It’s that time of year that no American should take his first trip to Italy unless he wants the particularly Italian experience of pretty much everything closed in the cities and packed beach towns, because everyone, and I mean pretty much everyone, has gone to the beach for the month of August.
It’s Ferragosto, August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption, and many Italians build la vacanza around it. I’ve been in Rome in August (it’s hot and it is DEAD), and I’ve been at a beach resort in Sicily (one big party), and to be honest, I’d much rather be in either place in January, but the Ferragosto is a force to be reckoned with.
Want to get a peek at Rome in August? Watch Gianni Di Gregorio’s Pranzo di Ferragosto (Mid-August Lunch). It’s an absolutely adorable movie about a guy that lives with his elderly mother in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome and spends his Ferragosto at home, caring and cooking for her and some other random old ladies that he gets roped into taking in and it’s one of my very favorites.
You can watch Pranzo di Ferragosto with Netflix, Amazon, itunes, Vudu, and probably lots of other places.
I Love Italian Everything 