They begin with art and culture in Venice and end with the meal of a lifetime in Puglia.
Venice
We begin our Italy trip in Venice with our dear friend Emma McIntyre who is based in Los Angeles. We decide to meet there for the 59th Venice Biennale and we are particularly excited for the main show, The Milk of Dreams. Taking its title from a book by Mexican surrealist painter Leonora Carrington, the show looks through a surrealist lens where contemporary art converges with artists from the period.
On our first morning in Venice we stumble into an unnamed coffee and cake shop on Fondamenta S Anna, where we gorge on little cakes filled with lemon cream and get hopped up on espresso. Our obsession for daily cakes begins.
From there, we head to the Biennale in the beautiful Giardini. Seeing an international show of this scale again after years in lockdown is mind-blowing and dizzying. The curator Cecilia Alemani has chosen 213 artists for the exhibition and, unusually, 90 per cent of them are women. We often reference surrealism in our photography, so we especially love seeing female artists of the period who have been largely overlooked.
In the evening we head to Vino Vero for natural wines and cicchetti. There’s a cool crowd, and it feels miles away from the hordes of tourists. Tables don’t exist here, so we sit and dangle our feet over the canal as we drink and eat.
Venice is abuzz with contemporary art during the Biennale, but we also love the old Venetian classics. We head to the Gothic-Renaissance church Chiesa di San Zaccaria to visit a famous altarpiece by Bellini and pay one euro to light it up. The colours are angelic. We light a candle in memory of Veronica’s dad Francis, who loved Bellini too.
We have lunch at Bar All’Arco, a little Venetian icon known for delicious seafood cicchetti and wine. People hover over us as we eat, wanting our table. The afternoon is spent at Marlene Dumas’ retrospective at Palazzo Grassi — a phenomenal painting show in a stunning palazzo. It’s inspiring to see such luscious paintings in the flesh. How can we take photos that feel like her paintings, we wonder?
The next day is dedicated to Venetian master painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. First we head to Scuola Grande dei Carmini in Dorsoduro. No one is around and it’s already hot, so we lie on the cool tiles and gaze up at the Tiepolo paintings that adorn the ornate ceilings. The figures tumble through pink-tinged clouds towards us.
We wander to Santa Maria del Rosario, a beautiful church with 40 ceiling frescoes by Tiepolo. There’s a mirror installed in the aisle to view them without craning your neck. It also provides a perfect selfie situation.
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Advertise with NZME.We end the day running through the maze-like canals to catch a Stan Douglas video of a rap battle, which is projected in an empty shipyard.
Amalfi
At dawn, we take a vaporetto to the train station where we are catching a train to Naples and, from there, driving to the Amalfi Coast. Venice is illuminated like a golden jewel outside the window.
After a five-hour train ride, we briefly stop in Naples to have lunch at a restaurant we discovered on a trip a few years ago. We jump onto a crowded bus, crammed like sardines, and awkwardly balance on our massive luggage.
Naples is chaotic, in the best way. Trattoria San Ferdinando is an intimate Italian restaurant run by a family and provides a dimly lit haven, tucked away in Naples’ bustling streets. Its interior is charming, with pink brocade tablecloths and family photos hung haphazardly on the walls. After a sublime vongole and pea risotto, we pick up our rental car and embark on the vertiginous two-hour drive to the Amalfi Coast.
We arrive at our holiday apartment in Ravello, Villa Scarpariello Relais — a 16th-century castle built into a cliff over the Tyrrhenian Sea. It’s breathtaking. We descend a million stairs to get to our room, passing statues with missing noses and stone columns laced with bougainvillea. Our little apartment feels classically Italian with its pink walls, lemon-yellow bedspreads, and hand-painted tile floors.
Amalfi is very touristic with crowded beaches and superyachts dotted around the coast. But it is beyond beautiful. Amalfi has inspired artists and writers for centuries (Goethe, Oscar Wilde) and in the 1950s and 60s it became the holiday destination for the glamorous world of Italian and Hollywood cinema (Sophia Loren, Franco Zeffirelli, Elizabeth Taylor).
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Advertise with NZME.Dining out is expensive, so every day we drive to Minori for food supplies. Our mornings start with a strong espresso at Bar Bambi, which is run by a charismatic Italian man who plays 2000s alt-rock music at full blast. It throws us back to listening to Channel Z (RIP). At one point he feeds us shots of 98 per cent liquor from a teaspoon. It’s 9am.
From there, we head to the deli Pane Amore & Fantasia for incredible fresh produce, focaccia sandwiches and cake for breakfast. Our final stop is Cotto e Man Dara for parmigiana, rotisserie chicken, and sides of roast veges swimming in herbaceous oil.
Our days are filled by jumping off a platform into the moody blue sea. Nights are spent watching Love Island. Rinse and repeat.
Puglia
After four blissful days, we drive down to Puglia. Emma is off to stay with friends in Otranto, and we are heading to our favourite beach — Porto Badisco.
After Googling madly for somewhere to eat on the way, we settle on Al Sorso Preferito in Bari. This turns out to be the best food decision of our lives. It’s a simple, traditional Italian restaurant with large stained glass windows. We order their famous spaghetti all’Assassina and seafood orecchiette (the “ear pasta” which is typical of Apulia). Dessert is hot pastry filled with custard. We will dream of this meal forever.
Every summer, Italian families descend on this beautiful rocky bay with shockingly clear, deep water. It’s an iconic Italian scene and super lively. Nonnas wear sparkly bikinis, glamorously oversized sunglasses and glitzy gold jewellery. Old Italian men wear tiny speedos and rock shoes while smoking cigars. Tanned youths spend all day doing bombs off the highest rock in the bay.
Like a mini amphitheatre, the rock flats provide the perfect place to lounge and sunbathe. It can be hard to find your spot, especially if you like some shade from the trees, so come early-ish in the morning or hit the lunchtime crossover. BYO beach chairs or pillows.
Every morning we head to our favourite deli Bar Alimentari, which is conveniently located at the top of the beach. We love the interior
with its terrazzo floor and blue-tiled walls. It offers an array of picnic delights like lasagne, pickled vegetables, anchovies, fresh ricotta, baked bread and quiches… A fruit stall is parked up outside with luscious peaches and plums.
After a day at the beach reading and snoozing on the rocks, people-watching and swimming 100 times, we head back up to Bar Alimentari for a negroni (Veronica) and limonata (Joe). Dinner ends up being a charcuterie and cheese platter. Italians know how to live.
