What part of Italy would you bring home?

as a 21 year old student living in Florence now, with a departure date 10 days from now, this questions has been on my mind a lot...however i've got some..

1) Wine. Oh the wine. I almost cry thinking that when I go home I won't be able to find my beloved Chianti Classico that I get at the local CONAD for 3,65EURO. However, I am shipping how two cases of wine :)

2) Nerbone and the Mercato Centrale. I visit Nerbone 3 times a week and have ordered almost all of the menu. I'd love to have a Panino Bollito con salsa verde e piccante, e sale peppe. Pasta al ragu and the ribollita would be nice to have too. I actually get upset knowing that this lovely little stand that has been so nice to me, that has become part of my weekly routine will be no more. Sure i'll visit again, but not as a resident that lives across the street who's on the way to school and needs a quick bite!

3) The new oil. While I am bringing some home, it just won't be the same. Visiting a vineyard last week, we tasted day old olive oil and words cannot describe how much I loved it.

4) The truffles without the hefty price tag. I've done a white truffle dinner and a black truffle dinner since i've been here and the things I would do to have access to the 20EURO small jars of 4 small black truffles...I love these little fungi.

5) Waking up every morning, looking out of my bedroom window and seeing San Lorenzo and the Duomo....not a bad way to wake up!

6) Dario Cecchini...

and last but not least...the Character, the ambience, the food, the people, everything that's surrounded me for the past 4 months. I'll miss the guy at the wine shop that I see weekly, Massimo my wine professor who's taught me all I know about wine, and inspired me to make a career with wine. Walking pass the Duomo every morning, passing the Uffizzi in the afternoons, and crossing the arno at night to visit friends.

I love Italy and I can't wait to return. Bellissima!

The beautiful cypress trees of Tuscany.

All the churchs in Venice.

Italian men (and the way they dress).

The light on the hills, the smell of the countryside. The poppies.

The fruit and vegetable stands with apples that taste like apples, the unique items you can find.

Panini! Gelato! Cheeses!

There is too much to list!

Good thread!! We've been in Italy for nearly six years, and we will leave in 6 months or so. I can only list a few of the things I will miss.
-Novello Wine
-Grocery stores where I can get italian cooking goodies for next to nothing. it is too expensive in the USA to buy panchetta
-Driving Italian style. Italians may drive agressive, but at least they are not distracted when they drive.
-The Dolomites out my front window.
-And all the little daily things that still suprise me. Yesterday the sky was filled with hot air balloons. And when I got to my town there was one parked in a field at the end of my street. All my Neighbors were standing on the sidewalk watching the balloon going ons.

Sitting down to a very peaceful 3 hour dinner...

Ah Gio-We have talked before about our homesickness for this beautiful country. Along with everything else mentioned above, I miss the gelato stands every few steps, the wonderful cappucino and espresso, and I especially miss the romance of this land, though I couldn't bring it home, as you did, I will hold with me the thought of returning. How fortunate you are to be able to visit there again soon!!

The list is simply too long......however mainly, wine, cheese, wild boar sausage, gelato, margherita pizza, the Colosseum, Mercato Centrale, Duomo and Baptistery in Firenze, trying new foods, and my first view of the Grand Canal.

Jeez, like everyone else, the list is too long but here it goes: Spending time with Adamo in his cellar in Montepulciano, starring up at the ceiling of St. Peter's Bascilica, sharing a bottle of wine and tasting the amazing food at Trattorie 13 Gobbi in Florence, hitting up the bread and cheese shops in Pienza, getting lost in Venice, sitting along side the Appian Way wondering what it must have been like in the Forum two thousand years ago, walking up Via Labicana and seeing the Colosseo for the first time, sampling the amazing gelato in Florence, trying hard to speak Italian with the vendors in Siena and them getting a kick out of it, visiting the small grocery stores and wondering why ours in the states are so large (we could get by with so much less and better quality).

I could go on but those are the ones off the top of my head. Can't wait to get back.

Great question. For me the rolling hills of Tuscany, the towers of San Gimignano and eating a wonderful Tuscan soup at a restaurant in the Siena Piazza. Heaven.

What I love about Italy, is passion. The passion for food, for family, for love and for joy that takes place every day, in every home. Italians welcome you with open arms, invite you in to their homes, serve you a meal that will last your in your memory for all time, and they do it with joy. Just because thats the way they are. They are so warm and so intimate, even with strangers. I try every day to recreate that in my home, in my kitchen, for my family.

This is a wonderful thread - it makes me itch to be in Italy again!

My list includes authentic pizza from Naples; the view of Saint Peter's Square from the top of the Basilica; sipping wine at the top of Piazza Michelangelo, watching the sun set over Florence; many flavours of gelato; the Trevi Fountain (especially at night); the dueling orchestras from St. Mark's Square; and the entire village of Manarola.

A few things I would NOT want to bring home--God knows we have enough of them here, already--include rampid political corruption, organized crime, poverty, especially in the south, and the recently expanded xenophobia, especially directed at immigrant populations and based largely on race. All of that notwithstanding, I wish I was back in Italia now, as I type this, rather than on the gloomy, damp and tired north side of Chicago.