The clouds suggest an invasion of the spring storm variety, but I know this spot isn’t spooked. The ancient city of Nora, set up on the southern coast of Sardinia, has seen conquerors come and go, thunderheads included. With a sprinkle of rain, I roam the supposed first town on the Italian island.

Founded by the Phoenicians in the 9^th century B.C., Nora would change hands between the Carthaginians and the Romans. Most of what I observe are vestiges of Roman rule, proof that no island was isolated enough for the Romans to reach.

And like any respectable Roman site, I come upon an amphitheater, or at least its half. The show must go on regardless of erosion and time.

Nora fills with more former stages of ancient life. Exposed and open to the elements, all that remains of Nora’s patrician villas are intricate mosaic floorings. Like walking on a piece of art, life was decent back in the day in Sardinia’s first town.

Some of Nora’s ruins have scattered into the water, only seen when the sun is shining. Sadly today is a May spring day on Sardinia, when thunder grumbles, almost out of distaste for my invasion of this ancient city.

As the light drizzle turns more downpour and the skies darken ominously, I head for Nora’s exit. I pass by what appear to be piles of rumble, but they are in fact a town, a former home to many, a place of devotion. The sky and sea are the only constants that have seen the pieces of Nora’s puzzle come together and fade away. Nora can be in ruin, forgotten and left to crumble, but those constants know who she was.

Knowing my destination and not knowing it at the same time, my taxi driver slammed on his brakes in the middle of a cliff-top road. With a whole line of cars waiting behind him, I knew his  yelling and pointing in Italian meant he wanted me to get out of the taxi, admire the view and take a photograph. Traffic can wait for the wide eyed to see the pull of Sorrento. Jet lagged and uncertain, I did as I was told. In many respects, I have to thank that driver. He knew this moment and view would be one I wouldn’t forget.

The Greek’s believed Sorrento was the site of the mythical sirens, those creatures that would lure sailors, Odysseus included, with their song as a trap. And while many believe Sorrento to be nothing more than a tourist trap, I found myself trapped in its subtle songs, even those songs, or shouts, of persistent taxi drivers.

I was studying Italian and Tarantella, the area’s main song and dance that tells its history over the last 500 years. I frequented a number of these tarantella shows. While most of those in the audience were 60 years my senior, the youthful emotions of Sorrento’s performance side carried throughout the room. Tasso Theater buzzed with song and dance, proof yet again Sorrento  knows how to keep you entertained.

When I wasn’t in class or down by the water in Sorrento, I would try to find those spaces in the city that weren’t so touristy. From a little train running through Sorrento’s main thoroughfares to countless shops selling lemoncello, the town on the cliffs overlooking the Bay of Naples can seem devoid of locals. However down at the weekly market, little old ladies pushed their rolling suitcase like carts to load up on the fruits of the land.

Families worked behind these stalls, with each member assigned to a certain job. From the son’s task of shouting out for shoppers to the father hurrying the bagging process, Sorrento’s market is a family and local affair.

Most know of Sorrento’s Marina Piccola, where the ferries depart for Capri. Marina Grande is actually less frequented  in Sorrento and much more localized. Crumbling old buildings stand covered in scaffolding. I suspect it might still be this way. A lone old man keeps his perch on a balcony above. Little toddlers play in boats just beyond. Fishermen cast off for the day in rickety boats. It is activity and inactivity all rolled into one marina.

Sorrento trapped me, much like those sailors in mythology, most importantly with the color of her sunsets. From Villa Comunale Park, I would watch the sunset over the Bay of Naples. While the space seemed more town square than park, the sky was the attraction. Tourists and locals gushed over these magenta and lavender skies each night. And for a moment while watching the sun fade over Mt. Vesuvius, I think I heard the sirens of Sorrento. Sometimes the myth is no myth at all.

Have you been to Sorrento?

I learned a great deal about travel in Italian apartments, one in Sorrento and the other in Florence. Behind the walls of these structures were families I grew to call my Italian families. Behind the walls I learned that travel isn’t solely about seeing and doing. Travel is about people. Travel is about connections that come in shared spaces.

Picked up in a strange city by a man holding my misspelled name on a flimsy piece of paper, I placed my trust in another to drop me off at my assigned apartment in Florence. I was studying abroad for a semester, a little more wide eyed, if that’s possible, at the time on Florence and travel as a whole at the tender age of 20.

 The names Gucci, Cavalli flashed rapidly through my window view in a rickety white van. On a one-way, busy street, one I quickly noticed seemed to be dripping in Florentine high fashion, the van screeched to a halt. The driver threw my bags on the sidewalk and headed for the driver’s seat. I shouted, “Quale numero?” and received the most rapid of responses. With giant golden handles and a list of buzzers before me, including my neighbors, Gucci, I rang the bell. Jet lagged and unsure, an elderly man warmly greeted me with the double kiss, motioning me inside. I would meet his wife and the other student I would be sharing this home stay apartment with for 6 months. And throughout the walls of that apartment in Florence, I learned a thing or two about the Florentines.

In case you haven’t heard, travel and accommodation hunting company Go With Oh has launched a Blogger Competition, inviting travel bloggers to share five reasons why they are oh so deserving (pun intended), creative and all around wonderful to receive a month of accommodations throughout four of their European cities. The blogger must list five reasons why they want to Go With Oh to their selected city. The blogger then will be tasked with documenting their stays and travels. This is my hat in the ring of the five things I would most like to experience in Florence. If you would like to see me in Europe this fall and/or enjoyed this post, please let me know by leaving a comment.

 For Loriana’s Cooking

You won’t find this attraction in any guidebook, but in studying abroad in Florence, my stomach grew with each passing meal at Loriana’s table. She was my Italian host mom, serving up risottos I only could dream about upon returning back to the United States. We would dine in a kitchen no bigger than an American closet, discussing our cultures, our dreams and our lives. It was a sacred space. Dinnertime in that very kitchen was everything about Florence to me. While the world compliments Italian cuisine, it is the Florentine flair for flavor I crave.

For Church Perch People Watching

Florence crawls in church steps, steps that turn into chairs for anyone with throbbing feet. I haven’t perched on enough of these steps. I haven’t seen every church or piazza in the city. Part of what makes an Italian city so appealing to me are these spaces where the goal is not so much in seeing an attraction, but watching that place go by.

For Gelato Research

Being the supposed birthplace of gelato, my time spent in Florence consisted mostly of grabbing gelato as a “snack”. I reasoned if I walked and ate my gelato nightly, it wasn’t so bad for my waistline. The gelato in Florence is some of the best I have ever tasted, so much so that I didn’t mind when the Bacio dripped all over my hands, down to my sandals as I hit the cobblestone streets of this living, breathing, outdoor museum. If I could return to Florence, I would make it my job to taste as many gelato flavors as possible. That’s the sort of spoonful you take for granted when you get back home.

For The Noises

I frequently woke from my Renaissance apartment in Florence to the sound of vespas traveling well beyond any city’s speed limit. The garbage trucks were even more annoying in their loud screeching, and yet, I miss them. Head into any piazza in Florence and there is a song in the air. It might be someone trying to scam you, an Italian man looking for a date or just the sigh of the casual traveler seeing Brunelleschi’s dome for the first time. You can’t recreate the noises of a city and Florence has her own. Music, yelling, traffic, Italian, I will gladly experience the noises of the city again if given the chance.

For The Indoor and Outdoor Art

A lifetime could be spent exploring the works inside and out of Florence. From strolling through Renaissance sculpture in Piazza Signoria to marveling at the Ponte Vecchio under a midnight blue sky, the details of the city require more than one visit. I want to take my search for Florentine treasures inside, over the Vasarian Corridor and down to the Bargello. Florence’s art scene proves, there is always more to see.

I knew I would like Trieste from the minute the city tried to knock me over. I’m not a subtle person. I have always preferred my destinations to speak up to me bluntly, just as I would do in any situation. This northern Italian city is known for the bora, Italian for the strong, cold and dry northeast wind dizzying the Adriatic. These northern winds tend to plague the Adriatic in winter and this winter day was no different. Speeds have been known to get up to over 150 kilometers per hour. As I wait to cross the road to Piazza Unitá d’Italia, I hang on tight like a father in the passenger seat with his teen behind the wheel, fearful of falling into oncoming traffic. Trieste is far from restrained.

I manage to survive crossing the road to the center of Trieste. To get to know this blunt city, you must uncover its core, the very heart of its character. That heart beats in Piazza Unitá d’Italia. The main square is made up of imperial buildings on three of its sides, with the fourth side appropriately Trieste’s meeting with the sea. It is after all a vital part of the city’s heart. Trieste’s town hall features several Italian flags whipping in the wind. I know I’m not in Slovenia any more. The colors of green, white and red can’t help but spur an excitement in this Italian fiend.

A thriving port since Roman days, Trieste was given a neoclassical makeover by Maria Theresa of the Hapsburgs. The city has changed hands so many times, it can be difficult to keep score. At the end of the World War I, Trieste would become a piece of Italy. However the end of World War II would bring the occupation of Allied forces and Yugoslavia. It wasn’t given completely back to Italy until 1954. I’m thankful it was given back to Italy, a country I get cravings for when I travel.

If you can stand Trieste’s winds long enough to wander, you will notice a wealth of cafes. Those who holed up in corners penning works like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners made Café culture in this northern Italian city famous. James Joyce, Sigmund Freud and 20^th century novelist Italo Svevo spent time in Trieste, just to name a few. When you have such a strong café culture, you obviously need a strong beverage. It is no wonder Illy coffee hails from Trieste, the very spot where founder Francesco Illy began mastering espresso in 1933.

On this bitingly cold winter day, I pop into the only open restaurant I can find. I came to Trieste for a purpose after all, to have pizza. When you are driving down from Slovenia to Croatia and you notice Trieste just sitting there in the middle of your journey, you can’t resist the urge to go for lunch, just because you can. In Trieste, I realized my cravings for Italy rock me to the core of my being, perhaps in part due to the bora. I hope to return again to Trieste. It is a city I knew only briefly and time I knew would not be enough.

Have you been to Trieste?

The last place you will find me this time of the month is an indoor shopping mall. It is a place all should avoid for fear of being spritzed with the latest scent by a celebrity or for fear of being rundown in the parking lot by an SUV. However, the first place I found in Milan was just that, the original indoor shopping mall, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.

What would become Milan’s idea of a shopping mall in the 19^th century, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II opens up to a dramatic archway. Within a ceiling of steel and glass, you can still spot the heavens. It’s design takes on the shape of a crucifix for what I believe to be purposeful. We all need divine intervention when braving an indoor shopping mall.

The designer of it all, Giuseppe Mengoni, died just days before he could see his creation opened to the masses of Milanese. It always seems creators of great works of art and architecture often never get to fully appreciate them. Something tells me Giuseppe probably didn’t anticipate these fashions to grace the interior of his work.

Today’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is a melting pot of this fashion-forward town and every tourist who has decided to give this commercial city a chance. A gaggle of Buddhist monks even stop to admire the windows of Prada.

And yet just off of this monumental indoor shopping mall is the city’s center of faith, the Duomo. The Gothic Cathedral is so detailed, covered in saintly statues, flying buttresses and spires, that I could stare at it for hours and never fully grasp its entirety.

I enter what is said to be the fourth largest church in the world, a place of worship that can hold 40,000. I am drawn to my feet, where a pattern of red, black and white marble flooring infects the entire interior.

Begun in 1386, Milan’s Duomo boasts 135 spires and over 3,000 statues. It holds a 4^th century baptistery where Saint Ambrose supposedly baptized Saint Augustine. Travelers know of the saint’s famous quote, “The world is a book and those who don’t travel read only but a page.” The quote is about as overused as a kitchen dishrag, but at the same time incredibly accurate. I could live knowing the evils of the indoor shopping mall or believe a church is just a church, but thankfully I have traveled to Milan and seen this is not always the case.

I am standing in the middle of a structure that took five centuries to create, a place where no detail was left unturned. Right next-door is a shopping mall, intended to beautify not complicate. I might not want to enter a shopping mall this time of the year, but I would gladly enter Milan’s idea of what retail should be. And I would know that I will get out alive with a crucifix over my head. Milan wishes you were here…

Have you been to Milan?

He stirs the mixture of hot sugar, just one point in the process to create a simple candy cane. A father lifts his son on his arms to see the silver saint as an entire island elbows in between. And a lighthouse watches over a Christmas tree composed solely of lobster traps. I don’t often travel in December, mostly due to family filled schedules and of course the chaotic airport scene. After boarding a flight on Monday, a boarding process that took far longer than it ever should, I watched as people jammed their holiday gifts and jackets in the overhead bins, ignoring all announcements to leave the space for those with actual bags. It is not always a pleasant scene, the act of December travel. Snowstorms, inexperienced travelers and the overall stress of the holidays don’t always lend the best of recipes.

When I do travel in this month, I have managed to uncover a sweet December, a month unlike any other time of year. One of my favorite aspects to travel is its ability to connect one person from another culture or background with another. December might be the best month to see this first hand traveling. Most of the world is doing something different from the rest of the year, whether it is putting up extra trees about town or finding a certain faith in tradition. It is December that connects the traveler to customs of their home, even if they may be half way across the world. It is the act of tradition, the act of doing something special and different that makes this month the same for us all. While my travels haven’t led me too far away from home for December, I have found a few moments away from the familiar and entrenched in an undeniable connection found in this magical month.

The Nubble Lighthouse, Maine

On the southern coast of Maine, you will find the Nubble Lighthouse near York village. Perched on its own green island, I visited this site when most wouldn’t dream of getting out of their cars, December. The wind whipped me into a spinning shivering mess, but I didn’t care. The lighthouse to me was iconic December. With no sun in sight, the white and red lighthouse oozed the holidays.

Just across from this famous lighthouse, a restaurant set up its own holiday decorations, a lobster trap Christmas tree. Countless traps went into its construction, something you would only see in this part of the world. It was Maine’s spin on December and yet still a familiar sight.

Candy Cane Factory, Colorado

It’s not everyday you sit down and ponder how your candy cane came to be. Hammond’s Candy Cane Factory offers free tours of just how those classic December treats are made. Turning out 1,000 pounds of sugar a day, Hammond’s began in 1920.

I toured the factory several Decembers ago. While mostly children participated in the tour, I watched as employees of the factory twisted, pulled and pushed sugar into the red and white ribbons of a candy cane. As I watched behind a glass window, you could see the smirks on the candy cane makers faces. To them, it was a job. To most of those watching, they were pure Christmas elves. This candy cane factory visit reminded me that every aspect to December travel, right down to those candy canes you see everywhere, is an entire process, one that calls for several individuals to make successful, not just one.

Sicilian December Festivals

I had never traveled outside the country for December until I studied in Sicily. I was able to participate in two of the island’s biggest events, the Feast of Santa Lucia and the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. On December 6^th, the town of Siracusa parades a statue to Mary throughout small, snaking streets. It is still a sight I can’t wipe from memory, countless Sicilians so dedicated and devoted to a single cause.

Later on in the month, the town and island celebrates Santa Lucia, Sicily’s patron saint. On December 13^th, all of Sicily seems to arrive to Siracusa’s Piazza Duomo. Fathers hoist their children on their shoulders in hopes of catching a glimpse of Santa Lucia, a silver statue to the saint hailing from the 16^th century. The town processes yet again through the streets of Ortigia, with several men needed to carry Lucia. In old uniforms and costumes, I watched this scene from my Sicilian balcony.

December might not be the best month for travel with chaotic airports and hefty ticket prices, but it is all worth it to me in the end to see the powerful link of tradition and the shaking up of routines across the globe.

Do you travel in December? Have you found more events and iconic cultural moments throughout the month?

Heading south from Otranto, I follow the SP358, the road in Puglia that hugs the coast down to the point of no return in Italy. The howling of crickets and the sound of the breeze out the car window creates an enchanting song. I have always had images in my mind of what the very point of Italy’s boot heel would look like. Almost like my El Dorado, I have high hopes as the path to this Promised Land continues to wind.

Tiny coves with beaches only further my excitement. So far removed for any Italy I have known up to this point, I continue to head south, imagining what it would be like to live along the end of Italy as a few do.

As the anticipation builds, I come across a strange sight, a taste of architecture far from the Italian villa style. Villa Sticchi stands a little run down and out of place amidst nothing. The Moresque style hints at the seaside resorts of old. Built for Giovanni Pasca, the first concessionaire of the Santa Cesarea thermal baths, its appearance only furthers my feelings that this place is of fantasy. Constructed by Pasquale Ruggieri, Villa Sticchi plays on his passion for the east.

And with each passing mile, I am closer and closer to Italy’s end, right near the town of Santa Maria di Leuca. Just beyond is Punta Ristola, geographically the lowest point of Italy. Saint Peter is reported to have arrived here to head up to Rome. The Greeks have long told mythological stories of reaching this point. A place with so much to live up to, Italy’s pointy stiletto is somewhat underwhelming. You can see the two seas meeting, the Adriatic and the Ionian, by the way in which the currents collide. While not really anything to write home about, it is and it isn’t. I’m at Italy’s conclusion, a point many saw as both the beginning and the end. And so I will write home about Italy’s stiletto. Wish you were here.