How to have an Italian summer when you're still at home

Pasta, pasta, lotsa pasta

Italy is the stuff of travel dreams. In a few months my brother and his girlfriend will start their Italian vacay and they asked for some reccs from when my hubby and I honeymooned on the Amalfi Coast (nine!) years ago. Thinking about that trip made me nostalgic for one on the very best times in our lives, so I started dreaming up ways to bring some elements of Italy to our lives here at home.

Here are some ideas to live la dolce vita this summer, no matter where you are:

Franco’s Bar in Positano

Sit under a striped umbrella

Eat gelato! (Our favorite local gelato shop is in George Lucas’s hometown, so popular flavors include Darth Vader Chocolate and Wookie Cookie!)

Make homemade pasta or pizza and have a picnic

Climb lots of stairs (there were over 1,000 to our Positano Airbnb!)

Swim!

Get a pasta tattoo like Kim's

Read a novel set in Italy

Dive into a book of beautiful photographs

Sip on a summer spritz

Send wish we were here postcards (I still have plenty from my honeymoon - time to starting sending!)

Order new stationery to pen an Italian lettera d'amore (love letter)

Watch Stanley Tucci

Cook Italian recipes (or just thumb through a cookbook)

Read with the kids- something new and something classic

Make garden focaccia

Dine alfresco

Imagine you’re the subject of this Slim Aarons photograph

Wear stripes

Put lemon on everything

Eat cake for breakfast (this recipe is tried and true!)

Adopt ciao as your everyday greeting. (On second thought that will make you insufferable. But use it for your postcard sign-offs!)

Watch Disney's Luca and make Luca pasta (i.e. any type of pasta slathered in pesto!) Kids love it.

Salt bake a branzino (a la Episode 5 of With Love, Meghan)

Make an Italy photo album (anyone else almost a decade late on making a honeymoon album?)