2 April 2008, MILAN – Everybody should live in New York at least once, I’m quite sure of that. And the thing is that you have to have done it by the time you are 35, I’m quite sure of that as well.

You see, it’s okay to live in New York when you are 40, 59 or even 92, but the key thing is that you have lived there at least for awhile before you were 35 because if you didn’t then it is just too hard to adjust. Sure you can visit, but don’t try moving to New York when you are 42. You can’t, it’s just too hard to get used to the perpetual energy that there is in the city. You can enjoy the city for a holiday, even a long holiday, but don’t move there after 35.

That’s the advice, free to boot, from somebody who loves New York and often wishes he had taken that low-paying job in the city right after university.

Well, the Via Francigena is over 1,000 years old and in February made its first visit to New York. I’d say it was a good encounter as some 70 people gathered at the Italian Cultural Institute on Park Avenue for the evening dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Giacomo Puccini. Among the goings-on was my presentation of the ancient pilgrimage trail.

Pretty much nobody had heard of the Via Francigena, but that was no surprise since many Italians are also not aware of its existence. What was great to see was a palatable interest in this new way to discover Italy.

In addition to a few of my ritual food stops in New York (hotdogs at Gray’s Papaya on Broadway, pastrami sandwiches on the Upper West Side and bagels wherever I can manage), I also made it down to Tribeca for an interview with Susan Raphael who hosts a cool program called Lets Travel on an Internet radio station called, Tribeca Radio. For the show: http://www.letstravelradio.com/ and for the radio station: http://www.tribecaradio.net/.