Ciao! I’m posting my very first travel blog … I’d like to share a bit about my recent trip to Italy. It had been two years since I had been there. Cancer treatments and recovery have kept me grounded in New York for a while, so I was thrilled to get an e-mail from my dear friend Jill asking if I’d go with her to the Amalfi Coast. I was to fill in for her husband who canceled at the last minute because of work. Sigh.

There really isn’t much better than going on a spontaneous trip anywhere with your best girlfriend. We had a ball. This was a trip sans children, which actually gave me a chance to observe and make mental notes of how many families were there, how they were traveling, what works, what doesn’t.

Bottom line is that the Amalfi Coast is better for older kids. I wouldn’t recommend this region if you need a stroller or flat space for active children to run around. Too many steps, the beaches are rocks, not sand, and transportation is tricky – buses, ferries, and taxis, unless you build into your budget a car and driver. You could rent a car if you were up for an adventure, but you shouldn’t drive that coastal road unless your family goes back 900 years in the area.

Here are a few highlights. I hope it inspires you to go to Italy soon, with or without your children!

Amalfi

Amalfi. There are a few ways to get to the Amalfi Coast (located south of Naples in the Campania region). This time, we took the train from Rome to Salerno, and then a ferry to the town of Amalfi. There is not much to this town. It consists of the beach area, main piazza with its cathedral perched up high, and a single pedestrian way lined with touristy shops. It is quiet and quaint, good for a relaxed afternoon and evening, but I wouldn’t stay here for more than a day or two.

Villa Cimbrone in Ravello

Ravello. The world just looks more beautiful when viewed from Ravello: the green hills plunging into the lapis blue sea which in turn, blends with the pale blue sky. Villa Rufolo, Villa Cimbrone (love the terrace with statues), the main square, tranquil pedestrian streets, upscale shops, music festival, some of the most amazing hotels in the world make this my favorite small town in Italy. Whether you have a day or a week in this hilltop haven, you will leave feeling truly inspired.

Positano. Instead of risking car-sickness on the coastal road, we opted for the ferry from Amalfi to Positano. Our visit to this gorgeous, vertical village was about strolling, shopping (if you love lemons, this is your town), sunbathing and dining. The cathedral here is beautiful and the beach is good for children because the water is calm and mild, but it is rocky. Our strategy was to skimp on the hotel and treat ourselves to fabulous culinary experiences at Le Sirenuse and Il San Pietro. Places that are not really for children, unless you’re the stylish Italian couple we admired eating at 10pm with their fairy-like 2-year-old at Palazzo Murat (the only toddler we saw in Positano). Two of my favorite things about Positano are that it is noticeably clean, and the people are so warm, despite the high “touristy” factor.

Amalfi Coast views

Capri: Ah, Capri. First of all, our arrival was hilarious. The hotel mixed up our reservations and put us in a dark basement room that was 8’ x 10’ with a rusty metal bunk bed painted red. Traumatized, we checked out and marched straight to La Quisisana, the fabulous 5-star resort of the international jet-set scene. We lived like princesses for two days! The island of Capri is my cup of tea, a combination of breathtaking, rugged beauty (the Blue Grotto is a must-see) and cultural refinement. To me, everything about Capri is elegant, warm and relaxing. Like Positano, though, this is not a great destination for youngsters. Teenagers, si, si!

Naples: After saying arrivederci to the Quisi and Capri, we departed for Napoli. We were both interested in seeing Naples because not many travelers have good things to say about it, which made me want to see it more. A driver took us to Herculaneum and then around the city for a few hours. We barely scratched the surface of Naples, but I was stunned. The decay, the swarms of people, the soot and graffiti were overwhelming. The complexity, age, and layers of civilization in this city affected us deeply. If you do have a chance to visit Naples, don’t leave out a tour of Posillipo, a lovely residential neighborhood overlooking the Bay.

I’m thrilled to announce the re-launch of Ciao Bambino trip planning to Italy. Eventually I hope to offer assistance for France and the UK too. Please contact me at chris@ciaobambino.com if you are dreaming of your family’s next vacation!

For more Photo Friday posts, visit Delicious Baby.

Relevant Links

Italy Travel 101: How to Create a Family-Friendly Itinerary

Ciao Bambino Recommended places to stay on the Amalfi Coast

Every so often I meet someone that really impacts me. Erica Ehm, the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Yummy Mummy Club, is one of those people. I had the good fortune of interviewing her a few weeks ago. Mid-chat, Erica and I had that moment of connection—we’re both moms, entrepreneurs, and have dedicated our careers to helping other moms.

In addition to all of that, Erica’s work is around something that every mother deals with on a daily basis … staying sane. Her messages resonate in a big, life-changing way.

What inspired you to start The Yummy Mummy Club?

I had a difficult time transitioning into motherhood from running a successful TV show. I was used to being in control of my life and doing things my way. Having a child was a cataclysmic shift for me. I felt like the ultimate bad mom and was crying all the time. When I started to venture out and speak to other moms, I realized that many were just like me; they felt shamed and too guilty to discuss their real feelings.

The job of being a Mother is hard … too hard.

In response to this realization that I wasn’t alone in my feelings, I launched a TV show called Yummy Mummy addressing the realities of being a modern mother. All the attention was on the children. How about the challenges of being a mother? When I stopped producing the TV show, I decided to provide an online place for moms to commiserate and share, i.e. bitch, about motherhood. I launched the Yummy Mummy Club website in 2007.

When you share your feelings, things get better. Plus, the site provides a forum to get survival tips from other moms. I now have an army of online mom friends around the world with the same mindset as me.

Family trip to Arizona

How old are your kids now?

My son Josh is 9 and my daughter Jessie is 5. They are such good kids. All of the sudden my son has grown up; I look at him and know he will be an incredible person. We are always worrying about who our kids will be when they grow older.

The Yummy Mummy Club is all about balance. What’s your secret to balancing motherhood, your career, and adult time?

You have it all wrong! There is no balance and life is a roller coaster. You will have lousy days, but then have magical moments that make those days bearable. Our lives are totally out of control. They are. You never know what will happen with your children. One minute everything seems organized and then your kid barfs on you and everything changes. It’s impossible to know what each day holds for you.

Those parents that try to control everything are frustrated because they can’t do it. Yummy Mummy helps women recognize and laugh about life that most of us have chosen and some of us have been handed. I think balance is a myth and a lie. People who are constantly searching for balance will be disappointed.

I say shoot low, then you always have great days to celebrate the little achievements.

Is that how you approach things?

Oh yeah, I’m achievement oriented. Although, my definition of what an achievement is has changed. Now, if my son doesn’t have a temper tantrum about homework, I celebrate. If I get to the grocery store before 11 o’clock at night, good job! 3 hours of uninterrupted work, fantastic. It’s all about accepting and acknowledging our new reality.

This all rings true.

I’ve always been obsessed about women’s work and outspoken about the fact that women are equal to and are as powerful as men. I’ve found that when women have kids, they focus on their children’s lives while forgetting about their own.

Yummy Mummy Club reminds women that there is more than identifying yourself as someone’s mom. Your kids will grow up one day and when they are 18 years old, who will you be? If you have your own project, your kids will see you creating and notice that you are proud of what you’re doing. That is what a Yummy Mummy is … the ability to do things for you, guilt free.

There is no reason not to go to your book club. Go, and in doing so show your kids that it is important to go to that book club, have friends, see friends and not cancel on them. We are role models for our kids. We need to walk the talk! If you want your child to be athletic, then do those things without him. Be busy because you want your kids to be like that too.

You—more than your husband—are the role model your kids will emulate. Think about it, your actions determine if your son believes a woman is there to serve and if your daughter believes that she too, will one day be the one that serves. We can’t do everything for our kids—this sends them the wrong message too. Part of teaching kids is having them do things on their own.

Everything we do is an opportunity to teach our kids how to be people. That is our job.

Discipline is not about getting your kids to do what you want them to do, it’s really about disciplining your child to do the right thing when you are not there. This is a challenge for some parents because they need to be needed.

Family trip to San Francisco

I see from Twitter and your blog that you get some time to travel. What is your favorite kind of vacation with your kids? How often do you go? Is travel a big part of your life?

Until this year travel was hellish for me. We had no enjoyment. It was NOT fun. To add to this, my daughter has severe fish and nut allergies, so I’m afraid to go places. I need to travel to places with a hospital where the staff understands English perfectly. This can be very tricky.

This year we graduated to real travel. We went to San Francisco for 10 days at Christmas and we had a superb time. Then, we all went to Arizona for a week and had the trip of a lifetime—hot air balloon rides, desert drives … it was spectacular. To my kids’ credit, during this trip they turned to me and said, “Wow, this is better than Disney!” They were appreciating the wonders of the real world. My daughter was virtually tantrum-free.

We are still learning ways to make travel easier. We have to explain to waiters in restaurants that our daughter will die if she even has even a trace of peanuts in her food. We make it very dramatic so they understand how serious this issue is for us.

One thing I’ll say about travel is that it is the best education for our kids. Ours are 10% smarter since we’ve started traveling with them.They now understand more about the world—all the different plants and animals they’ve read about suddenly have context for them.

If I was rich, I’d travel with them for a year around the world and they’d be the ultimate kids.

Let’s talk about the website. Is it where you thought it would be? What is the most popular part of the site?

The website is bigger and way more influential then I ever thought it would be. It was personal vision and I built it one page at a time.

There is now an army of women blogging for the site across the country—they all have a specific niche and are very passionate about their messaging. These women don’t get paid, but still continue to post blogs once a week. They’ve created a huge network like-minded people commenting on their pieces who are smart, talented, and also struggle with the day-to-day challenges of motherhood. There are all kinds of topics covered on the site. Contributors are mostly moms, but recently even dads are begging us to write.

What stands out on the website is that we are all about things that are authentic and true. I won’t have plastic surgery covered on Yummy Mummy because my personal mandate is to remind women that they are good enough, beautiful enough, skinny enough—they don’t need to succumb to the constant barrage of messages about changing yourself.

Yummy Mummy Club is a place to feel safe and good about you are. It’s a place where woman can go to feel empowered and rejuvenated.

Our numbers are consistently growing. People come back and then bring their friends.

You’ve reinvented yourself continually. What’s next for you?

Oh, I’m here for a long time. I’m on a mission to revolutionize motherhood and to remind women to take care of themselves. This is a big job. I’m really happy to continue what I’m doing and watch it grow. And hopefully the message will spread like wildfire. If I can be sitting next to Oprah in a year or two, I’ll be a happy Mummy. I know she’ll love what we’re doing. She’s not a parent, but she and I have very similar goals for women—be true to who you are.

You don’t need to be a hard-core foodie to appreciate the culinary offerings in Italy – and you don’t need to spend a fortune to have a truly Italian dining experience every single day. In fact, in most places, it’ll cost you less than €2 total. What am I talking about here? Why, Italian coffee, of course!

The typical Italian breakfast consists of a tiny cup of espresso (or some similarly small espresso drink) and a pastry, consumed in a minute or two while standing at the bar. Luckily, it’s easy for tourists to get into this tradition as well, especially with the help of a few pointers. So here’s my guide for how to order coffee in Italy.

1. Learn the lingo.
You can certainly get by in Italy without speaking Italian, but if you’re stopping at an Italian bar at the same time as the locals in the morning (partly to get your own breakfast and partly to experience the “morning rush”) you don’t want to be holding up the process or slowing down the busy barista. So learning a few coffee-related words before you place your order is a very good idea.

I wrote an article with a long list of Italian coffee vocabulary words on it (plus their pronunciations), including most of the different coffee drinks you could order, so I’d say that’s a good place to start. Don’t be intimidated by the size of the list – for the most part, you’ll pick a coffee drink you like and always order that, so the actual number of words you’ll need to learn is quite small. My order, for instance, is almost always “un marocchino, per favore.” It’s quick and, once you get used to it, easy to remember.

2. Belly up to the bar.
Many people have heard that you’ll pay more for the same order if you sit at a table rather than drink or eat standing at the bar, and for the most part this is true. In some places the prices are the same (especially in smaller towns or less-busy bars), but you often don’t know that until you’re paying your bill, so I suggest you copy the locals and take your breakfast at the bar.

(Of course, if you’ve got kids with you, it’s tougher to fight through the crowd to get to the bar, not to mention the fact that the bar is going to be way too tall for little kids to use as a table, so in this case you’ll probably want to get a table. Most of the time you’ll still order at the bar, however, and be your own waitress, so snag a table and then proceed to the bar to place and pick up your order.)

On a busy morning, or anytime the bar is crowded, you may have to squeeze your way in or wait patiently for your turn, but (as mentioned) it doesn’t take much time to eat breakfast in Italy so you won’t be waiting long. When it’s your turn, the barista will make eye contact with you and may say “prego” (which literally means “please,” but in this case means “you’re up, tell me what you want”), which is when you’ll place your order for what coffee drink you want.

3. Pick your pastry.
Numbers 2 and 3 on this list may need to be reversed, depending on where the bar you’re in keeps their pastries, but assuming you can place your coffee order and step away from your spot at the bar for a moment (or reach the pastries from where you’re standing), you can grab a pastry as they’re making your coffee.

In most Italian bars I’ve been in, the pastry case is self-serve. Some are small and sitting on top of the bar itself, others are bigger cases standing on their own nearby. Either way, if it’s self-serve they all have something in common – there’s a napkin or wax tissue dispenser next to or inside the pastry case. This isn’t to clean up afterwards, this is so you’re not touching the pastries with your hands, period.

Take a napkin or tissue from the dispenser and use it to pick up the pastry you’ve chosen. The different types are almost always labeled on the front of the pastry case, with words like “vuota” (empty) or “marmellata” (jam-filled) or “crema” (cream-filled). By holding the pastry with the napkin as you eat it, you’ll never get any pastry stickiness on your fingers in the first place (but if you do need to wipe your hands after, just grab another napkin when you’re done eating).

4. Just add sugar.
I’ve got an insatiable sweet tooth, but this advice isn’t coming from me – it’s coming from the Italians: coffee needs sugar in it. Even in a tiny cup of espresso, I almost always see Italians putting an entire small packet of sugar into the cup before they drink it.

Sugar packets are typically in bowls or oversized mugs at different points along the bar counter, so you should have one within reach. In some places, you may find one of those glass sugar dispensers with a little metal flap in the lid from which you can pour sugar into your coffee, but the individual sugar packets are much more common.

5. Mangia!
It doesn’t take long to down an espresso drink in a cup that looks like something you might’ve taken from your daughter’s tea party set, or to eat a flaky pastry that’s at least half made up of air, so it won’t take you long to finish your breakfast once you’ve gotten your pastry and had your coffee delivered to your spot at the bar.

Remember that if you’re sharing the bar with the locals who are stopping only briefly on their way to the office and if space is limited you really don’t want to be dawdling. If you want to sip your cappuccino in a leisurely fashion or nibble a pastry while you flip through the paper or write in your journal, then you need to do that at a table. Otherwise, it’s a quick in-and-out affair at the bar.

6. Pay up.
A quick look around the bar will tell you who you’re going to pay for your breakfast, but the options are usually a stand-alone cashier at one end of the bar or the barista who doubles as your cashier. In either case, you’ll tell them what you had (if it’s not the barista or the bar’s been too busy for them to remember your order), such as “un marocchino e una pasta” (a marocchino and a pastry), and they’ll ring up the total for you.

Let’s say the grand total for your breakfast is €1.80. You can pay with a €2 coin and leave the extra 20c on the counter as a tip, or you can take your change – tipping isn’t required or really expected, although most of the time people do tend to leave the extra (especially when it’s 20c or less). I’ve also seen people put a 10c coin (they’re so tiny as to seem like toy money) on the counter for the barista as they’re ordering their coffee, but whether it’s to ensure quicker service or better coffee I’m not sure. Frankly, I think it’s just a token of a tip given at the front-end rather than the back-end. Pay attention to the locals ordering before you and you’ll see what the protocol is at that bar.

And that’s it!
This whole process, minus the “learning the lingo” stuff, can take as little as 4-5 minutes, and that’s including a minute of waiting for a spot at the bar. It’s the quickest meal you’ll ever have, and it’s absolutely Italian.

Oh, and even non-coffee drinkers can participate in this morning ritual, as every bar has tea and hot chocolate and small bottles of fruit juice (”succo d’arancia” for orange juice, for example) available, too – so your kids can even get into the swing of things! In fact, if the bar isn’t busy why not let them order their own drink for fun.

Have you noticed what’s missing here? There’s no talk of “grande” or “venti” sizes, no “to-go” cups, or “half-caf” anything. Coffee in Italy isn’t simple (looking at a list of all the coffee drinks will tell you that), but it is straightforward, and it’s consumed in small amounts. Italians don’t get gigantic cups of coffee that they nurse for an hour, but they may step out of the office for a quick coffee break (same process as above, only minus the pastry) a couple times during their day. So even if you do breakfast at your hotel or take a table at the bar to linger over breakfast, you can still do the whole “coffee at the bar” routine in the afternoon when you need a pick-me-up.

Just whatever you do, don’t look for a Starbucks. They have not, as of this writing, crossed the Italian border. Thank goodness for small miracles.

About the Author
Jessica Spiegel is a travel writer with the BootsnAll Travel Networkwho is so enamored of Italy that she’s trying to move there. She writes WhyGo Italy, BootsnAll’s Italy travel guide, and is addicted to Twitter. You can find her there as @italylogue.