Random musings from the road: Italy

Some random thoughts and observations after a couple of weeks on the road in Northern Italy (and two and a half months in Italy in total) from my traveller's notebook:
* Italians are the most cultured people in the world - barely a conversation passes with the Italians we meet without mention of a great composer or musician, of an art movement or artist, of architecture and photography, of food and wine. Caravaggio is much more likely to to come up in conversation with an Italian than Kate Moss, grapes more than gossip. The only celebrity name to cross any lips has been George Clooney, but then he's an honorary Italian anyway.
* Italians are the most civilized people in the world - the more we observe and compare the everyday life of the locals with the behavior of tourists on holidays, we're convinced of this. While the Italians drink wine with meals, including lunch, tourists sip cans of Coke. While the Italians order several courses and savour a meal slowly, tourists stick to one dish or settle for a slab of pizza. While the tourists wander the streets at night in Birkenstocks and shorts, the Italians dress up or, even when they're dressed casually, look as if they've dressed up. While the Italians sit on a park bench and read a book, the tourists text messages home on their CrackBerries.
* Nobody knows how to live like the Italians - they start work late (compared to most Western countries), they take several hours off in the afternoon for a long lunch and siesta, they return to work in the evening for a couple of hours, then they head out to meet friends or family to socialize over dinner or drinks. They work to live rather than live to work. What's not to love about that?

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