Celebrity Travel: Go Away With Cheryl Della Pietra
Q. Where are your favorite weekend getaways?
A. Montauk, Martha's Vineyard, Boston and NYC. And my 9-year-old son utterly loves Las Vegas, which I fear is some type of foreshadowing.
Q. Where is the most romantic destination?
A. Rome. Something takes over the sensible part of your brain when you land there. There's like an army of single men who go to "work" every day on the Spanish Steps wooing foreign ingenues. In my early 20s, I let a complete stranger drive me around on a Vespa for half a day like we were on a reality show -- something I would never have done in America. We ate pizza and stopped for espresso and then he stranded me at the top of some overlook when I wouldn't kiss him. He said he was a cop. And the funny thing is, I believe it.
Q. If you've ever gone away for the holidays, which was the best trip?
A. My aunt and uncle used to own a gorgeous, beachy bed-and-breakfast in Wells, Maine, and they used to host Christmas up there for our large Italian family. It would have been the perfect setting for some novel about family dysfunction that would have been made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon, but we all like each other too much. My cousin gave birth to her first son on Christmas Eve, and we carted what was left of the "seven fishes" to the hospital for the nurses. When the 12 of us walked in, lobster spaghetti in one hand, stuffed clams in the other, the nurse just looked at us and said, "Are you Puerto Rican or Italian?"
Q. When you go away, what are some of your must-have items?
A. Comfortable, but stylish shoes, a swimsuit, a good book and a notebook and a Yelp app.
Q. What would be your dream/fantasy trip?
A. Possibly Japan, just for all of the imaginative, weird stuff. I mean, who wouldn't want to buy bread in a can out of a vending machine or have the morgue-like experience of chilling in a nap pod while eating a black burger?
Q. What is your guilty pleasure when you're on the road?
A. I don't like roughing it anymore. I stayed in lots of crappy hotel rooms when I was younger. I like a nice hotel and a good meal.
Q. What is your best vacation memory?
A. My husband used to work for a golf magazine and I got to tag along on his story about the Scottish Highlands. So he would play golf all day and I would tour Scotch whisky distilleries, and we'd meet up at the end of the day -- both of us very happy for different reasons -- and then we'd stay in some incredible hotel. And the best part is we didn't have to pay for it.
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(Jae-Ha Kim is a New York Times bestselling author and travel writer. You can respond to this column by visiting her website at www.jaehakim.com. You may also follow "Go Away With..." on Twitter at @GoAwayWithJae where Jae-Ha Kim welcomes your questions and comments.)
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