Small-town Italy’s Taj Mahal
Updated On: 06 September, 2024 06:52 AM IST | Mumbai | Rosalyn D`mello
While the culinary diversity across Italian regions will never cease to amaze me, it was a humble Indian eatery in Cremona that delivered big time when I was hungry and craving something familiar
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The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta at Cremona in the Lombardy region of northern Italy
One of the benefits of living in Italy is the luxury of travelling to small towns. I had already visited the big cities during my maiden trip in 2018. I’d been to Rome, Naples, Florence, Venice and even Palermo, in Sicily. Moving to Italy in 2020, amid the pandemic meant we had to mostly shelter in place in South Tyrol. By the time the European borders became porous once more, my residence permit had expired. Until the renewal appointment, I could either stay in Italy or return to India. I couldn’t roam freely in Europe. This moment coincided with parenthood. Cabin fever felt real. To alleviate the symptoms, my partner suggested we plan weekend trips to neighbouring Italian regions.
Over the last two years, we’ve made our way to places like Brescia, Verona, Torino, Parma, Modena, Padova, Vicenza, Reggio Emilia, Bologna, Ferrara and Ravenna. Each trip has felt unique because our child has been at a different stage of development. In the beginning, it felt so easy to plan our itinerary around his naps. We could go wherever we wanted to, because we simply had to push a stroller. Now, we have a two-and-a-half-year-old on our hands. While he loves the ‘travel’ aspect of our trips, getting to the train station, waiting for the train, then the next, he is not keen on being cooped up inside a museum. He wants to be outdoors, playing football in piazzas, eating ice cream by fountains, and calling for elevators wherever there might be one. He abandoned the stroller months ago and prefers to be on foot. We’ve had to scale back our trips. Now we pick cities that are so small town, there are not more than two or three things on the to-do list. It lessens our FOMO and allows for a more relaxed itinerary. Last week we decided to go to Piacenza and Cremona.
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