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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Do you or your kids speak Italian? Do you feel comfortable driving in Italy? What is your tolerance for crowds in a jubilee year? Just got back from solo trip in Italy with younger kids and I still think the above questions is your starting point. As an Italian speaker with Italian speaking kids, I did a mix of local programming and museums and outdoor hikes/walking - but all in cities and towns with maximum one connection on the high-speed train - and avoided Rome. If you will drive in Italy (I will not), you could really drill down on a specific region with less over tourism, Umbria, Marche, or other areas in Tuscany (Pitigliano, for [b]example). Valle d'Aosta doesn't feel particularly like Italy but is lovely.  [/quote][/b]

What an odd thing to say. [/quote]

Not really odd, actually. It was once part of France - it’s semi-autonomous and bilingual. The food is heavily Franco-Provençal. There’s an Italian tv show set and the running gag is that it’s not really Italian culturally…
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Hmm. Still odd. Not much Provençal influence in the region’s cuisine that I’ve ever experienced, but given all the autonomous regions in Italy and the country’s linguistic diversity, Valle d’Aosta very much feels like Italy. Unless one only considers “Italy” as being synonymous with “Mediterranean”.[/quote]

Ha! No, I think the point is that Italians in other parts of Italy like to joke that Valle d'Aosta is not like the rest of Italy - in part because of the huge Provençal influence on the food and the number of French speakers. It really feels like France or Switzerland - in the same way that Bolzano feels quite German. It is a unique characteristic of these regions. So, absolutely not odd. :)[/quote]

It’s weird that you keep saying it’s Provençal though! French influence yes, but not Provençal![/quote]

:oops: Not really. Their dialect is actually called Franco-Provençal, because the people inhabited the region originally were...from...Provence. Their food has a lot of red wine, meat, and potato combinations that you do not find in the rest of Italy, but, wait for it, do find in Provence.  :wink: [/quote]

Sure. You might be thinking “Occitan”, but let’s drop this. My point is that “Italy” is very much also a vast Alpine landscape with heavy linguistic influence from many, many other European countries. That’s just classic Italy for you :) Again, it’s far from an all-Mediterranean entity, unless that’s all you picture. And as far as Italians commenting that VdA is not really Italy… well… I wonder where all these Italians you are referring to come from. Good day![/quote]

Your WASP bona fides are well-noted. ;P
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