The Bay Area’s Martha Bakerjian has been serving as the authority on all things Italian for About.com since 2006, and her involvement in the online community for North Beach reaches back to the early days of Internet. As a true pioneer of the ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’ dream, she chucked it all years ago to put down roots in the country she’s come to love so much. Martha and her husband now split time between Italy and California, and we managed to catch up with the lady that so many rely on for travel advice to ask a few questions of our own.
Martha Bakerjian: My first experience in Italy was on the island of Sardinia in the 1980s as part of an archeology team that spent summers excavating a Bronze-age village around a nuraghe, one of the unique stone towers that dot the island. In those days, many of the older women spoke little or no English, having rarely even been outside the village where they lived. I did the shopping and cooking for the team so I learned a little Sardinian, along with Italian that was not always grammatically correct. I loved the people, the festivals and the culture, and I came to feel at home there over the course of five summers with the archeology team.
At that time I was also a teacher, so I spent the school year in California. For three years I lived and taught in San Francisco, a wonderful city. Even after moving from San Francisco, I continued to visit frequently. I also continued to travel to Italy most summers, visiting every region of the country.
IA: What inspired you to make the leap to living in Italy?
MB: Ten years ago my husband and I bought a house in the Lunigiana region, the far northern part that sees few foreign tourists and where many of my neighbors produce their own food, including DOP (Protected Denomination of Origin) honey and prize-winning salami and olive oil. A few years later I retired from teaching and we spend about half the year in Italy and half in Clearlake, in northern California.
IA: What do you consider the most authentic Italian experience in San Francisco?
MB: When I’m in San Francisco I still enjoy spending time in North Beach, sitting in front of Cafe Greco and hearing Italian spoken by passersby or shopping at Molinari’s, where I can feel like I’m in a grocery store in Italy. My top picks for Italian food in the city are A16, Cotogna, and SPQR.
IA: How did you get started with About.com?
MB: My first online writing experience was in the early days of websites when I covered the North Beach part of a San Francisco site on the Mining Company, which later became About.com. Eventually, all the San Francisco neighborhoods were merged into one site so I wrote about all of San Francisco. My dream was to write the Italy Travel site on About.com so when the site became available in 2006, I applied to change topics and began covering Italy.
IA: Tell us about your mobile apps—what do they do and why should we use them?
MB: Recently I wrote two apps about Italy for Sutro Media – Italy Travel Tips & Hints and Puglia Travel Guide. I spent a summer with an archeological group on the Salento Peninsula of Puglia, the heel of the boot, walking fields to look for artifacts. I’ve since visited many times. Puglia is just starting to become a popular tourist destination so it’s still fairly inexpensive and a great place to experience traditions and slow travel and feel like you’re getting off the beaten path, something I highly recommend doing. My app covers where to go, what to see, and what to eat in the region. All places are shown on a map and there are lots of photos, making it good even for armchair travel.
IA: It must be difficult to turn off the ‘travel writer’ lens; is it still possible to vacation within Italy for you?
MB: As for vacationing in Italy myself, most of my travels are now for my work, but I am lucky because it often feels like I vacation for a living. There are many day trips that we can easily take from our house so we have mini-vacations by taking a day out. The ride to Lucca on the slow train that goes through scenic mountains and passes little villages is one of my favorites. For a seafood lunch, we often head to Lerici, and sometimes we just head out for a drive to see what we can discover.
IA: Name three can’t-live-without items in your suitcase:
MB: I really don’t have any. In my opinion, what’s more important than what’s in your suitcase is what kind of suitcase you use. For example, on a recent trip to Venice, one couple brought a large rolling suitcase, which they regretted.
They quickly learned that Venice is not made for rolling luggage or large suitcases. Everywhere you walk, you have to go up and down stairs to cross bridges. My best advice is to travel light, you most likely won’t need as much as you think, and bring a suitcase you can easily carry.
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