In Italy, they say rain on your wedding day is symbolic of fresh beginnings, cleansing, a pure marriage, and also a wet knot that can't be untied.

Recently, I was in Bernalda, my dad's ancestral home town in Italy. He has just refurbished a palazzo and turned it into a hotel, so we had my sister's wedding there. It was beautiful.

I didn't go abroad until quite late. A friend drove us to Amalfi, Italy, for his sister's wedding when I was a teenager. It was exciting driving through Europe.

Modeling, for me, was not fulfilling. I didn't see the point - although I was able to travel a great deal. I lived in Italy, Germany, and Spain, but I wasn't devoted to it.

Until 1914 I loved to travel; I often went to Italy and once spent a few months in India. Since then I have almost entirely abandoned travelling, and I have not been outside of Switzerland for over ten years.

I love being in Ojai. It's kind of a travel destination because I drive to it from Los Angeles. I also love Italy.

I love coming home to Melbourne. The first thing I do is have a coffee. It's just so much better here than anywhere else. It's better than in Italy and I travel a lot. I crave it.

In Italy, they add work and life on to food and wine.

In the 1970s, British food was beginning to get good, whereas in France it was just starting its long, sad decline. My most memorable meals, however, have been in Italy.

I got married in Florence, Italy. My husband and I were in love but totally broke, so we eloped and got married in Italy, where he was going on a business trip. We had to pull a guy off the street to be our witness. It was incredibly romantic. Florence is still one of my favorite cities in the world.

I've done a road trip across Italy with a girlfriend, and that was very romantic. I think that road trips are probably one of the romantic things you can do. To take your girlfriend and just stay wherever; don't have a destination and just drive and see where the road takes you is pretty cool.

A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls... saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?

Growing up, my grandmother did not want worldly music in the house. Then when I went out to California, I started listening to Spanish music, mostly Mexican music. But were I in Egypt, I would listen to the music of the people, or if I was in Italy, I'd listen to Italian music.

Once I had seen 'Journey to Italy,' I knew that, even if I were never to make movies, I could make them.

Italy advocates the adoption of a legal instrument on cultural diversity, guaranteeing every country the protection of its own historical identity and the uniqueness of its physical and intangible cultural heritage.

When I first discovered in the early 1980s the Italian espresso bars in my trip to Italy, the vision was to re-create that for America - a third place that had not existed before. Starbucks re-created that in America in our own image; a place to go other than home or work. We also created an industry that did not exist: specialty coffee.

I love the simplicity, the ingredients, the culture, the history and the seasonality of Italian cuisine. In Italy people do not travel. They cook the way grandma did, using fresh ingredients and what is available in season.

Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There's no looking at a building after seeing Italy.

I came to know Gore Vidal in the mid-1980s, when I was living in southern Italy, virtually a neighbour, and our friendship lasted until his death in 2012. Needless to say, he was a complicated and often combative man.

I want to highlight that Italy, every year, sends 6 billion euros in cash to Brussels. I cannot give these 6 billion euros to Brussels and then let them damage us on the fronts of agriculture, migration, fishing, commerce and finance. Why am I giving 6 billion to receive nothing in return?

I have never moved away from my mainstay - trying to address all the environmental issues that come to me. I consult with law firms in the U.S., Australia, the U.K., Italy, Greece, and India to begin to address environmental disasters. I do motivational speaking.

I started out doing commercials, like Diet Coke and Pizza Hut. And I started to find there was a different life for me, in a different field. From there, I got a call from a director in Italy, and we did 'Indio' I and II, and that's where it started.

My grandmother and mother were from Italy, so I was raised Catholic. That kind of just meant going to church on Easter and Christmas. I saw a radical transformation in my family when they started going to a Christian church. I watched them fall in love with God.

We go to Italy every winter, and my husband's mother has a bingo party on Christmas. Every woman brings a dish: lentils, cavolo nero, tons of beans, polenta, every type of cheese, bruschetta, fresh vegetables, and local olive oil and wine.