Our second guest author to help us celebrate the launch of Dating da Vinci by Malena Lott is Jenny Gardiner. Jenny, welcome!

La Dolce Vita. The sweet life. I think you can find no sweeter place in which to find La Dolce Vita than in Italia.

I’m a huge Italiophile. I’d never even been to Italy until about six years ago. I knew I’d love it—I adore Italian food, Italian wine and art. I’m fascinated by Italian culture. And Italian men? Need I say more? Besides that obvious selling point, I’ve been so smitten by the language of love that I actually started studying it several years ago. A somewhat impractical language on which to focus one’s attention, but it sounds so sensual, it’s music to my ears.

I didn’t know until I went there, however, that I would feel so very connected to Italy. 

Italy is definitely my place to indulge in the sweet life. We’ve been back a few times since that first visit during the off-season. And because it was November in Tuscany that first time, we were relatively free of the manacles of hoards of tourists and instead could partake in the local life, even helping our hosts to harvest olives in their grove. And dining on homemade ravioli and veal straight from the farm of our host’s brother. Everything was local, from the olive oil to the wine to the boar meat to the vegetables. 

In Italy, in many ways, life is much simpler. People work for a few hours in the morning, then take long, leisurely lunchtimes with family and friends. Maybe a siesta for a while. And return to work for a few hours later in the afternoon.  Italians place a high value on the arts, take pride in their heritage and history, and work hard to preserve what was so that it will be there for the indefinite future.

My last trip to Italy was a sailing trip with my family and two families of dear friends—15 of us sailing the Aeolian Islands off the coast of Sicily. By day we sailed from island to island, swam in the sapphire waters, hiked smoldering volcanoes, and wandered through markets and local ruins. By evening, we’d throw together an antipasti platter made with only local salamis and cheeses, accompanied by hearty local wines. Then we’d dinghy ashore for leisurely meals of fresh pasta and seafood served by some of the nicest wait staff you’ll ever find. We finished with  fresh desserts and local liqueurs, and returned to our sailboats to settle down to the gentle waving of the ocean all night long.

I can’t think of anything much sweeter than that.

 

Learn more about Jenny at www.jennygardiner.net and find her book at Amazon here.