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LA BELLA VITA

La Bella Vita: Free Italian museum tickets, Sanremo, and real spaghetti carbonara

From seeing Italy's best sights for free to avoiding crimes against Italian food, new weekly newsletter La Bella Vita offers you an essential starting point for eating, talking, drinking and living like an Italian.

Published: 3 February 2023 14:36 CET
Updated: 4 February 2023 08:46 CET
La Bella Vita: Free Italian museum tickets, Sanremo, and real spaghetti carbonara
The Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence is home to the original 16th century statue of David by Michelangelo - and once a month, it's free to visit. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)

La Bella Vita is our regular look at the real culture of Italy – from language to cuisine, manners to art. This new newsletter will be published weekly and you can receive it directly to your inbox, by going to newsletter preferences in ‘My Account’ or follow the instructions in the newsletter box below.

The cold weather and grey skies mean February is the month when I’m most tempted to stay at home and keep warm, preferably with an Italian hot chocolate. But it’s a shame to stay in when there’s so much to do and see in Italy, even at this time of year.

Carnival season officially kicks off this weekend, bringing much-needed colour and joy to towns and cities across Italy at what would otherwise be a pretty dull time of year. The most famous Carnival of all is of course in Venice, and this year’s edition promises a return to its former grand scale after three years of limited celebrations.

If you’re thinking of attending this year, here’s our quick guide to the events and what to expect:

Venice Carnival: What to expect if you’re attending in 2023

A masked reveller wearing a traditional carnival costume In St Mark's Square, Venice

The 2023 Venice Carnival will start with a floating parade down the Grand Canal on February 4th. Photo by Andrea PATTARO / AFP

Another reason to get out and about this weekend is Domenica al Museo or ‘free museum Sundays’, when museums and other sites open their doors ticket-free on the first Sunday of every month.

As admission to major historical monuments and museums in Italy often costs upwards of €15 per person, there are big savings to be made and the free Sundays scheme is understandably popular among both tourists and residents.

Free entry applies to hundreds of state-run museums, archaeological parks and monuments, including world-famous sites like the Colosseum, Pompeii, Florence’s Galleria dell’Accademia, the Reggia di Caserta and Trieste’s Miramare Castle. See further details in our article:

What you need to know about Italy’s free museum Sundays

There is however at least one good reason to stay in and watch some Italian TV: The Sanremo Music Festival returns on Tuesday, February 7th, and it will likely be the main topic of conversation all week.

If you’re a fan of Eurovision, you’re pretty much guaranteed to love it. But some people don’t find the appeal of the show immediately obvious, to put it mildly.

So what is it about the festival that pulls together an entire nation, regardless of whether they fall into the ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’ camp? We looked at just why this 73-year-old song contest is such an Italian institution.

Why is the Sanremo music festival so important to Italians?

In the latest international Italian food controversy, Italian media reacted with anger and dismay this week to a recipe published in the New York Times for ‘tomato carbonara’, which recommended adding tomato sugo along with the eggs, and replacing pork cheek and pecorino with bacon and parmesan – an adaptation which was described as “provocative”, “disgusting”, and a “declaration of war”.

For anyone who doesn’t want to traumatise their Italian dinner guests or risk sparking a diplomatic incident, here’s the classic recipe plus a look at the rules to follow when making a real Roman-style carbonara:

The ten unbreakable rules for making real pasta carbonara

However, you might be surprised to hear that adding cream – or tomato – to your carbonara recipe isn’t actually the worst food crime you could commit according to Italians.

From fruity pizza toppings to spaghetti bolognese, an international study revealed which of the most common international ‘adaptations’ are seen as most and least offensive.

RANKED: The 11 worst food crimes you can commit according to Italians

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Is there an aspect of the Italian way of life you’d like to see us write more about on The Local? Please email me at [email protected].

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OPINION

Doggy bags and sharing plates: Why Italy’s last food-related taboos are dying out

Italy is famous for its strong culinary traditions and unwritten rules around eating, but as Italians embrace doggy bags and informal dining, Silvia Marchetti argues that the last food-related taboos have been broken.

Published: 25 April 2024 09:40 CEST
Doggy bags and sharing plates: Why Italy's last food-related taboos are dying out

Italians are deadly serious when it comes to eating or, as they say, “mettere le gambe sotto il tavolo”, meaning ‘putting your feet under the table’.

Three meals per day remain sacrosanct at home, but at restaurants the eating etiquette is changing, particularly in big cities where globalisation has an effect.

I recently discovered, much to my surprise, that Italians are embracing doggy bags. When I was a kid, many many years ago, to us Italians it always seemed like something only foreigners could do, especially Americans.

We would never have asked a waiter to give us a paper bag to bring away the food for the next day, it just would never have popped up in our minds: you eat what you are served and if you no longer wanted what you’d paid for, well too bad, you’ll leave it on the plate. It would’ve been embarrassing to walk away with a doggy bag.

So I was shocked when recently at a restaurant in Rome I saw Italians taking away bags of leftover lunch food, including cold pizza slices and meatballs. It almost knocked me off my chair.

READ ALSO: Are doggy bags still taboo in Italy’s restaurants?

When the waitress came to our table to bring the cheque, and saw that we hadn’t finished our fried  fish and spaghetti alle vongole, she asked if we wanted a doggy bag. My jaw dropped. It was a first for me.

Yet what really shocked me was that the restaurant was not in the city centre, but in the countryside where traditions tend to survive, or at the very least, take longer to die.

It struck me how it’s no longer foreigners asking for doggy bags, but even Italians have overcome the stigma of this former faux pas.

The sad truth is that it’s not just because of globalisation and the economic crisis following the pandemic. There’s been a fall in the cultural level of many Italians, so asking for a doggy bag is also a way to avoid having to cook for the evening or for the day after, rather than to save money.

Sadly, this trend is not an exception, nor a one-off, and in Italy it’s not driven by concerns over food waste (we’re really not that ‘green’) or the cost of living.

Italian restaurants are simply becoming more generically European and international, adapting to global habits and the requests of foreign clientele.

In Rome’s touristy spots, restaurants showcase photos of dishes outside the restaurant to lure customers, or display real plates of gluey carbonara. This is something I had never seen in my childhood.

I have noticed that other restaurant eating taboos and etiquette rules have fallen away, too.

A few (well-off) friends of mine bring their own bottles of wine along when they eat out so that they don’t have to pay for these at the restaurant. I find this very inappropriate, but it usually happens when the restaurant owner and customers are friends or know each other.

READ ALSO: Want to eat well in Italy? Here’s why you should ditch the cities

Trends in restaurant etiquette are changing. There are eateries that serve pizza at lunch, which used to be something you could only order for dinner unless you’re in Naples.

The standard three courses which we normally have are also being messed up: appetisers, first, second and side dishes are eaten in a disorderly way – something which would make my granny turn in her grave.

I have seen Italian families first order a T-bone steak and then pasta or a slice of pizza, while many couples share plates. The man orders one type of spaghetti dish, the woman orders another kind of spaghetti and half-way through the meal they switch dishes. This was something very unusual in the past. Before in restaurant there were boundaries in eating habits and in the eating culture, which are now blurring.

My parents taught me it is rude to poke your fork into someone else’s plate to curl up some spaghetti for yourself. My dad always looked sideways at anyone who did that: not only is it extremely improper, he thinks, but it is also very unhygienic.

There are no more rules left in Italian restaurants nowadays, and all taboos have been broken.

To adapt to foreign clients many restaurants tend to stay open the whole day, especially in very touristy areas, and the untouchable hours of lunch and dinner now overlap. Some taverns even serve breakfast.

READ ALSO: Why do Italians get so angry if you mess with classic recipes?

In the north, I’ve noticed that bread and extra-virgin olive oil are often missing from the table and you have to ask for them, which is something very atypical of Italian standards.

To find the traditional Italian eating code in restaurants where there are rules that will never die, one must go deep into unknown spots, and travel to remote villages no one has ever heard of. It’s always harder to find such authentic, untouched places.

I really hate to say this, but wherever there is mass tourism local traditions tend to die, particularly food-related ones.

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