Pen pals in Italy

Italian children do not all go back to school on the same day. Each region sets its own calendar, so in a typical September pupils in South Tyrol may be back in class a week or more before those in Puglia. It is a small detail, but a useful one to keep in mind: Italy is a country where the region often matters as much as the nation, and a pen pal in Turin, one in Naples and one in Cagliari will describe quite different everyday lives.

North, south and the islands

Italy runs a long way from the Alps to Sicily, and the weather follows. The popular picture is of endless sunshine, but winters in the northern plains around Milan and Bologna can be cold, damp and foggy, and the mountains get serious snow. The south and the islands are hotter and drier, especially in summer. If you ask your pen pal what winter is like, expect a very different answer depending on where they live. Italy is in the northern hemisphere, so its seasons line up with Europe and North America.

Food is regional too. What counts as a normal Sunday lunch, which pasta shape goes with which sauce, even what people eat at Christmas, changes from one area to the next. Lunch has traditionally been an important meal of the day, though work and school timetables mean that varies.

More than one language

Italian is the national language and the one your pen pal will use at school. Underneath it, though, many people grew up hearing a regional language or dialect, such as Neapolitan, Sicilian or Venetian, often spoken with grandparents. Some areas have officially protected minority languages: German is used alongside Italian in South Tyrol and French in the Aosta Valley, and Sardinian, Friulian, Ladin and Slovenian are among the others recognised by law. Asking which words your pen pal uses at home that a teacher would not use at school can lead to a good conversation.

If you are learning Italian, pen pals here are often glad to swap: you write a paragraph in Italian, they correct it and practise their English with you. Our language exchange guide has tips for making that work.

The calendar

• La Befana, 6 January, closes the Christmas season. In folklore a kindly old woman on a broomstick brings sweets to children, or coal to naughty ones.
• Easter is movable, and the Monday after it, Pasquetta, is a public holiday often spent outdoors with friends.
• Ferragosto, 15 August, sits at the heart of the summer holidays. Many businesses close for part of August and cities can feel half empty.
• Most towns also have a feast day for their patron saint, which can be a bigger local event than any national holiday.

Questions worth asking

• What does your town celebrate that the rest of Italy does not?
• Does anyone in your family speak a dialect or another language?
• What is a dish from your region that people elsewhere in Italy get wrong?
• Where do people go in August, and do you stay or leave?

Post between countries can take a while, so many pen pals chat online day to day and keep paper letters or postcards for holidays and birthdays.