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Italy Fever: 14 Ways to Satisfy Your Love Affair With Italy by Darlene Marwitz

Relish the Romance of Italy In Venice, or in Your Own Home

In offices everywhere, people are dreaming their way out of work and into another, magical world.  On the table, a map of Italy outlines golden hillsides and rippling rivers - each line symbolizing a different adventure.  Minds wander from the rising pile of pages on desks to the rising buildings of ancient Rome.  Like a map of the human soul, Italy’s luring coastlines and Venetian waterways form the fabric of every romantic’s dreams.  But even romantics have to go to work.  With so little time, how can people expect to fulfill their Italian desires?

Author Darlene Marwitz has the answer.  Actually, she has fourteen of them.  In her new book, Italy Fever: 14 Ways to Satisfy Your Love Affair With Italy (Portico Press Inc., October 1999, ISBN 0-9664998-2-4, hardcover $24), Marwitz tells how she indulges in the wonders of Italy on her journeys and at home.  She first discovered the euphoria of Italy over ten years ago during her first visit as a graduate student in archistecture school.  Her second visit, a celebration of her twentieth wedding anniversary with her husband, not only reawakened her Italian spirit, but it taught her how to fully savor the delights of Italy.  And she doesn’t even have to be there to do it.

“While a love affair with Italy must ultimately be consummated on foreign soil, the courtship is a sensual part of the journey,” says Marwitz.  One of her many creative tips on experiencing Italy without traveling requires no more than a VCR and a couch.  “Travel to Italy through movies,” she says. “Whenever I hear those long Italian syllables, and see the sloping hillsides of Tuscany, I feel like I am really there.”  Immersing yourself in Italian culture before you travel also helps heighten excitement and anticipation.  Displaying maps as art, listening to the passionate voices of Italian opera, and learning Italian are only some of the things you can do to entice yourself.  Then you are ready to plunge into paradise. 

But not too fast.  Marwitz says that to completely savor every moment once you are in Italy, you must take it slow.  Ditch the car and ride a bike or walk.  And after a day of enjoying the Italian countryside, what could be better than platefuls of steaming spaghetti and local music.  Marwitz says that Italian restaurants, aside from serving delicious food, encompass the culture of Italy.  During her first dining experience, she says, “I was enchanted by the presence of folk music.  I heard men singing regional ballads and watched them swig local wine.  Those were beautiful scenes and sounds that continue to inspire passion in my life today.”

After all the pictures are taken, the money spent, and the heart re-surged with Italian passions and pleasures, it is time to come home.  However, the trip does not have to end.  In Italy Fever, Marwitz describes how she keeps Italy close to her heart by reliving her experiences every day. When running errands, she rides around her hometown in Texas on her Italianized bicycle.  And at night, she loves to curl up with her favorite Primo Levi book, flip through her collection of Italian post-cards, and savor the sinful creaminess of limone gelato. 

Above all, Italy Fever invites the romantic inside of us to get out and live a little.  Marwitz says, “Italy helps me to savor the many flavors of life.  It evokes passion in my soul, and where passion exists, I believe it is possible to follow grand goals wherever they lead.”

FROM CHAPTER 4:

Learn to Speak a Little Italian

"IF YOU'RE SO CRAZY ABOUT ITALY, then how come you haven't learned to speak Italian?" David quizzed me, a few months before our September trip. "Don't worry," I said. "Someday I will."

How dare he remind me of something I'd postponed on purpose. Can I help it that my best response to intimidation is procrastination? Besides, I had taken the first step. I'd placed it on a list. Long ago penciled between "clean out refrigerator" and "rotate tires--find warranty first," the words "learn to speak Italian" were scribbled on a pad.

If I were traveling alone, I knew I'd be okay--I wouldn't mind embarrassing myself with the language. But making the journey with my husband was exhausting to think about. David was counting on me for omnipotent communication the way a soothsayer is expected to predict the future.

It finally took an ultimatum. David threatened to back out on our anniversary tour if I didn't learn enough Italian to "get us by," as he called it. His better-learn-a-little-Italian threat scared me, but only because I realized how soon we were scheduled to leave. I wasn't really worried about David not going. He was always backing out. Like the last time he said he wasn't going to Italy and he suggested someone else take his place: "Why don't you go with a friend--someone who likes to travel more than I do?"

But in a heartbeat I'd replied, "Oh, no. You're not going to have that to hang over my head later on. I'm not about to take somebody else on our anniversary trip. I'll simply save your ticket and go twice!"

It was an answer he hadn't expected.

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It took only a few days in Italy before I revised my expectations. In lieu of expecting to devour the language, I settled for nibbled morsels. Fresh words through osmosis were welcomed with awe. (Where did I pick up that phrase?) But my new plan of action was to implement the old, the skimpy vocabulary I'd supposedly memorized before leaving home.

For starters, there was bed and bath terminology to contend with. My greatest bathroom-challenged accommodations were in Venice. I'd not booked early enough and was not spending enough buckets of lire to get a room on a canal, but I was close. The tiny albergo fronted on a quiet street of water.

Reminiscent of a college dormitory room, my Venetian cubicle was surprisingly cheerful, with its single green-shuttered window looking out onto a courtyard of inactivity. Predictably peaceful. But the bath situation (always a surprise in Italy) was less obvious. Puzzling. Nothing looked like my sticker-clad objects at home! [I had stuck Italian identifications on bath fixtures at home.]

The first thing to catch my eye was a plastic, one-piece, mini-bidet you could move around the room. It came with its own plastic cup for carrying water from the lavandino near the window. Should I move it to the window and toss any dirty water outside? Or should I pour dirty water down the only drain in sight--the one in the basin where I'd wash my hair and brush my teeth?

Then, above the sink, catching my reflection in a mirror, I instantly realized I'd wasted precious mental real estate by memorizing the word for a "looking glass," specchio. I could think of no reason now or ever to talk about this mirror or any other.

And when I finally found the toilet, the label on the door was simply toilette, not the strange gabinetto word that was stuck on my white ceramic tank back in Austin.

But the real challenge in my bed and bath situation had nothing to do with words in any language. It dealt with location and distance, physical attributes rather than appellations. My bed was on the third floor; the toilette was on the fourth floor; the bagno (spelled like the sticker on my tub at home!) was on the second floor; and if you wanted a doccia, or shower, it was on floor number one. Like guessing the winning door in a game show.

Booking a vacant room in Venice in early May had been tougher than anticipated. Somewhere between faxing and calling a dozen alberghi from home, I'd forgotten my nightly routine--my habitual rising five times a night. I'd forgotten to ask, "How far to the toilet?"

Copyright (c) by Darlene Sheldon Marwitz