Weekly Stories

A family travels to Italy day 11: losing my child in the labyrinth of Villa Pisani in Stra

Nora put on her new Italian designer dress and combed out her curls all fluffy and angelic. She was ready for her magical day traveling to Stra to wander the famous labyrinth of Villa Pisani and climb the tower in the centre and stand victorious over the maze with the statue of Minerva. This was her day, she planned it, she was ready for a transformative experience. She instructed, “I want each of us to go into the labyrinth alone and experience our own connection with God.” She’s been doing a lot of spiritual investigation lately all on her own…

A family travels Italy day 9-10: Lido, Venice, Burano, Murano

As we headed left towards the train station the kids instinctively made a sharp right and ran towards the sea. I decided in that second to pay attention to the sound of the waves and to forget about any kind of schedule. We chose to stay on the Lido instead of right in Venice. It added to the cost of transportation but we found a nice cheap two bedroom airbnb suite, right off the beach, with a well equipped kitchen, bikes, and it was super quiet. The sand was icing sugar tender and the seaside stretched as far as the…

A family travels Italy day 6-8: slowing down in Southern Italy

My Zia M peels my husband his sixth orange. A dare. I’ve only seen a gorilla eat more citrus. Everyone laughs because the more she peels, the more he eats and it’s one of the few moments that doesn’t need to be translated. She’s hung my laundry out on her deck to dry and somehow I manage to get the joke across that her neighbours will be thinking she’s started wearing sheer lacy red panties. She swats me and throws back her head and laughs. The town where my family lives is about nine hundred years old. It was the…

a family travels Italy: Pompeii Palazzo San Gervasio Matera and Altamura the best cheese I’ve had in my life and the best capicola (but you’d have to know my Zia)

We are bombing down a back road on the border of Basilicata somewhere between Palazzo San Gervasio and Altamura. Nunzio is playing my sister’s CD (Eve Hell – Snake Oil) full blast for the fifth time straight. I brought it for him from Canada, at his request. He always turns it up during Blue Eyed Devil. His hands tap the steering wheel and he says this music reminds him of when he was nineteen and he can’t stop moving his body. He says he’s going to pass this CD onto a friend of his that arranges tours for bands. He…

A family travels Italy day 4-5 Vatican Trevi and our best gelato in Rome

It is 2am and I up nursing an upset stomach, the thought of dinner is causing me to gag. I’m not sure what makes me more ill, the fact that the six inch scampi were served raw or the fact that the bill came to 290.00 Euros. We learned an important lesson tonight: do not let the waiter decide what to order. He brought us small squid, large squid, fish balls, those were all cooked. But then raw shrimp, raw oysters, raw scampi, raw tuna, enough for all four of us. The kids couldn’t handle it, understandably, though Nora gave…

a family travels Italy day 3: provocative public art

As we headed to the colosseum we passed an “anarchist” a “rebel” and a “fascist”. The local graffiti seemed to be all political. Near the station Quadraro, there’s a recent mural I later discovered was painted by Gary Basemen, commemorating the raid on this neighbourhood in 1944, where the Nazis came in and rounded up over 700 men, partisans, and sent them off to concentration camps in Poland. (The raid on the Jewish ghetto in Rome saw over 1000 Jewish people taken to the extermination camp Auschwitz.) The mural leers with grotesque victory: chop one head off a partisan and…

A family travels Italy day 2: the Dark Rome tour and fart jokes under the Full Moon

Our first full day in Rome is planned out by my step-son. We gave the kids one day to plan any way they liked. We are all fresh and eager to get out and see the city. We’ve had a good sleep. Choosing the suburbs instead of the centre of town meant a quiet night. We slept in, had a homemade breakfast and then headed out. Within a few blocks of Porto Furba, we took the metro to Barberini piazza and had a bite of delicious but insignificant pizza near the fountain full of ancient bees before taking the “dark Rome”…

a long travel day and the amazing Osteria Bonelli!

The curvy Italian airline attendants have tailored red suits and beautiful green leather pumps. Silvia on the intercom commands, “Enjoy a your flight” with the same intonation as, “You better behave.” We have been up now for eighteen hours. Nora’s enthusiasm has been squashed. Her little face reminds me of the Italian ricotta cake I once made that the dog sat on. She sleeps in the shape of the liberty bell. She wakes up and rings in the day with a sudden ferocious vomit on the rug floor of the Air Italia bus. I buzz feebly for help mid-descent and…

teaching my daughter the C word

We arrive an hour early for our stress management session. They say it’s five, I wrote down four. This throws off the whole evening. It’s rainy and dark and the parking is meter. I am sure the error is not mine, but I’m also sure Mom’s terrible time management has already come up in session, so I swallow it and we hunt around for a light supper while I phone and rearrange her homework date for later. Beaucoup cafe is full of tailored cashmere and the display case is entirely empty again, save a few arrogant empty shiny croissants all…

Obese Vegas

The outdoor hot tub is lukewarm this afternoon at the MGM hotel. We are beside the “talent pool”, watching morbidly obese people wade into the water while sipping slushy alcoholic drinks served in the shape of a stripper’s leg. My husband decides it will be great fun to bring up the presidency with a retired red-head from Pennsylvania. She immediately confesses she’s a moderate. “Well, I’m going to vote Republican no matter what, but I can’t say as I like Trump.” I sigh and lean my head back against the tile. The Trump tower looms black and ominous to the…

Lucia Frangione