Postcard from Italy

with my top recs and also some fury as a treat

We had heretofore avoided taking our kids on a big international trip. They don’t eat much, and it always sounded way more stressful than fun to imagine dragging them, starving, though some gorgeous city. You know what they do eat, though? Pizza and pasta. We booked this trip to Italy last year when I sold my next two novels, and I will tell you that I spent more money on this vacation than I have ever spent in my entire life, and it was worth it, because we used a travel agent and everything was arranged without me having to lose my marbles. Here we are, sitting in the Venice airport, heading home, and it was a success. Can I just offer a high five to any parent traveling with their children who aren’t necessarily easy eaters, or, you know what, any parent traveling with small children, period. It’s so much easier when they get big enough to walk and pull their own suitcases. There were so many people in Venice carrying strollers up and down stairs over bridges and they are all much more chill parents than I was, because my ass would NOT have done that in a million years.

Rome—Top Hits

We went to Rome first, where I’ve been a few times, but we hit the ground running and did TOURS. We did the Colosseum (let me tell you, Donald Tr%^p is giving major Nero vibes, let’s hope that eventually Mar a Lago gets buried and we build something better on top of it. Not a place where people fight to the death, maybe, like, a garden? A national park? Just spitballing. We did a walking tour of baroque Rome, all the fountains and whatnot, and that was a delight. Shout out to our tour guide, Valentina, who showed us pictures of her cats and had no patience for line-cutters or slow walkers. We went to the Borghese Gallery, which the children couldn’t stand. Our best meals were at the Giggheta in the Jewish Ghetto and at Felice, in Testaccio. When you tell your cab driver where you’re going and he exclaims and tells you how much he loves it, you know you’re in for something good. Thirty minutes before we left for the train station, my homegirls at Blockshop told me to go to Schostal to buy a big pajama shirt to wear as a dress and I walked over there and bought three. I have never shopped so little on a trip like this, and so it seemed totally fine to do all my shopping at once.

Would have bought this dress, too.

Just expect to see me in this look a lot. Because I bought it in three colors.

Florence—Top Hits

Our younger son’s best friend’s family was also in Florence, and so seeing them was the major highlight, for the kids but for all of us, really, because it’s so fun to be with friends in a new place. My friend Tamara Shopsin told us to go to the Ferragamo Museum, and we did, because it was right across the street from our hotel.

If you find yourself in Florence, you should go, even if you think you don’t care about shoes.

Florence had the best gelato (Venchi, which is also probably in Rome and Venice), and the best art. Our younger son has been studying Italy in his class all year, and so it was amazing to have him lead us around the Uffizi, telling us things about all the paintings.

Our best meals were at La Buchetta and Il Pacheco- Pizza e Cucina, where we had to wait for an hour for our pizzas and we all almost died but then the pizza was so good that it brought us back too life.

Venice - Top Hits

Venice is a fucking crazy place. I wrote to Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winner and Venice resident, and he described it as ‘Disneyland for adults.’ It is too beautiful, too serene when you’re off the main drag, too full of WATER INSTEAD OF STREETS. I knew what it was, obviously, but I am a visual learner and I really had to see it myself. The whole city feels like a secret and a miracle and we loved it even though I did get very stressed out this morning because we took a walk without the kids and got sort of lost on our way back and I really did think we might die there. Our best meal was at a place called Osteria Oliva Nera, and it was so good that if I could go back in time, I would go there for every meal, except when we needed pizza.

Our fave tour was to Murano, where we watched some fearless men blow glass, and then we, fearless parents, walked our children through an enormous showroom of said Murano glass products—handmade objects that weren’t actually priceless but were no expensive that they might as well be.

This chandelier would run you about $100k. If I ever become a billionaire, there will be signs, and this chandelier and its sisters and brothers in every room of my house will be some of them.

We also loved the Peggy Guggenheim museum—there is nothing I love more than an eccentric woman with vision and taste. Here are all of her dead dogs.

And now back to regularly scheduled programming. In other news, fuck RFK Jr to infinity. It was really nice to be out of the states for a minute, but even so, I couldn’t avoid the eugenics he was pushing, absolute garbage poison. I could go on for a hundred years, but I won’t. Let’s send him to space next and never bring him back.

xoxoxoxo