But then again pouring cold water over an unsuspecting baby’s head is an ordeal you certainly don’t want to draw out. The previous night our friend told us that mothers she knows subject their babies to several trials with water for the sake of nice photos at the actual christening. That sounded somewhat cold-hearted to me but indeed none of the four children, who were christened in the church that day, a girl of school age and three babies, started crying.

Afterwards, when the chorus of prayer once again echoed off the walls, we recognized the Our Father by its distinctive rhythm without actually understanding the words. Yet instead of clasping their hands, which is common practise in Germany, everybody around us prayed with their arms extended and palms lifted upwards, like the priest. We hadn’t seen this pose, called the orans posture, among parishioners before. The Holy See has allowed Italians to pray in the orans posture and they seemed to fancy it above other practises. Yet when I googled this posture the question of clasping, extending, or holding hands with your neighbours during prayer surprisingly turned out to be a hotly debated topic by the faithful online. I would have thought that any respectful posture for prayer would be perfectly appropriate.

The noisy, animated chatter of the parish reverberating in the church before and after the service was definitely different to the hushed voices we associate with church and much more likeable. Yes, many Italians are more vociferous than people north of the Alps and use extravagant gestures that at times closely resemble the rowing finals. But some, like our friends, are soft-spoken and generally talk little.

As we stepped through the church door into falling darkness and swirling snowflakes, the cobble stone alley was covered with a thin layer of freshly fallen snow that had not been there an hour before. ‘This is all wrong,’ I remarked to Tobi. The temperature had hovered around freezing point all day, which was already uncomfortably far removed from my mental picture of Italy. But snow-covered palm trees had most certainly never entered my mind.

We had an hour before dinner at a restaurant close to Lago Varese and spent most of that time on an unintended detour back to the hotel to get our car. The tiny alleyways covered in snow looked absolutely identical to one another and while we wandered around, we pondered on the prevalence of the Catholic religion in Italy. I used to think that most Italians are Catholic and generally associate Catholicism with Italy, my reasoning being that the Vatican is located inside the city of Rome so they have the Pope in their midst so to speak and as they believe the Pope is the representative of God, geographically speaking they’re closest to Him.

But since there are 1.1 billion Catholics and only 60 million Italians that conclusion is of course erroneous by a wide margin. Numbers vary between studies, but all agree that Italy doesn’t even come second place for how many people consider themselves Catholic. Instead, according to the Cline Center for Democracy, it comes in 13th place in 2013, with a share of 84% – a steady decline since 1960 when a whooping 99.1% of Italians prescribed to the Catholic faith. For whatever reason, the institute’s ranking excludes Vatican City, the one country in the world that is 100% Catholic.

This mono-religion approach is on the one hand understandable, it being the Vatican after all, but on the other hand, I wonder, how a better understanding and greater tolerance of other believes is practised when you’re surrounded by only the most devout of your own faith? Anyhow, I believe the Vatican deserves first place before Poland with a Catholic share of 95.2% and Italy would in fact come in14th place.

What I find fairly interesting is the evolution in regional distribution of Catholics that is highlighted in a study by the Pew Research Centre. In 1910, 65% of Catholics lived in Europe, 24% in Latin America-Caribbean, and none, more or less, in the rest of the world. A hundred years later only 24% lived in Europe, 39% in Latin America-Caribbean, 8% in North America, 16% in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 12% in Asia-Pacific.

This geographical shift is of course influenced by the demographic development of the regions but Catholic missionaries were undeniably successful in spreading the faith from tiny Vatican City, to the rest of the world. The Catholic share of the regional populations in North America (+10%-points) and Sub-Saharan Africa (+20%-points) increased significantly whereas Europe (-9%-points) and Latin America-Caribbean (-18%-points) have obviously lost faith.

I’m not sure what to make of these opposing trends but in Germany at least the widespread sexual abuse and corruption scandals involving the Catholic church have alienated a great many half-hearted followers and caused even the most devout to become more critical. It was pitch-black when we parked at the restaurant except for our car’s headlights and extravagant Christmas lighting – wildly blinking strings of fairy lights that ran around the entire facade of the restaurant working their way through several irritating flashing modes. The Italians most certainly fancy blinking lights in restaurants, parks, and living rooms, preferably in different colours and at any time of the year.

Far more common than mentions of blinking fairy lights when stereotyping Italians however are stories of hideous amounts of food served by an Italian nonna (grandmother). They have always reminded me of my maternal grandparents, who, though German, share that attitude towards food exactly. I vividly recall occasions when, as a kid of seven or eight, I opened their freezer to find it brim-full with pork. My granddad’s brother owned a farm and every so often would come by my grandparents’ place with a whole pig, dead, and packed in convenient portions – very large single portions in fact.

Even when the many times we’ve eaten in Italian restaurants portions were often reasonable, these stories of large amounts of food served in Italy persist stubbornly in my mind. And the preceeding Friday night had indeed corroborated that preconception, when a whole burrata topped my deconstructed Neapolitan-style pizza (a pizza without melted cheese but instead served with a whole ball of buffalo mozzarella, burrata, or glass of stracciatella – the creamy fresh cheese inside a burrata). As did a visit to an osteria (tavern) near Como last year, when I ordered a polenta dish in an osteria (tavern) near Como and the cook must have mistaken my order with that of the 6-person family at the next table. And when Tobi ordered gelato in Florence on a previous trip, we stood wide-eyed, mouth gaping open (not so much in longing but utter disbelief) as more or less two litres of “tre gusti” (three flavours) were artfully arranged on a massive cono (cone). Thankfully I hadn’t ordered yet as this would turn out the only time we couldn’t finish a gelato between the two of us. We sat on the cobble stone pavement at 42 degrees temperature, smeared in baccio, chocolate, and pistachio gelato, frantically trying to stop the creamy deluge running down Tobi’s hands.

Usually however, I can never get enough of Italian gelato and when on the night before the christening, our friends suggested we skip dolci (desert) at the restaurant and head for Varese’s best gelateria – the best one for cream-based gelato, not fruit-based, as my friend was quick to point out as good gelaterias often specialise in their art – we didn’t have to think twice. We stormed in the door five minutes to eleven, the closing time. It was December and barely above zero degrees, but at least ten people rushed in with us for the day’s last gelato fix – locals, not tourists. The Italian cliché of pizza, pasta, and gelato I can wholeheartedly corroborate. The pistachio and nougat flavours I tried were sublime. The only problem is that ordinary ice cream back home pales terribly in comparison.

Despite our better knowledge that the amount of food served in Northern Italy is in fact normal (with certain exceptions) we were nevertheless expecting a rather large meal after the christening to conform to the prevailing stereotype. Also we were both conditioned to associate family gatherings with excessive amounts of food à la whole pig in the freezer and thought in Italy it would be similar. But it was not. After a wonderful antipasti buffet, the only warm dish served was Risotto alla milanese, a northern Italian creamy rice dish, made with saffron and in fact beef bone marrow as I found out later. Still blissfully unaware of eating the mushy inside of bones at dinner, we both loved the taste. The desert was mille-feuille, a cake of layers of pastry filled with a custard cream and fruit, and not tiramisu as one might expect.

After these two days I thought that the well-trodden clichés about Italians were as much reinforced as they were proven false, which is exactly what you would expect of stereotypes. The clichés are endorsed enough to perpetuate the stereotype but hilariously exaggerated.
The assumption that is truer than any other and widely endorsed is the kindness and warm-heartedness of Italians. There wasn’t a moment when we didn’t feel welcome and also our fear of awkward silences at dinner was completely unfounded. Most guests spoke perfect English, especially our friend’s Mum, who is a retired English teacher. She was by the way the exact opposite of that Italian nonna stereoytpe: slim, smartly dressed, and fluent in English.