — especially to Italy — without my wanting to do the same at a more agreeable time of year. So my friend Sharon and I decided that we would do a girl’s trip. We’d go someplace our guys wouldn’t want to go. It had to be less than two weeks in length, and it had to be a tour of some kind, because neither of us will drive abroad. So we went on the internet together from our respective offices and surfed.

Ireland? Maybe, but all the tours looked a little hokey. Paris? We’d both been there before and loved it, but decided that if we went again, it would be with a significant other. So we opted for Italy and started looking at tours. I spotted it immediately: a Tuscan Spa Trip. Perfect! Nine days and the price was right. Best of all, we could take an optional trip to one of our favorite cities, Lucca — the walled medieval city that was once the capital of Tuscany. And we could also take an optional trip to the Cinque Terre, which we missed on our last trip to Italy together due to monsoon-like conditions. I called the tour operator, Go Ahead Tours, and booked the trip for that September.

The tour company had run this trip nine times before, and it had always been an all-girl event. But when we arrived, there were 34 women and two men, all eager to get started on our adventure. One had given the trip to his wife for their 35th wedding anniversary; the other gave the trip to his wife to show her a bit of his Italian heritage. They fit right in with the rest of us and enjoyed the spa treatments possibly even more than we girls did. But how could they not enjoy this trip?

We flew into Florence, where we were met by our guide and whisked off to Montecatini Terme (“thermal”), located about 28 miles west, in the healing Valdinievole (“Valley of Mists”). Built around its mineral water springs, Montecatini has long been a respite for travelers seeking a cure for stomach and liver troubles and a myriad other ailments. It’s also just a great place to visit and has hosted celebrities from Giuseppe Verdi and Luigi Pirandello to Princess Grace and Clark Gable. The spa promised in the tour package was not, in fact, in Montecatini, but we did get a chance to tour the most famous one in town, Tettuccio Terme, before heading off to our own unique experience.

The spa Tettuccio is one of three thermal spas built in the late 1700s by Leopold of Hapsburg, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Together, they made Montecatini famous throughout Europe. Its liberty architecture, park setting (including a carousel just outside the spa) and spa treatments —  a variety of therapeutic massages, mud packs and hydrotherapy — make for an elegant and enjoyable destination.

Montecatini itself is also famous for cialde, a yummy thin wafer-like biscuit made with nothing more than sugar and almonds, and also panforte (a Sienese confection that is a cross between fruit cake and candy, usually served with port or dessert wine), the very best of both to be found at the over-the-top patisserie, Giovannini. Montecatini is also famous, in my book at least, for having a fantastic statue of a cinghiale (wild boar) at the Tettuccio Terme — a monument to one of my very favorite Italian words and a heck of a good meat for prosciutto.

Sharon and Linda and the cinghiale

But what about the spa, you ask? Ah, the spa . . . Three times during our stay, we were taken about 20 minutes away to the town of Monsummano, home of the Grotta Giusti,

Cinghiale as prosciutto, Montecatini Terme

The Grotta was discovered accidentally in 1849 when Domenico Giusti, an administrator for one of the area’s wealthiest families, was informed by some laborers working in a nearby lime quarry that they had discovered a cavity with hot steam coming out of it — a natural well, perhaps. He had them enlarge the opening and coaxed a few volunteers to go down and inspect the thing and when they surfaced, they had tales of wondrous stalactite and stalagmite formations and a small steaming lake whose fumes and heat made them sweat profusely. One of the laborers who had stayed down longer than the others said he felt considerably better. Some notable physicians were called in to study the grotto and soon confirmed its clinical effectiveness for many ailments. Word spread, treatment rooms and a hotel were added, and even Giuseppe Garibaldi — Italy’s national hero — partook of the waters and enthusiastically claimed them to be effective.

Of course Garibaldi was not there when we arrived, but actor Steve Guttenberg (of “Police Academy” movie fame) was.  We (mostly) girls had a blast. Having chosen from three spa treatments as part of the package — with plenty of opportunities to purchase more if we wanted — we began by lazing around the huge outdoor thermal pool and having lunch in the adjacent restaurant. I selected a cooling citrus facial, a full-body mud assault and a restorative body massage given by a beautiful young man named Marco whose only English words were “turn over, please.”

Below ground the Grotta itself, of the “miraculous atmosphere,” was once described by Verdi as “the eighth wonder of the world.” Visitors travel in a single row in silence through three different zones, each one hotter than the next, called, aptly, Paradise, Purgatory and Hell. The lake that those laborers first saw is in what’s now called Limbo, and remains at a year-round temperature of 36 degrees C. The air temperature in Hell is around 34 degrees C (92 degrees F), with 100% humidity. One stays in Hell only for about 20 minutes, in perfunctory robe and slippers, sprawled out on a teak lounge chair, water dripping from the low ceiling. It is unlike anything I have ever done, but get me a ticket and I’ll go back tomorrow. I cannot make scientific claims about the efficacy of the Grotta Giusti, but my sinuses felt much better, my joints didn’t ache nearly as much and I felt a few pounds lighter on the way home. Sharon experienced a similar sense of well-being. And after that, we went back to Montecatini and ate large quantities of the best gnocchi with gorgonzola, peas and prosciutto that we had ever had.

Puccini statue, Lucca

Local guides in Lucca and Florence made the cities come to life, even for those of us who had been there before. And despite the rain, we went to the Cinque Terre this time anyway (only seeing two cities because of the weather, I call it the Due Terre trip) and took tons of photos standing among the colorful fishing boats on the shore. On the last day we visited a local agriturismo where they cultivate their own olive oil, wines and honey, and sampled everything greedily. Dinner in Fiesole, overlooking Florence, was a breathtaking conclusion to a fantastic (mostly) girl’s week away. And food? After a week of rich meats and pasta, the group was rabidly envious of my verdure misto, a huge platter of spectacular grilled vegetables — fennel, eggplant, zucchini, onions, yellow and red peppers — that I grudgingly shared. Never had a vegetable tasted so good.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to do this again, just go out with the (mostly) girls. We laughed a great deal and even sang on the bus. We watched out for each other. We made friends. We made discoveries — I remember the first night when one of our group was shocked to learn that she should have brought a bathing suit. She just assumed, this being Europe and all, that suits were optional. I didn’t envy her having to buy a bathing suit at the spa. Even the postcards were expensive!

Bounty in Monterosso

So we came back home in that rested-but-jangled condition that almost always accompanies travel, glad for the experience, sad that it was over yet somehow eager to get started again in our “real” life. To try to bring what we had seen and experienced into our day-to-day existence. Or at least to hold it all in some special place so that when the going got rough, we could remember a time when all we had to do was breathe deeply, follow the leader and “turn over, please.”

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. — Oscar Wilde

I am not a stable person, geographically speaking. When I start to list all the places I’ve lived since graduating from college, I am appalled. Chestnut Street in Oneonta, New York. Then to Brooklyn (to Park Slope, before it was the Park Slope it is today). First I lived on 6th Street and then on 9th Street. Then to Waterside in Manhattan, a somewhat isolated enclave over on the East River, which was perfect for a newly divorced poet. Then up to the Upper East Side (68th Street, between Madison and Park) where I lived a stone’s throw from where Halston’s studio used to be. Finally down to Chelsea (19th Street, between 8th and 9th), my most favorite place of all, with its proximity to the (now unaffordable) Village, its trendy restaurants and the energy of a neighborhood being transformed on a daily basis.

I left New York in 1990 and moved to The Woolen Mill in Winooksi, Vermont, just outside of Burlington. A year later I moved to the South End in Boston; then to Cambridge; then up to Salem, Massachusetts, where Tim and I bought an old sea captain’s house. We stayed in that house  for nearly 11 years — the longest I have lived anywhere since leaving my parents’ house. Four years ago we moved to where we are now, just outside of Richmond, Virginia.

Have you been counting? I’m talking about 11 residences since 1971. Eleven moves. Eleven times that I’ve packed and unpacked my 1,000 books and countless cassette tapes, vinyl records and CDs. Eleven times that I’ve had to figure out where to put things and, in some cases, how to start my freelance writing career all over again. It’s been exciting. It’s been exhausting. And it’s not over yet.

Each of my leavings has caused great consternation among my friends and family. Like when I told my father I’d be moving to Brooklyn. He wailed, “I spent my whole life working hard so you wouldn’t have to deal with the city — and now you’re voluntarily moving there?!? Twenty blocks from where I was born?!?” He never understood. I have one friend in New York who has basically lived in the same walk-up apartment (with two forays into subletting so she could experience different parts of the city) for nearly 40 years. The idea of living anywhere else is incomprehensible to her. When I left NYC for Vermont, I held a wake of sorts, inviting her and my other girlfriends over so they could pick through my wardrobe to select from the leather pants, short suede skirts, glitzy tops and fancy boots and shoes that I would not be wearing in the crunchy Green Mountain State. When I left for Boston, they worried about how long it would be before I was homeless. And when Tim and I moved to the South, two of our friends (both of whom had grown up in the South) practically threw themselves over us, begging us not to go. Shades of Faulkner (“I don’t hate the South, I don’t hate the South . . .”). Anyway, it all makes me laugh.

So why do I tell you all this? What is the common denominator in all this craziness? My journals, which help me remember all these things.

While my journals are not nearly as exciting as Oscar Wilde’s, I’m sure, they do provide entertainment and a certain degree of enlightenment in retrospect. When I read through them, I see my younger, braver self. I read about the day I moved downtown — thanks to a friend of a friend and his pick-up truck. We pulled all my things out of that Upper East Side apartment and jammed them into the white pick-up. When my great-grandmother’s wooden rocker wouldn’t fit, we strapped it to the roof and drove right down Park Avenue, three of us in the front seat, looking every bit like a remake of The Beverly Hillbillies. I read about the process I went through moving from New York to Vermont: buying a car over the phone, to the astonishment of the salesman, upon whom I had bestowed the easiest sale ever . . . and renting an apartment the same way. When I met the movers at the building and they asked me what they should bring off the van first, based on where things would go, I said, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen the place yet.” True story. When I opened the door to my new home for the first time, I breathed a sigh of relief. We all did. Pretty new, twice as big as anything I’d rented in New York and half the price. My cockeyed plan had worked. Life was good.

I read about how much I have missed New York over the years and how important it is for me to get back a few times every year. About walking up Madison Avenue, down Fifth, all around Greenwich Village and Soho. About my favorite places, some of which are still there — like Pete’s Tavern, The Cupping Room, the Frick and the ground floor of Bendel’s. About one which is gone — The Right Bank restaurant at Madison and 68th — for which I mourn mightily, since it was basically the annex of my kitchen.

It’s the words that keep these places alive in detail. Sure, we’ll all remember the big things (although that wisdom is becoming more questionable with age). But it’s the little details that fade and, most times, that’s where the story is. Write them down. On the spot, if you can. Especially the things you remember in the middle of the night. Write them down. I’ve probably lost half a lifetime of stories by not taking my own advice consistently.

What about you? What have you forgotten? What do you do to keep remembering? Remember that journal on the train — amuse yourself. And us, please!

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been. — Diane Arbus

We had just spent an amazing week in the north of Italy, introducing six of our friends to Bologna, Mantova, Modena, Padova, Ferrara, Vicenza . . . the list goes on. It was a whirlwind of a trip for a number of reasons, and at this point two couples had gone off  to do some visiting due a due. The remaining four of us were packing the car for the next leg of our adventure: three days in Milano, about two and a half hours away.

When we were all settled in, maps in our laps and luggage and provisions in the trunk, the villa owner’s caretakers, Lilliana and Valter, came out to wish us farewell. When Lilliana inquired where we were going, and we told her Milan via Lake Garda, she grabbed for the map and pointed to a place that none of us had ever heard of before. She said (in Italian, of course) that if were were heading towards Lago di Garda (Lake Garda) that we should stop at this little place first. That it was woodsy and pretty and would be a good stopping off place for lunch. Always up for an adventure, we thanked her and said we’d give it a try. We had no idea what to expect, and couldn’t find any mention of it in our guidebooks.

Our first look

About an hour later, we took the turns that were indicated for a place called Borghetto di Valeggio sul Mincio. We climbed up and up through greenery and gardens, then found ourselves in a region of small inns and  parks. When the road leveled out, we were stunned, finding ourselves on a road over a river and a big stone  structure dead ahead. We stopped the car and pulled over. Looking down the river bank, we saw a small but bustling scene. Looked like a little restaurant. Maybe a church. A bridge. It was too far away to see anything clearly from where we were, so we decided to drive on a bit to find the way in. We turned right not too far down the road and found a crude parking lot with about 20 other cars in it, paid the fee at the machine, put our sticker on the dashboard and walked in.

Borghetto di Valeggio sul Mincio is a survivor. Its history dates back to the Bronze Age, but it was majorly settled during the Lombard period of the 7th – 8th centuries. Borghetto (which means either “fortified settlement” or “”little town”) is a fairy tale-gorgeous medieval village on the banks of the Mincio River, which flows from Lake Garda. Along the riverbanks are a handful of simple but beautiful plastered homes with tile roofs, some of which have colorful boats tied up at their docks. The river scene is dominated by the Visconti Bridge  (Ponte Visconteo), built in 1393 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the Duke of Milan. Originally intended to be a dam, a proposition violently opposed by the Mantovans, the bridge instead has seen centuries of strife between the various city-states of the North and was virtually impassable from the early 1600s — when it was damaged by the retreating Venetians — until the first years of the Twentieth Century, when iron was inserted into the stone structure for strength and holes were drilled in the two huge vaults to permit the river’s occasional overflow.

A smaller bridge, the Bridge of San Marco, guides foot traffic from the area around the village church — dated 1759 and

The Mill on the Mincio

rebuilt on an ancient Romanesque chapel —  to the other side of the Mincio. And the Mincio itself is the star of the old medieval village, allowing for boat passage and the power for the mills used for centuries for rice and wheat cultivation. We saw huge swans and fish and ducks in the water, all seemingly swimming in place. When we looked more carefully, it was clear that  these creatures were paddling madly against the strong current so they could keep their advantageous positions near the restaurants, whose patrons might succumb to their charms and throw them a bit of food. They always did.

Paddling against the current

If you’re looking for the most unique, picturesque place in all of Italy, this has got to be it. No fewer than five wedding parties passed through during our short visit to have their pictures taken on the bridge across the river. Then a bicycle race tore through the village, all colors and spandex and helmets. We thought  it couldn’t get any better than this. And then we decided to have lunch.

We noticed a small cafe when we first came into town and one larger restaurant, but because we had walked all the way through and over the river, we wanted to stay put. But we were faced with another decision: to eat a light mid-day meal and go for broke in Milan or have our big meal in this Italian Neverland and go light when we got to Milan? We opted for the latter.

Antica Locanda

When we crossed the bridge we were caught up in a scene that none of us will ever forget. Under an arbor of linden and chestnut trees alongside the river were tables set up for a king: linens and crystal and silver, with crisp waiters standing guard to usher in new guests. On the one side of a path, this enchanting sylvan scene. On the other, the source of its bounty: Antica Locanda Mincio. Most likely constructed on the remains of a Templar tavern, the 500-year-old Antica Locanda Mincio is a rare jewel in a most unlikely setting. Recreated as a trattoria in 1919 by Angelo Bertaiola (who imported Mantova’s famed agnolotti ((tortellini)) to the Veronese), the restaurant is now run by Gabriele, Angelo’s grandson, with love and passion for the ancient traditions of the region.

A bit of heaven under the trees

We took a table alongside the river and the magic continued. We started with the inn’s famous Pilgrim’s Soup, a centuries-old recipe that begins with a meat stock and includes sliced chicken livers, morel mushrooms, black truffles and cinnamon. We also had the region’s beloved tortellini with zucca (pumpkin) and pasta with pear and ricotta, accompanied by a bottle of  crisp Viongier. For dessert? A simple but elegant apple cake that was crusted with sugar and still light as a dream. Were we under a spell? Most definitely. And one that I would happily go under again.

We travelers can go to a place we’ve never been only once, and then we think we begin to know it. Since it’s just about 20 minutes outside of Verona — where I have friends and now, a double excuse to visit — I’m looking forward to going back to Borghetto di Valeggio sul Mincio and staying there for a while, getting to know it even better. And now that you know about it, I hope you will, too. If you go, be sure to explore the Locanda building. Walk through its mural-filled rooms and you’ll probably even be invited into the kitchen to watch the mastery. It will be an unforgettable experience.

Making the tortelli

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

I type in one place, but I write all over the house.  — Toni Morrison

I was talking to a writer friend recently. We were in a Starbucks in a Barnes & Noble and she was anxious to get back to her house because she was, as she said, “on a roll” with some writing. Of course, that got us talking even more — about how and when we write. And we were both relieved to hear that neither one of us does the saintly “I get up at four in the morning to write for a few hours before making the kids breakfast and getting them off to school” routine. Nothing makes me feel more guilty.

I don’t even have kids, and I still feel guilty. Four in the morning is for sleeping. Unless I have to get up to take a flight somewhere. Then it’s acceptable to be awake. Not great, but acceptable.

I tried writing the “morning pages” that Julia Cameron recommends in The Artist’s Way, and I discovered that there was one thing I always had to do first thing in the morning that was even more critical than writing three pages. So that didn’t work.

Then a good friend of mine turned Cameron’s advice upside down and developed something she calls “sleep writing,” doing the requisite three pages just before she falls asleep at night. That doesn’t work for me, either. I once woke up with a sharp pain in my side only to find the journal stabbing me in the ribs and my red pen leaking all over the sheets.

So I’m resigned to writing when the spirit moves me. I know. It’s not helpful advice to new writers. Sorry. I go to conference after conference and listen to successful writers reveal their writing secrets: longhand vs. computer. Writing in the morning vs. writing in the afternoon or evening. Getting up in the middle of the night. Staying up after everybody’s gone to bed. They have routines and discipline. Or at least they say they do.

Mind you, I’ve been a freelance business writer for more than 20 years now, so I have lots of discipline and a mad respect for deadlines. But when it comes to non-business writing, all bets are off. I can’t legislate creativity by staring at the proverbial blank sheet of paper at 9:00 in the morning and expect something wonderful to come out.

Tim O’Brien, whose book The Things They Carried is one of the books I’d want if I were stranded on a desert island, says he never knows what’s going to happen in his books until they happen. John Irving, on the other hand, plots out not only the overarching book structure in meticulous detail — he also plots out every chapter. And he writes the last chapter first. His book, A Prayer for Owen Meany, is another desert island selection of mine. Funny how two favorite authors can write so differently and still get remarkable results.

Me? I’m with Toni Morrison: I type in my office, but I write all over the house — and everywhere else that I can get away with it. On scraps of paper, in journals, across the white space on the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle page around midnight. Sometimes I’m composing while I’m in the shower or while I’m playing computer Solitaire. Sometimes (I hate to admit) while I’m driving. And always when I’m traveling.

Otherwise I would have forgotten too much (and the memory isn’t what it used to be, anyway). I want to remember the Basque dinner in the Marais…the calla lilies in that little town in Mantova…my first lambic in Brugges…the street of half-timbered houses in Chartres…the funny pull-down plastic shower in the comfy B&B in Presteigne, Wales. And so I write the memories down. Just probably not at four a.m.

What about you? Where and when do you write? Are you one of the lucky ones with discipline? Have any tricks to share?  Do tell. We want to know . . .

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

Christmas is a time when you get homesick – even when you’re home.  ~ Carol Nelson

When I was a kid, we celebrated Christmas on December 25. Santa Claus came down the chimney (I never knew how he got into our fireplace-less house) the night before and, since I was an only child, I awoke to boxes and boxes of joy. I loved it. And around 2:00 we ate the typical Italian-American Christmas uber-dinner: turkey with all the trimmings, lasagna and sauce (never “gravy” in my house, always sauce) that my father had slaved over for two days, an American fruit pie of some kind — and cannoli. And then my English-Irish mother, who would drive miles away to the only bakery she could find that made miniature Italian pastries, would bring out a tray of  yummy rummy babas, eclairs, napoleans, cream puffs, sfogliatelle, ricotta tarts, nut horns and more. I just gained five pounds writing these things down. My grandfather would enjoy his whiskey-laced black coffee with two teaspoons of sugar, and all was right with the world.

But at some point during the festivities, my Italian family always mentioned “Little Christmas” in the Old Country, their voices a little wistful and their eyes a little misty. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But it always came up. Years later, I realized that this January 6 event was the “Twelfth Night” that Shakespeare wrote about. The Twelfth Day of Christmas. And years after that I put it together that Little Christmas was Twelfth Night was the Feast of Epiphany in the Christian calendar. The feast celebrating the arrival (finally!) of the Three Wise Men to the manger. So what? Well, in Italy — especially in the poverty-stricken southern part of Italy where my grandparents came from — there is a Christmas legend about all of this. The Legend of La Befana.

Today, Babbo Natale comes on Christmas Eve and does his happy-making work. But in the days of my grandfather’s generation, Italian kids mostly got their chance at some goodies on January 5, the eve of Epiphany. That’s when La Befana, an ugly old witchy-looking woman, would board her broomstick and visit the homes where children lived.

Legend has it that the Three Wise Men who were following the star, looking for the baby Jesus, stopped at the old woman’s house while she was cleaning. They asked for food and water and a place to stay, and also asked if she would like to join them on their quest for the new King. Suspicious, she said “no,” making an excuse about having too much work to do. They left, and very soon she felt a twinge of regret. Perhaps she should have followed them after all. She gathered up some meager gifts and ran out of the house in search of the men, but to no avail. She could not find them anywhere, even though she was trying to follow the star they’d told her about.

Realizing the opportunity that she had probably missed, the old woman flies on her broomstick to this day, all over the countryside, visiting homes with children and filling their stockings with gifts. Oranges, candy, cakes, nuts and small toys… for the good children. The naughty children get lumps of coal. (My parents actually did this to me once and it has scarred me for more than 50 years . . . but I digress.) She still flies because she is still looking for the Christ Child, and seeks it in the face of every child she meets. And children still hang up their stockings on January 5 and still sing songs to La Befana (from Epifania, Italian for Epiphany) the good witch of Italy.

If you’re lucky enough to be in Italy during the holidays, you’re likely to see a Befana toy fair or two. There’s a huge one in Piazza Navona in Rome, where stall after stall tempts browsers with candy and toys (even chunks of black sugar made to look like coal). And children leave letters to La Befana in a manger, telling her what they’d like her to bring.

Leave it to us Italians to figure out how to get a double dose of holiday gatherings, giftings and mealtimes in a single twelve-day period! What about you? Any “Befana” stories to tell? How was Little Christmas celebrated in your Italian family?

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me. — Sigmund Freud

I’m not sure if the Bard of Avon ever actually traveled to Verona, but he surely started a trend. Verona (with apologies to my new home state of Virginia) has become the location for lovers. Every year, hordes of tourists from all over the world come to get their fill of those crazy star-crossed teenagers, Romeo e Giulietta. They take photos under Juliet’s balcony (even though it was reputedly added to the house in the 1920s); they travel to the Capuchin monastery of San Francesco al Corso to see where the young lovers supposedly committed suicide; they scrawl love notes to amore on the house walls and even rub the right breast of the bronze statue of  poor Juliet (another 20th-century addition) to ensure that loves comes to them. Or stays. Or whatever.

Real or not, the story of Romeo and Juliet is alive and well in Verona and love is a theme throughout the city. This northern Italian masterpiece is second only to Venice in its popularity in the Veneto region. It boasts a summer-long festival of the arts which includes a series of free concerts and the unique Sognando Shakespeare (Dreaming Shakespeare) in which a traveling troupe of young actors wanders around the city reciting scenes from Romeo e Giulietta. There are horse fairs and wine fairs and a regular traveling antiques market on the third Saturday of every month. Of course, there’s the Festival Shakespeariano (Shakespeare Festival) at the Teatro Romano in June, July and August. And how about opera al fresco, at the Arena di Verona — its ancient Roman amphitheatre — all summer long?

Verona is a great destination for a holiday, but it’s also a fabulous place for a big occasion. A cocktail party. A special event. A wedding — since early 2009 you can even get married by Juliet’s balcony. Check out www.today.msnbc.com/id/29678226/ns/today-today_weddings for more information. And Verona is so well-located, your friends and family will enjoy traveling to this fairy tale of a Medieval and Renaissance city. Bordered by the Fiume Adige (Adige River), and containing one of the most beautiful piazzas in all of Italy, Verona offers a lot to see  and is missed by many American travelers who tend to go to the better-known cities of Rome, Florence and Venice. I heartily recommend Verona. For a quick video introduction to the city, see www.webvisionitaly.com/category.php?id=298.

And I also heartily recommend the Palazzo Castellani, located in the historic center of Verona, for any special event. I had the pleasure of presenting a reading for my book, Up at the Villa: Travels with my Husband, in The Hall (Salone) in September. It was breathtaking. Its ornate ceiling, huge chandelier, 17th Century paintings and a gorgeous Viennese pianoforte create an environment that is fit for a king. Or a bride. Or a really important business function. My friends, the famiglia Castellani, will be happy to answer any of your questions and show you how to make your next special event — and your stay in Verona — a most memorable time in your life. Visit www.palazzocastellani.com for a video tour of the palace and gardens. And then book your reservations!

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

I have traveled a good deal in Concord. — Henry David Thoreau

I know what he means. When I lived in New York City, there was a time when I couldn’t wait to leave the summer city air behind and head east to the beaches of the Hamptons or north to the Green Mountains of Vermont. Until I realized that I lived in the greatest city on the face of the earth, and that there was plenty to see — and ways to escape the humdrum — right there.

Now, I always knew that New York was a fabulous city. But when you live someplace day in and day out , it’s easy to forget that people from all over the world come to see things that you walk by every single day. Never was this brought home to me more sharply than when two Danish travelers were deposited on my doorstep one day in the summer of 1990.

My friend Kelso had agreed to take friends of friends around the city for a day. It was their first time here and they had a list of things they wanted to see. He had planned all along to play tour guide but a bit of non-negotiable family business came up at the last minute and he was unavailable. Hence, the deposit at my door of two uber-cute young Danish men in their twenties, eager to see the sites of the Big Apple. It could have been worse.

They showed me the list they had created of the “top sites to see.” I groaned: the Empire State Building. The Staten Island Ferry. Greenwich Village. Central Park. They wanted to buy a hot dog and a pretzel from a street vendor. They wanted to ride the subway. I told them that we’d be walking a lot, since I didn’t do subways unless there was gridlock-level traffic on the route I had to take.

Anyway, I remember grumbling a lot but started walking south from my Chelsea apartment along Eighth Avenue. First stop, Greenwich Village. I had no particular place in mind, but when I saw their reaction to Washington Square Park and all the goings-on that we as inmates of this crazy island take for granted . . . well, an amazing thing happened. I was transported back to the first time I had ever been to the Village — the mid-1960s. The folk scene supplanting the beatnik scene. Music everywhere. A new young poet named Bob Dylan, whose songs were breaking our hearts. Coffee houses and guitars. Short skirts and thick black eyeliner. Mary Quant and Carnaby Street creeping into the culture. Dogs and chess players and people in berets walking arm-in-arm under the arch . . . and I stopped and saw it all again.

And so it went, that day. We rode the Staten Island Ferry both ways and I thought of Edna St. Vincent Millay, although I did not feel exactly young or merry. We walked and we walked. Finally I convinced them that we should  take a cab up to the Empire State Building; we did, and they were awed by the views. I took them on a detour to Macy’s and showed them the fabulous wooden escalators. And we walked through Times Square, which was still Times Square and not the Disney Land it is today. Then we walked over to Fifth Avenue and walked up it and then crossed over to Central Park and they were really, really happy. And so was I. They had seen everything on their list and more. And so had I.

We met Kelso after a long day of exploration and had dinner together somewhere on the Upper East Side. And we sent these fellows home, filled with an experience of Manhattan that they hopefully still remember. It was the Manhattan they wanted to see, but one that surprised them, nonetheless, as Manhattan always does.

And that’s the great thing about traveling in your own backyard. You think you know everything about it. You walk or drive past it every day. But you never see it. Not really. Not until you stop and look. Maybe it’s forced upon you, like it was with me. I’m suggesting that you should force it upon yourself.

Play tourist this year. Drag some out-of-town friends with you, if that will make you feel better about it. But keep your eyes open and your agenda flexible. Dorothy was right. Sometimes, there’s just no place like home.

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them. – Mark Twain

After coordinating small groups of travelers in five different Italian villas over the years, I have become something of an expert in group travel. I know that some of my friends think I’m crazy for traveling this way, but I don’t care. I love it.

I love the flexibility of rising and setting. I love not knowing where lunch will be that day. I love shopping in the village mercati for the freshest food possisble and then cooking it for the group that night. I love feeling a part of the village and getting to know (or at least recognize) the locals. I feel connected to the place much more than I do when I’m in a hotel, having to leave my passport and keys at the front desk every time I want to take a stroll.

Imagine you and your significant other plus six or eight of your (currently) closest friends on foreign soil — and nobody knows the language.  Imagine them driving at high speeds around the idyllic countryside, then trying to park in the cities. Imagine them trying to figure how the meters work. Imagine them ordering lunch, buying shoes, asking for directions . . . there’s no end to the amusement!

The good news is that you can have all these adventures — and introduce your friends to a great way to travel — for generally a lot less than you’d spend at a hotel for the same period of time. And you’ll have a lot more stories to tell.

How to get started? There’s lots to see on the internet. First, I’d suggest going to www.parkervillas.com and ordering their gorgeous (free) catalog. Part of the joy of travel is planning where you want to go and with whom,  and the catalog provides a real “wish book” experience for those of us with wanderlust. There are lots of other sites, too. To continue your armchair travels, I recommend looking at Suzanne Pidduck’s site www.rentvillas.com and Suzanne Cohen’s www.villaeurope.com.

But before you go, here are some ground rules that I have found to be very useful. They’re my Top Ten Tips for traveling with a group:

1. Talk budget before you commit, so you’re clear about everybody’s expectations. Just because one person is used to spending $500 a night at a hotel doesn’t mean everybody else can.
2. Decide what amenities you want before you commit, i.e., number of bedrooms and baths, pool or no pool, city or rural, washing machine, etc.
3. Have a gathering or two before you leave and assign people tasks, i.e., what is the history of the area? What are the recommended restaurants? What are the traveler’s “dos” and “don’ts” according to the experts? What should you not miss? What are possible side trips? What are possible traps?
4. If more than four people are traveling together, hire two cars. In Europe, especially, they’re small; also, it gives the group options about where to go. I discovered the hard way that there is really no 6-passenger car in Italy, at least. And if the police catch you with 6 people in a 5-passenger car, the fines are very steep.
5. If someone wants to fly stand-by, they are responsible for getting to/from the hotel or villa themselves. Nobody is going to waste a day waiting at the airport for flights to come and go.
6. Clarify how expenses will work. We have everybody pool the equivalent of $50 into a bowl and whoever goes food/wine/supplies shopping uses that money. When it runs out, we all put in another $50. We also have a loose agreement about meal plans: breakfast at the villa every morning, lunch out most days, dinner in most nights. But we always treated ourselves to one or two nice dinners out during the week. If there was extra money at the end of the trip, we divide it equally or put it toward the last night’s dinner out.
7. If you can swing it, take a side trip. A night or two in a cozy hotel away from the group is a great way to expand your travel experiences and stay positive about the group dynamics.
8. Share your experiences as you go: what to avoid, where the best public bathrooms are (you may have to pay), must-see sights and must-buy souvenirs. Nobody wants to feel like they’ve missed something special.
9. Build a compatible travel family; someone who sleeps until 11:00 every day is going to be a real annoyance to the early risers in the group.
10. Be flexible, be flexible, be flexible!

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building here after seeing Italy. — Fanny Burney

Welcome to Travel the Write Way, a new blog that combines the joys of writing with the joys of travel. I’m so glad you found me. Travel and writing are my two absolute passions (my husband and my dog are the other two) and I’ve finally found a way to combine them. I just wish it was easier to travel abroad with the dog . . .

As Thomas Jefferson once said, “I cannot live without books.” I totally agree. And the older  I get, the more I realize that I also cannot live without travel. Especially to Italy. My bags are just unpacked and I’m already planning the next trip. But,  fellow travelers,  you know the drill: we need time in between trips to download and cull through the hundreds of photos we’ve taken and to sift through the journals and notes. To put all the little ticket stubs and receipts and business cards and brochures in order, to try to recreate an honest memory of the places we’ve been.  And some of us even need to make a living in between our adventures.

I was lucky this year to be involved in a publishing venture that enabled me to launch my first collection of travel essays, poems and photographs and to get really excited about travel writing. Travel changes your perceptions about things both large and small. It can be both exhilarating and frustrating. It can make you feel a part of something very big or make you feel exceedingly small. Our advantage as writers is that we can capture these feelings and put them into words.

We already tend to be hyper-aware of our surroundings. We are observers of human behavior. We see certain angles of light, certain human interactions that go unnoticed by most people. We make connections to the past and make predictions about the future. And we take notes. Lots of notes. My friend Barbara and I have enough journals to fill a spare bedroom — and not just the closets! That’s what we writers do. So how about putting them to good use? That’s what I hope this will inspire you to do.

Travel is not just about getting on a plane and taking a big expensive trip somewhere, although that’s wonderful when it happens. Travel can be exploring something in your own city that you’ve never seen before and playing tourist. It can mean a stay in a B&B just an hour away from home and noticing the landscape and how the sun hangs over the mountains a little while before plunging the countryside into darkness. It can mean remembering a trip you took years ago and writing it into life again.

Won’t you join me? You won’t even need a passport.

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…