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I received a lot of feedback on last week's column about 10 observations from my recent trip to Northern Italy. Most were kind of positive. One reader e-mailed to find out more about The Sun Chronicle Travel Club and where the next trip was going. Another, Irwin Kraus, sent me a recipe for his favorite Italian dish, tagliata, and recommended a couple of restaurants in Italy he said were Federal Hill quality or better.

"I greatly enjoyed your column last Sunday regarding your recent trip to Italy," wrote Irwin. "It all rang true, particularly the bit about Italian line discipline (or lack thereof). It made me laugh, because I've received bruised ribs from the sharp elbows of ferocious, tiny, elderly Italian ladies while trying to get a cappuccino.

"Please keep entertaining and informing us with your writing," he added.

One reader called to criticize me for saying all those negative things about a wonderful country with a wonderful culture. She said the trip was wasted on me.

"You should have just put gas in your car and drove to Papa Gino's," she said. Ouch. OK, so as penance, here are 20 postiive things from my Italian trip.

1. Hearing a beautiful woman sing beautiful Italian songs in a restaurant in Rome.

2. Drinking water from Rome's Trevi Fountain.

3. Enjoying the unnatural silence in the Sistine Chapel, where you are not allowed to speak. Hundreds of us were crammed in there. "Silencio!" boomed a guard when the murmurring became too loud.

4. Gelati, morning, noon and night.

5. Cold cuts, cheese and espresso for breakfast.

6. The stained glass dove behind the altar in St. Peter's Basilica. On the Spring Equinox the setting sun sends a shaft of light straight through the dove to the doors at the other end of the basilica.

7. The umbrella pines.

8. Playfully shooing the pigeons away from the bread basket on a restaurant terrace in Assisi.

9. The Temple of Mary in Assisi, formerly a temple of Minerva. 10. Learning at a hotel in Perugia that you had to put your room key in a slot in the wall to keep your lights on. When you took your key out to leave, the lights went out.

11. Going up an escalator in Perugia, the last of three, that ended in the ancient streets of an abandoned city with another city built on top of it.

12. The famous hot chocolate at Cafe Perugia.

13. Bumping into, at extraordinary odds, at the plaza in Siena, a vacationing couple from Newark we met on the plane.

14. The statues of frolicking nude women that adorned the halls and grounds of a former nunnery, our hotel for a night.

15. The statue of David in Florence.

16. The gondola ride on the Grand Canal in Venice with a singer and accordionist.

17. Wading barefoot through a flooded square in Venice.

18. The boat tour of the scenic estates on the banks and hills of Lake Como.

19. Finding time to read John Banville's "The Sea" and Chuck Palahniuk's "Haunted."

20. Eating wild boar meatloaf, biscotti dipped in sweet wine, pasta with duck ragu and spaghetti with bacon and eggs, and sipping a sweet bellini at night at a table outside the Hotal Bellini in Venice.

See you next week. Ciao.

ORESTE P. D'ARCONTE is publisher of The Sun Chronicle. Reach him at 508.236.0394 or at darconte@thesunchronicle.com.