My wife is gluten-intolerant, and hasn’t eaten wheat in three years. And so, at first thought, my plan for an Italian vacation bordered on insanity. While I’m a huge fan of Italian food, for Jen a week and a half of pasta, pizza and bread — the holy trinity of the Italian table — sounded like a nightmare. As far as she was concerned, 10 days in Italy meant 10 days condemned to salads dressed with oil and vinegar. Even dessert wouldn’t be safe: gelato and tiramisù typically contain wheat.

To the approximately 1 percent of the world’s population with celiac disease, gluten, a protein found in wheat and other grains that gives bread and pizza crust and other Italian staples their satisfying spring, is a toxin. Doctors have also recently recognized that many more may be sensitive to gluten, and simply feel better when they cut wheat and other glutinous grains out of their diets. (Jen is in the latter camp.) You’d think Italy would be hell for the gluten-intolerant.

To our surprise, we found it to be closer to heaven. Wheat’s prevalence in Italian cuisine has made Italians especially conscious of celiac disease and Italy one of Europe’s best destinations for food-conscious travelers avoiding gluten. Celiac disease was recognized as a serious condition there sooner than in the United States or elsewhere in Europe. The Associazione Italiana Celiachia, or AiC, Italy’s celiac association, was founded in 1979; today many of the world’s leading experts on celiac disease are Italian.