On Spoleto, Italy

I recall the first time I walked through the Piazza della Libertá in Spoleto, Italy, glancing at shop windows and poking my American head through open doors to find my first glass of authentic Italian wine. I was fortunate to be accompanied by my roommates – two other students who, like myself, were part of the study abroad program College of Charleston hosted every year. Kate, with her thick mahogany hair, stood a couple inches above me and always looked like she was going on a hike with her Chacos strapped to her feet and full backpack hanging off her shoulders. She walked with a slight limp due to a horseback riding injury, which would eventually worsen on this trip until she incurred a cane. Her sorority sister, Cat, had ash-brown skin and barely met my shoulder when she had enough reason to leave her stilettos at our villa. The three of us couldn’t be more different, yet, we enjoyed one another’s company considerably.

Exiting the piazza onto Via Mazzini, I noticed many dark, empty stores and wondered if there had been a power outage in the area. I would later learn that any time, between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m., most places were closed for “siesta” – a devoted time of day when everything except restaurants and cafés were locked up and their proprietors spent a few hours eating and resting. I thought it was the most wonderful idea in the world to have a daily built-in naptime into your schedule. I often wished the forced naps of my Kindergarten days had never ended, and it seemed the Italians had reinvented it. I only wished I could see the inside of the many Spoleto boutiques, but the ideal shopping hours fell during siesta.

Windows where I expected to see “Out of Business” signs posted encouraged us along, until we came across an open door belonging to a café. The café was called Vincenzo, a popular Italian name, and was comprised of a single young woman with an angular jaw standing behind the bar. It was the first time that I needed to remember what my Pimsler Learning Language discs taught me about the Italian language.

“Vorrei un vino bianco, per favore,” I told the woman.

Praying I had accurately told her I wanted some white wine, I watched her slender arm dip into a cooler in front of her and pull out a frosted wine bottle. She selected a wine glass from the rack hanging about her, uncorked the bottle and filled the glass with the pale gold liquid characteristic of Pinot Grigio.

I smiled and said, “Grazie,” then paid 3 euros.

After Cat ordered some berry gelato and Kate had a Corona in hand, we noticed a small tray of finger sandwiches and two bowls of chips. We learned that this snack was for us after Cat explained that Italians believed people shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach. I was certainly getting my money’s worth at this place. We spent the next half hour sitting outside, warming ourselves under the sun, until we finished our drinks.

Dining in Spoleto has proven to be a greater commitment than any eating experience back home. For one, there is no such thing as tap water, and it’s not free. Every drop of acqua comes from a plastic or glass liter-sized bottle that generally costs 3 euro and is meant to be shared by everyone at the table. I still haven’t figured out if they offer smaller sized bottles for single diners. Then, there’s the bread. It’s unsalted and is served without butter, olive oil, plates or anything else; yet, it’s set on almost every table prior to the meal. I never even knew American bread came salted, until I tasted spongy air after biting into my first Italian loaf.

The first time I dined in Spoleto, at a small, six-table restaurant 200 meters off the Piazza del Libertá, I ended up grabbing a bottle of olive oil off a nearby table and pouring a single portion directly onto the bread slice. It wasn’t the greatest method since some oil spilled onto the table, but at least my taste buds had woken up. Another thing I learned during my first dining experience were the definitions of various Italian foods. In America, “grilled cheese” is defined as a few slices of cheese set between two slices of bread that is heated so that the bread toasts and the cheese melts. In Italy, grilled cheese is defined more literally, which Kate and I discovered when she received a bowl of melted cheese that had been fired in an oven. She wasn’t very pleased but ate some of it anyway because Italians get offended if you don’t clean your plate. Often they will ask, “No good?” if you leave too much.

The next day, my entire study abroad group and I took a guided walking tour of Spoleto. We passed through the Piazza del Mercato, once the site of the Roman Forum; explored the Casa Romana, a Roman house above the Piazza del Mercato; descended a long staircase to the Piazza Duomo, where we admired the frescos of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta; and finished by walking across the Ponte delle Torri, a striking 13th century aqueduct. After the tour, Kate and I returned to the Piazza del Mercato to investigate the shop behind the store windows we had walked by earlier.

The lunch break slotted between the two classes I was taking was time reserved for challenging the restaurants of Spoleto to see if their food outdid the places I was accustomed to at home. Often, I would window shop and admire the open walkway of Via Mazzini, which had become my favorite street, because it was home to some of the best and cheapest food in Spoleto: a small pizza place that sold slices for 1 euro each and a gelateria that sold chocolate gelato reminiscent of Ghirardelli.

One day, leaving the street, I stopped along a steep pathway that connected Via Mazzini to our classroom, to admire the architecture of Spoleto. Conversations among distant birds filled the rock-pressed street and nearby alleys, occasionally disturbed by the crescendo and decrescendo of a motorized vehicle. A white stucco building with two short chimneys growing out of tiny tunnels of storm-beaten shingles rested halfway down the slanted path before me. The building’s long gray shutters were barely cracked as if Dr. Seuss’s Lorax had opted for an Italian view over his dismal black bog and pink shaggy trees. A wall forming a triumphal arch over the pathway and adorned with two windows stacked atop one another blended white into yellow as my eye moved left from one building to another. Italian history was contained in these walls that were scorched black at the top, forming permanent shadows up the porous surface. While I found the European bathrooms to be unusually small and the gas knobs on kitchen stoves to be backward, I could have sacrificed those small nuances to live in a place where history was practically written into the walls. I often wondered if I would find a long lost account of a secret romance composed on a slice of parchment if I could just peel back the crumbling stucco.

While some aspects of Spoleto are far different from back home, I find the train system to function similarly to the American one. You buy a ticket, check the screen hanging from the station’s ceiling to note the track number and stand at the corresponding platform. The second weekend of my visit to Italy, the group and I were scheduled to spend the weekend in Florence. We traveled by train that day and reluctantly learned the consequence of resting your feet on an empty seat: a 30 euro fine. I was gracious to avoid incurring this loss, but one student wasn’t as lucky. Arguing with the conductor didn’t do her any good, and her argument that she didn’t understand Italian and that there wasn’t a “don’t put your feet on the seats” sign got her nowhere.

The third weekend in Italy, we all traveled to Venice and discovered another train fine the Italians can issue: you can be fined 50 euros if you don’t get your rail pass stamped. What I couldn’t understand was why none of our previous conductors mentioned this to us. Once again, though, I avoided this fine. I still don’t understand the need for Italians to collect money for such trifle things and wonder how such silly fines came about in the first place.

A few days before my final weekend in Spoleto, I had the opportunity to eat dinner at the country house restaurant, Locanda Reviocciano, set outside the heart of Spoleto. The restaurant was owned by head chef Andrea who also lived there on the upper floor with his wife and two beautiful children. He greeted us with a soft smile that stretched across a bristled face, wearing the typical white chef coat and hat. He had been a chef for over 20 years, and it showed in his authentic Italian cooking. Unlike most restaurants in Spoleto, this menu was set solely written in Italian, causing much difficulty for the four students, two professors and their out-of-town friends to order. My greatest challenge was determining which dish didn’t have meat since I’m a vegetarian. Over bits and pieces of explanation from our waiter, I chose the spinach ravioli. The entire night was a wonderful eating experience with beautiful presentations and intimate company. It was by far the most delicious meal I’d had since arriving in Spoleto.

Locanda Rovicciano also held cooking classes, which seven of us students attended the following day. Working alongside Andrea and another cook, Arturo, I learned how to make pasta from scratch and feed it through a machine roller before cutting it into the necessary shapes to make lasagna. Hours spent chopping vegetables and thrusting a clever at lamb, we finally finished cooking our Italian lunch. We all sat down to liters of wine and were served the food we had spent all morning cooking. It was another delicious success, and I hope to come back to the Umbria area, where Spoleto is located, and eat there again.

My time spent in Spoleto has been nothing but a cultural tornado of experiences I will carry for the rest of my life. As time as gone on, I’ve grown quite accustomed to the changes between my American homeland and this foreign country, often wondering how things will be when I fly home next week. I imagine I’ll end up starving and losing quite a bit of weight because the food back home will never rise to Italian standards. I also imagine that my friends and family will raise their eyebrows the next time I’m dining out and order a glass of red wine. Claiming to hate red wine and prepared to order white every time, Italy has made quite an impression on me and changed my mind about the scarlet liquid made from grapes and infused with alcohol. And, above all, I will never be able to set foot in an Olive Garden again after indulging in Italy’s handmade pastas, olive oil and wines.