Club Alpino Italiano - Pacific Northwest
CAI Update
We hike – usually together. But in these days we hike solo and not on week-ends.
We have monthly hikes or other activities (except during this pandemic) and usually an international trip or exchange with Italy or another country each year. In 2019 we had a group go to Padua for two weeks of hiking adventures with CAI Padua. Their group was to come here this August, but due to the COVID-19, this is being postponed until next year.
Also, several of us had plans in September with CAI Pisa (of which we are a subsection) to dedicate a trail in honor of Francesco as well as participate in additional hikes and activities. This, too, is postponed until next year.
Please see this brochure for a summary of our activities, which you may use to make hard copies.
Dante members are welcome and encouraged to join any of our local CAI-PNW hikes.






Gabriella Vagnoli was born in Pisa, Tuscany, home of the famous Leaning Tower. She grew up in a multicultural family thanks to her Brazilian mom and remembers teaching Italian for the first time as a child to her Brazilian cousins. She obtained a Laurea in English and Spanish Language and Literature at the Università degli Studi di Pisa and during her college years spent a year in the University of Reading, UK, studying mainly the works of Shakespeare. After obtaining a Certificate as a Teacher of Italian (DITALS II) at the Università per Stranieri di Siena, she has taught in a full immersion school in Florence, a children's full immersion program in Chicago and a Community College in Illinois.
Tiziana was born and raised in Sardinia, a beautiful Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea. She has always been passionate about foreign languages and cultures, and studied French and German at the Scuola Superiore Interpreti e Traduttori in Milan, where she obtained her first Foreign Languages and Interpreter BA degree. She then pursued her MA in English and German Language and Literature at IULM, one of the most prestigious universities in Milan, Italy for Language and Communication studies.


Nicla is a native of Napoli, Italy. She has a Laurea in Materie Letterarie (degree in humanities) and a Laurea in Pedagogia (degree in Education) from the Università degli Studi di Cassino. She earned her M.A in Italian and her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington. She has published articles and book chapters on gender and theater as well as politics and religion in Counter-Reformation Italy and in the last years, has been teaching Italian literature, language, and culture in different institutions. In addition to teaching in our program, Nicla is authorized to cover the role of esaminatrice and intervistatrice in our PLIDA Examination Board.
Eric was born and raised in Como by an American mother and an Italian father. He holds a degree in Business Administration and Management from Bocconi University in Milan and a Master’s in Corporate and International Finance from Durham University in the UK. His international background led him to pursue a business career in the United States, ultimately settling in Seattle, where his wife grew up.