In keeping (innkeeping?) with the season, this month’s “featured city” is not a city at all, but rather a look back at our Italian travel during 2012.  And our “Italian Memories” travel anecdote is not a single, heartwarming tale but rather a montage of our 2012 experiences.  So sit back and enjoy and end of year “best of” collection.  And let’s hope 2013 turns out to be as interesting, exciting and eye opening as last year.

Our year in travel in Italy actually started right here in the US of A, with the January visit of our good friend chef Simone from Bevanga along with his partner Marco.  Their journey brought them to Washington, DC for ten days preparing private dinner parties for our customers in their homes.  But along the way we managed to fit in a trip to San Francisco and Yountville in Napa Valley, magnets for anyone truly interested in food.

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A month later found us in New York, sharing a display space with Gerardo Ribigini, our ceramicist friend from Deruta, as we promoted Geribi’s works at the New York International Gift Fair at the Javitz Center.  During our sojourn in New York, as well as Gerardo’s five day visit to Washington, DC, we introduced him to American steaks and typical Americana – the iceberg wedge “salad” with blue cheese dressing.  They say that Italians are quite parochial in their food tastes, but during his U.S. visit we were able to help Gerardo do a very convincing imitation of an American.   U-S-A.  U-S-A.

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March saw us begin a journey to Italy and beyond that would take us from home for nearly two months.  The first phase included Suzy and me, along with our twin sons and several of their friends who were enjoying an extended Spring break from boarding school.  On our arrival in Rome we immediately drove up to the mountainous town of Calcata, not your typical tourist mecca but the site of a most irreverent curiosity, a religious relic reputed to be the foreskin of Jesus.  Although the relic has conveniently gone missing, the town is worth a visit along the way from Rome to our villa in Umbria.

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Our time in Umbria with the lads took us to many of our usual haunts – Bevagna, Assisi and Montefalco.  There in Montefalco, in the epicenter of the Umbrian wine universe, we arranged a visit to the renowned and revered Paolo Bea winery.  And as fate would have it our guide for the day was Paolo Bea himself.  Sometimes I wonder if our kids know how lucky they really are.

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A day trip to Florence included a stop in nearby Borgo San Lorenzo to meet Bijan, the owner and creative mind behind Alice le Maschere, producers of artistic decorative papier mache masks.  It is always an inspiration to visit great artists in their studios, to see and to feel the influences that inspire them and to hear their stories, to get a real insight into what makes them tick.

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Speaking of ticking, with time in Umbria ticking down we made a special trip with the boys to Fabriano, in nearby le Marche, to visit the unique museums that grace the medieval town.  Here we were hosted for the entire day by Giorgio Pellegrini, the quasi Minister of Culture of Fabriano, who introduced us to the Museum of Paper and Watermarks, gave us sneak previews of the Museum of the Pianoforte and the Museum of Printing (neither of which had yet been opened to the public) and the Museum of Working Bicycles.  Those visits, as has been the case with our subsequent visits to Fabriano, are an incredible way to absorb culture effortlessly and enjoyably.

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With the first Italy phase of their Spring break over, we RyanAirmailed ourselves (regular post would have likely been more comfortable) from Perugia to London for a few days to see if London Bridge had really fallen down (if so, the remains are pretty well hidden) and to see our daughter Lindsey, who was spending a semester abroad in the capital city.  One of the highlights (among many of our too brief stay) was afternoon tea at the Dorchester Hotel.

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Our return to Italy several days later had us spend a couple of days in Rome before saying goodbye to the boys.  After their departure we spent a couple more days in the Eternal City with our friend Erin.  Along the way we were fortunate enough to finally meet and spend time with Elizabeth Minchilli, an American expat in Rome with a keen eye for art and food.  Our day spent touring Rome with her was a treat and a memory.  And she introduced us to Open Baladin, a very different sort of Italian restaurant in Rome.

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We returned to Umbria then to host a series of friends and acquaintances over the next several weeks.  There we welcomed our longtime friends the Perkins from North Carolina, the Zavareeis from Washington, DC and old prep school friends the Burtons and the Hettingers.  On our way from Rome we stopped along the way in Terni, a town known more for metal forging and armaments than perhaps food, but there we had a most memorable dinner at a tiny, atmospheric osteria known as the Mal’ora.  It was here that the idea for the Gelso Throwndown was hatched.

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And several weeks later it began.  A series of two dinners prepared by business associates who had bragged over dinner that night in Terni over who was the better cook.  To settle the matter, we assembled a group of twenty diners at the villa on two separate evenings, with a panel of judges to award the coveted Weenie trophy.  And while our friend Giuliano took home the Weenie, Paolo proved himself a worthy competitor, to go along with his credentials as a top rate accountant.

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Before leaving Umbria for our too brief stay in Venice, we managed to fit in a cooking class with Salvatore Denaro at the Caprai winery.  Marco Caprai, the owner and one of the most important figures in Montefalco wines joined us over lunch.

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And, on a rare day off, Suzy and I discovered Spirito Divino, a fabulous restaurant just off the main square in Montefalco that has kept us coming back since.

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Venice, and our new home away from home – the Palazzo Barbarigo – gave way to Istanbul, which while not part of Italy proved to be the most eye opening and “important” destination we have visited for decades.  And with its Byzantine history that draws a straight line back to the Roman empire, Istanbul still seemed somewhat “on message” for a couple dedicated to all things Italian.

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Our summer return to Italy began with a brief stopover in Bevanga, the next town over from our villa.  There we were able to experience for the first time the annual summer festival known as il Mercato del Gaite.  The local townspeople are still talking about our exuberance, perhaps over exuberance.  Fortunately we were scheduled to leave Bevagna as quickly as we had arrived, heading to Sicily for time with our DC friends the Hennigans, my college roommate and his wife and our sons’ teachers, coaches, advisors and dorm parents, the Seigenthalers.

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Our villa for the week, the Becchina family beach house known as Zeffiro, is built adjacent to the Greek temple complex known as Selinunte.  And located a short drive from Selinunte, Mazzara del Valle, Trapani and Palermo, there is no shortage of things to do.

A real treat was our visit to the Planeta family winery, where a friend from the U.S. who happened to be visiting the area invited us to spend the afternoon with his friend Giovanni Planeta whose family has played a major role in revolutionizing and modernizing the wine trade in Sicily.  Thanks to Giovanni we’ll never look at Sicilian wine or Sicilian culture the same way.

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Another unforgettable treat in Sicily was the opportunity to visit with my friend Pete his ancestral town of Salaparuta, to visit the tombs of his relatives at the cemetery of the town that was wiped off the map by an earthquake a generation ago, and to visit the newly rebuilt Salaparuta, finding and aging relative (Father Baldassare) in the local nursing home and experiencing the tearful meeting of the two paesani.

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And if it’s summer, it must be Ponza.  For the fifth year running, we spent time on this incredible rock that emerges from the crystal blue Mediterranean, surrounded by rocky beaches (one in particular – la Caletta – run by our good friend Silverio), picturesque coves and all manner of deliciously edible sea creatures.  A week on Ponza is not just a simple battery recharging.  After a week there they could hook you up to the electrical grid and you could power a small city for months.

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If it’s summer it must be Umbria Jazz, too.  Back to Perugia, with guests coming and going, but this year skipping the jazz completely.  You know you have begun to develop roots in a place when you stop feeling you have to do everything every day.

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All roads lead to Rome, which is actually true when you are in Umbria (try the famous via Flaminia).  And we took one back there for a day to celebrate the reopening of SAPER, a local Roman institution that we recently invested in.  For nearly a century this family run butcher company has been supplying Roman restaurants, markets and tables with ultra high quality pork products, but with the death of the owner it was in jeopardy of shutting down.  Our visit and the banquet put on by SAPER’s employees on the rooftop of its own supermarket in the Roman ‘burbs was a celebration of the continued life and livelihood of this venerable business.  Tanti auguri and many more, SAPER.

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And so our final Italian chapter of the year, the final month and half visit began in October, when we welcomed the first of five tour groups to Umbria to experience harvest time.  And while each group’s itinerary was different and tailored for them, certain experiences are essential – cooking at Perbacco with Ernesto and Anna Rita, dinner at the villa with Simone, truffle hunting and cooking with the Bianconis, a visit to the Pardi weaving mill and lunch at their winery with Alberto, Linda, Albertino, Gianluca and, of course, the venerable Augusta.  Tours of Assisi and Perugia with Francesco, visits to Spoleto, Spello, Norcia and Castelluccio.  Painting with Gerardo, Assunta, Claudia and Federico.

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There were special treats, as well, such as our visit to the estate and gardens at La Foce in the Val d’Orcia in Tuscany.  And the scuola di cioccolato chocolate making classes at the Perugina headquarters outside Perugia.

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We made friends with Claudio Cutulli, the fashion designer who has taken Bevagna by storm.  And we reconnected with the Pambufetti family whose Scacciadiavoli winery continues to push the envelope while maintaining the traditions that connect it so firmly to the calcareous clay soil from which their family has been deriving its livelihood for generations.

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It’s amazing, at least for us, to look back on 2012.  Just a single year.  Only 366 days.  And yet in those days to have had the incredible opportunity to experience so much.  To have taken away so many memories.  To pick one town to feature, to select a single anecdote to commit to paper (or electrons) would be to do a disservice to the whole.

So here’s to 2012.  And looking forward to 2013.