So... What Do We Want To Make For Dinner Tonight?

We love to cook. So we have a habit of asking one another this question each and every day. And I’m sure you think it’s kinda a stupid question to ask. I mean how hard is it to choose what you want for dinner, especially if you love to cook?

We live by an excellent grocery store, Di Per Di, and an excellent outdoor fresh market. Di Per Di carries everything an Italian family could want. Produce, cheese, yogurt, borlotti and cannellini beans, fresh and dried pasta in shapes only this region (Lazio) will eat, fresh and packaged bread, a huge salumi selection, meat, espresso and wine. Sounds adequate. Except, the supply of these items may run out at any given time and you never quite know when. The shelves on Sunday are as bare as Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard!

Italian’s have very precise dietary requirements. And they do not like to vary from their-oh-so historical, regional path. They will take the various seasonal ingredients listed above and serve the same dishes their grandmothers have been making for years and they are perfectly content.

They don’t care about the latest deconstructed dish, accompanying foam or choose-the-cuisine inspired sauce. They could care less about purple carrots, Asian pears or heirloom tomatoes – different varieties of fruits and vegetables are unheard of. They certainly don’t care what anyone else is eating. And they don’t even care what the other regions in Italy are eating. All they care about is eating their food.

I’d venture to say American’s eat as internationally as they choose. Our country is so large, it’s cost prohibitive to ship some items inland. However, the east and west coasts are blessed with having every ingredient at hand. And since we’re American’s, we demand to have every ingredient at hand. We’re very fortunate to have the desire and the ingredients to create dishes from all over the globe.

However, here in Rome, we no longer have that option. There are so many staples, fruits and vegetables we simply won’t see in Italy, that in America, we are accustomed to in our weekly trip to the Farmer’s Market or trip to the store. We wonder what it will be like in the winter.

Adding to our dinner dilemma, is the fact that many common ingredients are not available on a daily basis. If we see a cut of meat we like, we snatch it up, because it may not be available tomorrow, or the next day. If there is some fresh sage, we buy it, because we have no idea when we’ll see it again. And it’s no different at the farmer’s markets. A farmer may show up with the sweetest tomatoes one day, but not the next.

We’ve become accustomed to going to the market every day. After we began cooking, we served similar dinner courses as our fellow Romani. After a couple of weeks, it became tiresome. We don’t serve various cuts of salumi as a first course, as Italians do, ever. And as much as we love bread and pasta – we simply don’t want to eat it every day – or even every other day.

For our kids comfort and our own, we’re trying to cook our family favorites, but it’s hard. Some nights, we just come as close to a recipe for cashew stir fry as we can. Other nights, we’re serving salumi as a first course and following with a pasta. Thankfully, tomorrow is a new day. Then we’re sure to ask one another, “What do we want to make for dinner tonight?”

Patron Saint Specialist Needed!

I have to find out who the Patron Saint of mail delivery is. The Catholics have attached a Patron Saint to every noun under our shared moon, stars and sun! I need to go on a pilgrimage to their relic, or church, or hometown, and make a sacrifice or something.

Over five weeks ago, I methodically packed up four boxes to be shipped to Rome. When I’ve shipped items to family/friends internationally, via the US postal system, they’ve arrived in two weeks, tops. It’s been over five weeks since my husband shipped those boxes.

I filled them with, basically, toiletries. Shampoo has become a passion in our household. We all use a different brand with a different desired outcome – for color treated hair, deep conditioning, for an active lifestyle and for thickening. Naturally, I bought the big kahuna bottles to ship. Only one of those brands can be found over here. I’m known to be a bit fanatic about my family’s use of organic/natural products, so whenever they go on sale, I buy them in bulk - Avalon Organics Lavender shave cream, Crystal roll on deodorant, Tom’s of Maine Fennel toothpaste, Giovanna body cream… Good stuff, all worthy of shipment.

I also shipped a Brita water pitcher and three filters. I know the water in Rome is reputed to be the best in all of Europe, but it’s the hundred’s of years old water pipes in my apartment building I worry about. I sent vitamins and iron (the non-constipating [very important!] kind, since I developed anemia in my pregnancies). My son is allergic to shellfish, so I brought two EpiPens and packed two for shipping.

Cotton balls take up a lot of space, so I shipped those. I also packed a dozen bars of soap. I haven’t found a standard soap in Italy that I like as well as the soap we use in the States. The teen and pre-teen face are in need of extra special facial products –AND- us old people are in need of extra, extra special facial products – large bottles of those went into the boxes.

Nothing crazy. Just the basic toiletries a family of four will need over the course of a year.

Well, we received a notice three weeks ago from Italian Customs in Genova. They were in receipt of our boxes (YES!) However, before they would release them for delivery, they requested copies of the receipts for our various toiletries.

Why in the world would they want receipts? We, of course, have no receipts. Who would keep and travel internationally with an old receipt from Whole Foods?

So, we had our last bank statement faxed to us. We circled the places where we bought our toiletries, blacked out the personal info and faxed it to Italian Customs.

We received notice that our documentation was adequate (?), BUT, they were waiting for the official Italian Customs Doctor, to return from holiday, to sign off on our boxes.

Our toiletries require a Doctor’s sign off!

So we wait. Our supplies are dwindling away, bit by bit, day by day. Time to research those Patron Saints!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my family! Today, is my big brothers birthday. Happy Birthday Ted! However, most importantly, we are receiving our Sky television hookup. We’ve been in Rome for a month and we’ve only had access to a handful of local Rome television channels. For me, this hasn’t been a huge problem, but for my family, this has been a very huge problem!

The word has been: The man who lives in the Penthouse apartment on top of our building works for the Italian State Department and he is currently based in the Singapore. So, we’ve been waiting for his family member to provide access to the roof for the Sky technicians to install our mini satellite dish.

Today, the owner of our apartment, our housekeeper and a Sky technician (he has great tattoos all over both arms! Oh, and now I can see he has some on his back, above his underwear that has Pimp printed on the waistband, and NY printed on them – they’re hanging out!) have showed up to install our Sky TV. This will make my family very happy.

I don’t really watch television. When I sit down, with time to waste on a television program, there’s rarely anything on that I want to watch. I never really got into reality television (my life has been plenty, thank you -and really- how much of those shows are reality?) I’m too busy to watch a series – I’ll miss the next week because I’m at a PTA meeting or hosting a dinner – then I’ve missed too much and have no idea why someone is doing something. I don’t find the situational comedies comedic. And I don’t care for the majority of the cooking/adventure eating shows. For news, I read the New York Times and local paper, and catch CNN online. My brother keeps me updated with the obscure news via Facebook, so I’ve been good to go.

My family watches television. My husband watches MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News and the ESPN family of channels. My son loves the ESPN’s, but also still watches Nickelodeon with his Comedy Central. He also watches the History Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery and the like. My daughter eats up all of the teenage angst shows sprinkled all through the cable channels.

Sadly, I no longer receive The New York Times or local paper. I can read them online, but it’s just not the same. Even with my brother’s thorough updates, I’ve felt cut off from the rest of the world. I’ve struggled this last month staying informed of current events. Especially with the passing of Patrick Swayze.

So I’m thankful for our birthday gift of Sky TV!

Weekend Trip

We knew it was time for a weekend adventure. We walk everywhere in Rome, we don’t have a car. While the kids are in school, we go to museums and churches – because we know there’s no way they’ll go with us. However, we felt we needed a weekend with some wheels beneath us to explore the countryside.

So we pulled out our stash of magazines and maps. My husband knew of an ancient Greek temple in Paestum. We located it on the map – about an hour and a half south of Napoli. Good! An area we haven’t been to yet. We went online and read a bit of history of the area, found a hotel in nearby Agropoli, and booked a car. We’re good to go!

Because of the Autostrada, the drive to Agropoli was a fast one – about 3½ hours. To enter, each car takes a ticket from a toll booth, which is marked with your location. The Autostrada is usually two lanes, but around the larger metropolitan areas, there are more. The slow traffic (large trucks) drive in the slow lane on the right, the fast cars drive in the middle lane and the very fast cars drive in the very fast lane on the left. If a fast car is in the very fast lane, they get over quickly when a very fast car comes up on their butt. It’s not like American highways at all! There’s no grandpa who drives slow in the fast lane because he pays his taxes and will drive in any lane that he damn well chooses. If you are not very fast, you get over. I love it! When you leave the Autostrada, you pay your usage fee at a toll booth. It cost us 14 Euro to drive from Rome to Salerno.

We pulled into a service area along the Autostrada for diesel and had a slice of pizza at the Autogrill. These service areas are great! They have cash machines, restaurants or “fast food”, bathrooms, and gas stations. Everything you need to take a break from the road. One stop we were at was like a Target – they had slippers, clothing, music books, games, etc.

Hotel la Colombaia is located in the hills behind Agropoli. To see gorgeous and realistic photos of the hotel, go to, www.lacolombaiahotel.it. Thankfully, my husband wrote down directions, so we found it pretty easily. We were greeted by Luigi, a molto gentile manager. Molto gentile, in Italian, means very kind. He gave us our room keys, let us know where his room was, in case we had any difficulties.

In the morning, we walked out of our room into a garden set above a beautiful swimming pool. In the distance is the sea. Agropoli is a coastal town. We went down to the outdoor cabana along side the pool, for a blue sky breakfast. Honestly, we could have stayed there all day and forgotten the Greek ruins. However, we are in Italy for history and adventure, so Luigi tells us the best places to go for our day of sightseeing. We let him know we’ll join him and our fellow hotel guests for dinner.

Our first stop was Paestum. We knew there was “a Doric ruin”, but what we found was an ENTIRE Greek town, founded in 600 B.C. (over 2,500 years old), in ruins! It was awesome! We walked all through the town, walked right through homes, businesses, theatres, a mini colusseum (2/3 of it is still underground) and walked around the three Doric (Greek) temples. There are still beautiful, intact mosaic floors in some of the homes! Truly amazing!

What was interesting about this town, which we learned in the museum across the street, was that the town was in ruins for over 1,000 years and was rediscovered in the late 1700’s. That’s why so much of it is well preserved. Also, they didn’t have one burial area outside of the town – where looters could easily dig up funerary items (coins, vases, jewelry, armor, etc.) Their burial areas are all over, right in the town (kinda creepy!). Many of the tombs have been excavated and placed in the museum, but I’m sure there’s plenty more. Another point of interest - we were able to walk though this town, but it is only about one-fourth the size of the actual walled city. There is plenty more to excavate, but I’m sure it would be very expensive to do so.

We were so blown away/overwhelmed by Paestum, we were there for over three hours, so we all decided we were done “exploring” for the day. We drove up into Capaccio for lunch (we overheard a guy telling a family to go for lunch there) at Ristorante Il Giardino di Bacco. It’s a huge complex, built on a hill overlooking Paestum, so the views of the rolling countryside and sea were incredible. However, we were the ONLY people there for lunch. This place can easily hold a couple of hundred. We all enjoyed handmade pasta with the local tomato sauce, which wasn’t salted.

Historically, the Romans placed a tax on salt. The northern tribes refused to pay the tax, so they left salt out of their bread and other recipes, only using it where most needed (meat preservation). The southern tribes paid the tax, so to this day, their recipes contain salt. Also to this day, the bread in the north is without salt. Anyhoo, I was surprised there wasn’t salt in our sauce.

After lunch, we went back to La Colombaia for some pool time and rest before dinner.

Dinner was delicious. We began with a local, yellow melon served with prosciutto. Then, we tucked into our pasta with the local sauce with a bit of pancetta. Fortunately, our hotel provided Parmesan to add a bit more flavor, which we all appreciated. A mixed green salad followed (the carrots were so sweet!), then the much anticipated, mozzarella di bufala with tomatoes.

Campania, the region we were in, is the home of the most prized Water Buffalos. The milk of the Campania Water Buffalo, is highly revered in Italy. It is considered most pure (many dairies are organic), high in nutrition, and smooth in taste. The dairies produce mozzarella di bufala as well as many other cheeses, ricotta, etc., for the entire country and abroad.

We luckily, happened upon Caseificio Capodifiume – an organic dairy. We bought four small ovals (one oval serves four easily) of fresh mozzarella and three different varieties of cheese – one is aged and smoked, one contains spicy red peppers and the other is rolled with prosciutto and green olives. These yummy cheeses will not last long!

On Sunday, we enjoyed another gorgeous, leisure breakfast, then our son played in the pool before we checked out. We highly recommend Hotel La Colombaia! The rooms are spacious, spotless and very inexpensive. Luigi said their area is not well known to tourists (shocking!) so their prices are lower. We would definitely like to return, as there are other historic sites in the area as well. We drove down into Agropoli, took a few pictures of a tower erected for St. Francis during his southern pilgrimage, hopped onto the Autostrada and returned to our very modern life in Rome.

Calcio

The Stadio Olimpico is a nice stadium. You feel a bit packed in, when sitting where we were, in the nosebleed seats and the steps are rather steep - however, the view of the match was perfect. The blue section across the field is where the owners, politicians, journalists and other highly protected spectators sit. They only serve hotdogs (with ketchup and mayo), water, beer, Coke and stale popcorn. Needless to say, we went to dinner afterwards.

Please excuse the angle of this photo. It was the best way to show you what took place after Rome lost to Juventus. For safety purposes, the Juventus fans were held in their section -not allowed to leave- well after the balance of the fans had left. And let me tell you, they were having a grand time of it! In unison, they were singing, they were chanting, and they were dancing with joy. Obviously, I've never seen anything like this before!

In anticipation of the Roma soccer match.

We Arrive in Rome

It took no time at all to unload the van, however, many trips up the lift to the apartment. Only one of those giant suitcases would fit in the lift. Notice the parking available on the street... only in August. If we arrived today, I have no idea where our taxi would pull up.

We created quite a stir among the taxi cab drivers. With our driver and van, came a lot of other Italian drivers opinions, suggestions and waving of the hands.

We had 4 carts piled high with 14 large suitcases and 9 carry-ons. Everyone was staring at us as we walked through the terminal!

Current Italian Loves

I love listening to the church bell announce each hour.

I love the deep aroma of espresso.

I love strolling along the cobblestones.

I love the peacefulness of churches.

I love watching the life out my windows.

I love the ritual of the outdoor markets.

I love having time to explore.

Our Neighborhood

When we all finally came to the same conclusion that we’d be moving to Rome, we immediately began talking about WHERE in Rome we’d like to live.

We had visited Rome three times prior and with each visit, stayed in different neighborhoods. First, the Trevi - in a hotel with a Concierge from our hometown. She provided us with the perfect stepping stones for our first visit.

Second, we chose the Parione, which is in the vicinity of the Campo de’ Fiori. The Campo offers a centuries old, year-round, outdoor market from 7:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. When the market closes, the real fun begins. The café’s set up tables and chairs and they fill with people into the wee hours of the night.

The Campo Marzo was the third neighborhood we branched out into. This neighborhood is well known for shopping and “modern” restaurants. We enjoy the traditional Roma meals, but it’s nice to step outside that formula every now and then. Gusto, Pizza Re, Ad Hoc and Artisinal del Pesce lead the way.

We realized we’d be happy in just about any historic, central neighborhood, so HOW became our next question.

My husband began searching online and found a property management company called @ Home. Their website was in English, which was helpful. He made an appointment for us to visit them in June, when we arrived to house hunt.

Sabrina and Katia, the principle owners and operators of @ Home, were just who we needed. Sabrina was a New Yorker, with an Italian heritage and has lived in Rome for the last decade. Katia is a Romana, who is also an alumnus of the school we planned to send our children to. She spoke such fluent English, we thought she was an ex-pat as well!

The very first apartment they took us to, in the Campo Marzo neighborhood, was love at first sight. Three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, updated kitchen, huge living room (with a grand piano), nice dining room, large windows throughout, tons of storage, gorgeous stone floors and carpeted bedrooms. Who could ask for anything more? As for the location – on Via del Babuino – known as the Madison Avenue of Rome – oh la la! Sandwiched between Piazza del Popolo and the Spanish Steps, absolute heaven.

Every major designer has a shop in our neighborhood. Chanel, Valentino, Prada, Gucci – you name them – they are here. There are also smaller boutique shops that carry independent designers and designers who don’t have a store in Rome, such as Chloe, Ralph Lauren, etc. On Via del Corso, there are a few of the stores you’d find in American malls – Nike, Adidas, Foot Locker, Sephora and Guess. Mixed in are typical European chain stores like Benetton, Energie, Zara, and H & M. Finally, little Italian stores that carry shoes and clothing without a designer name or price tag.

Because of all of these shops, there are a lot of people in our neighborhood all of the time. When combined with the typical historical sites, restaurants, and various services - it is very busy every day of the week from morning to late at night. There are times we walk in the street because there are so many people on the small-to-begin-with sidewalks.

We’ve found Di per Di, Il Supermercado, a very good supermarket hidden away on Via Vittoria, where we do the majority of our day-to-day shopping. We have found they carry a pretty good organic selection – when you can get it. The organic items sell out quicker than the conventional. They have a wonderful “deli” counter with fresh bread, cheeses (bufala di mozzarella!), numerous salamis and prosciutto from a dozen different locations – very cool! We’ve just begun searching for organic stores, as I’d really like to find organic meat.

There are many gelato shops in our neighborhood, heck, in every neighborhood, in every town in Italy! Gelati e Papere is our most favorite gelato shop. Thankfully, it’s only a few blocks away on Via della Fontanella. They sell artisanal gelato with an emphasis on Sicilian specialties. Their gelato is extra creamy and the flavors announce themselves loudly with each lick. None compare.

We also live close to Buccone, a wonderful wine and liquor store on Via di Ripetta. We’ve been told, if Buccone doesn’t sell it, it doesn’t exist – in Rome! My sister works with this guy, Bernie. Bernie swears he has had a chocolate grappa, from a bottle shaped like a fish. Bernie was hoping, since we were taking a trip to Italy, that we could bring a bottle back to him. Sure! No problemo! We’ve become the butt of many a joke in Rome, as we work our way through the enoteca’s looking for Bernie’s grappa. Buccone didn’t laugh at us (at least not in our faces), and we discussed this grappa with their sales staff at length. They hadn’t heard of it, but they did offer us a chocolate liquor with a hint of spicy red pepper from Calabria. We took it home to Bernie. He rewarded us with a box of artisanal chocolate truffles. And we have promised my sister, our search will continue, in other regions.

We have also found Noi Salon, in the Piazza del Popolo, where the owners are from Southern California. Since we’ve been spoiled by our stylist and colorist back home, it’s going to be important for us to explain our hair particulars to someone and I know my Italian won’t improve well enough by the time I need a cut and color. They were very helpful in telling us where to purchase a flat iron for our daughter’s hair. Not only did the parrucchiere offer flat irons, they had large sizes of the Kerastate hair products and many other beauty supply items for cheap!

There is an amazing bookstore on Via del Corso, Feltrinelli. They offer an amazing international magazine selection. We all love to go in there to browse. We can buy just about any magazine offered in the U.S., however, they are twice the price. Plus, they carry the weeklies – Newsweek, The New Yorker, and the daily International Herald, which is a joint effort by The New York Times and the Washington Post. Typically, we read The New York Times online.

We also live close to the two English bookstores, The Lion Bookshop on Via dei Greci, and the Anglo-American Book Co. on Via delle Vite. My son has been voraciously reading those Warrior cat series books, so we went to the Anglo shop and ordered the balance of the series for him.

The Metropolitan movie theatre is on the Via del Corso and they often carry English spoken movies. We haven’t been yet, as there isn’t a title we are currently interested in.

Just because we moved to a foreign-speaking country, doesn’t mean we want complete immersion. I need to read, speak and hear English. However, my favorite foreign language is Italian and my Italian language school is just a few blocks away as well.

Bakers Dozen Guilty Pleasures

1. Artisanal gelati (calcium!) each and every day!

2. Living amongst beautiful, old, historic architecture.

3. Fresh bufala mozzarella.

4. Window-shopping and people watching from my apartment windows.

5. Sipping just-poured espresso.

6. Shipping the kiddos off to school each day.

7. Hearing these beautiful Italian conversations all around me, and not knowing a word that they say.

8. Using my computer whenever I want, for as long as I want, while my kids are at school.

9. Walking everywhere for everything.

10. Fulfilling my Vitamin D requirement without even trying.

11. New volunteer duties.

12. Time with my children.

13. Italian wines.

School Begins

The kiddo’s first, official day of school is today. They were both so excited! We’re really looking forward to meeting them at the bus stop to hear about their day.

On Wednesday, our entire family went to the school. There was a new family orientation that was very helpful. All of the incoming Kindergarten families were there, as well as us newbie’s.

Our children’s school is an American school, but it has an international population. 30 percent of the students are American, 30 percent are Italian and the balance, are from all over the globe. As this is an American school, all of the classes are in English, except the foreign language classes.

We checked-in, and immediately, the staff knew who we were. Our children were given unique names and the staff couldn’t wait to see the freaks who named their children accordingly. We put on our nametags, signed up for volunteer duties(!), checked to make sure all of our contact information was correct and received an introduction by our head of school. We were introduced to the principals, athletics coordinator, nurse (swine flu update received) and PTO (PTA) chair. We also were informed, students and parents together, of the dress code – no underwear or mid-drifts to be showing. Check!

The first task was to break out the students by grade level. There were experienced kids and teachers on hand to lead tours of the school. The Kindergarten children (so cute and tiny!) and families went with the teachers to the classrooms. The parents of the elementary school children met with the elementary school principal and us middle/high school parents met with the secondary school principal.

We went over the school handbook, talked about discipline (rarely needed, so we were told), met the counselor who handles emotional and educational issues (helps with the college application process – huge! –and- is expected to balance my daughters latest teenage drama? – I hope this woman is highly compensated!), went over the lunch/bar payment process (two pastas, pizza, salad bar with fresh fruit, veggies and yogurt, meat dishes, breads, desserts – no soda thankfully! They have an espresso bar with juices as well… I hope my kids don’t become caffeine addicts!), EdLine - the online system to view assignments, and the bus system.

Non-English speaking students were assessed for their English skills, and there were math and foreign language assessments as well. The 11^th and 12^th graders needed to identify if they planned to join the Advanced Placement classes or the International Baccalaureate program.

Our kids schedule was easy – Science, Math, Social Studies, Language Arts, PE, Beginning Italian, and a Study Block. The gymnasium received a new floor over the summer, so we’ll buy shoes, specifically for PE.

The bus system is very complicated! There is a man whose entire job is to coordinate the buses – all 29 of them. The school operates a private bus service, which was a pro when choosing a school, as not all private schools offer this amenity. As there are students all over Rome who attend this school, these buses go all over the place –and- the teachers ride them too!

When we sat down with the bus coordinator, again, he knew us right away as the freak parents who gave their children such interesting names. We hoped a bus would come into the historic center of Rome to pick up our kids. How naive were we? Very. Because the center is so difficult to drive in and busy at all hours, there’s no way a bus will come into the center. So we will walk them to a stop along the Tiber River for morning pick-up, then across one of the bridges for afternoon drop off.

We . Are . In . Rome . Italy. There are bus strikes, and other transportation strikes, all of the time. And there is rarely any notice of these strikes. As our buses are private, our children will be transported, however, when there is a transportation strike of any kind (train, taxi, subway) in Rome, all routes will be adversely affected. Each bus driver has our home and cell numbers, for this reason. Our bus coordinator is Irish – a most perfect nationality for the job! Ai yi yi – I hope he is highly compensated as well!

The kids had their student ID photos taken, which will have their lunch numbers on them. They received their lockers and combinations. They were both relieved to have top lockers. My son said it took him 20 minutes to learn how to open his locker, which will surprise no one. They allotted 30 minutes, which they used, so he wasn’t the last. They both met kids their own ages, so we’ll see if they hang out with them today.

Thursday, there was a 6^th grade orientation. Only the 6^th graders went to school – new and returning. As it’s their first year in middle school, many of the students had never changed classes before and the returning students hadn’t received a locker. Thankfully, our son had exposure in elementary school to changing classes, so the process didn’t overwhelm him. They received their schedules, went to each class for a half hour, met the teachers and ended the day with a pizza lunch. He met a few more kids and seemed upbeat about his day.

Now, it feels real!

San Benedetto

While visiting with family, we spent two, very lazy afternoons in San Benedetto, a very sweet beach town on the Adriatic Sea. A funny note, Giulio, my husband’s cousin, says that San Benedetto is like Miami Beach. Miami Beach?! Thankfully, San Benedetto is nothing like Miami Beach!

At Salvatore and Ubbi’s home, during our first dinner with family, we mentioned we planned to spend the next day at the beach. Ubbi was so excited because she and Valeria had rented an umbrella and two beach chairs for the summer at one of the concession businesses. She was thrilled we’d be able to use their space at the Piccolo Lido.

It was perfectly lovely. The skies were blue, the sea was calm and there was a protective jetty 200 meters out from the beach. The family who operates the Piccolo Lido were very kind to us, it was nice and clean and we had a fun, relaxing time. A teenager and preteen can tend to get on each other’s nerves (and ours!) after a jetlag spell. Swimming and bobbing in the Adriatic freed them. They were like little kids again – it was great.

Every beach I’ve been to in Italy, operates a concession system. If you want access to the beach, you have to pay for the privilege. Sometimes, there is a slip of property, at the end of the beach, where there isn’t a concession. It’s usually littered with debris, rocky (the concessions bring in and maintain their sand) and the people and activities there are questionable.

We actually went to one once. We were in Venice, surrounded by water, it was hot and we really wanted to swim. So we took the Vaporetto over to the Lido and walked down to the shore. We stopped at each and every concession, and they were all full. It was the first of August, so every Italian able to take vacation, was on the beach. We got to the very end and there was the free beach. At that point, we were desperate. We didn’t have towels or beach amenities, but we decided to go for it. We found a little gravelly location for our things and swam and played. We felt a bit grimy, so we bathed when we returned to our hotel. The next morning, our skin peeled off. I’m not kidding. We all lost a layer. We must have been next to an industrial waste disposal…

Each concession has a little snack bar, dining area, bathrooms, shower, changing rooms and tons of numbered umbrellas and chairs – you rent your space for as much time as you like. The higher end concessions offer cabanas, a game room, air conditioning in the dining area, waiters and waitresses, etc. The way you can recognize your concession after going out for a dip is to remember the color/design of your concession’s umbrellas. The view of the beach from the sea is so colorful because of the various colors of the umbrellas waving in the breeze.

The concession prices can be a bit shocking to Americans, because we are used to going to wherever we like to swim and not having to pay a cent. Only recently has New York City offered private clubs with swimming pool access, which I can completely understand, as real estate is such a premium.

Our first concession experience, thankfully, was in San Benedetto. We randomly chose a cute concession, paid our 30 euro for 4 chairs and 2 umbrellas and had a great day at the beach.

Our most shocking concession experience was another trip to Venice. We were staying at The Bauer Hotel (highly recommend!) and again, we wanted to go over to the Lido to spend a day at the beach. Rather than relive our first Lido experience, we asked our concierge to call a concession and make a reservation for us. He booked us at The Excelsior Hotel. We weren’t familiar with The Excelsior – so many hotels all over Europe interchange names, but we guessed it would be a nice beach. We didn’t require a cabana, just an umbrella and two chairs, thank you. 75 euros later, we were sitting at the most exclusive beach, in the most exclusive hotel on the Lido, in the cheap seats. Yes, that’s right, the economy section, behind all of the cabanas, along the path for the wait staff, with no access to wait staff - for $115! I have no idea how much it costs to rent the view seats, let alone a cabana, and I don’t even want to. It was certainly a memorable learning experience.

That reminds me… I watched the 2010 Chanel Resort Collection on Style.com. I loved the Edwardian influenced designs – the sailor suits, the stripes - it was magical. Karl Lagerfeld staged that fashion show at The Excelsior. I hope they cut him and his 350 guests a deal!