Italy In My Mouth

Oh Italy, you delicious beast. It's been a few years but I can still remember how you taste. We ate so much and it was pretty much all fantastic, so I'm going to keep the words to a minimum and let the pictures do most of the talking. But trust me, this one is definitely worth reading all the way through. 

First let's take a look at some of the classics - ice cream, pizza and pasta - oh my!

The gelato was outstanding. And we definitely ate enough to speak with some confidence on the matter. And of course, mint choc chip featured almost daily!

This may look like a pizza, but it's actually a ham omelette, baked inside a ring of dough. Dave was more than a little impressed.

This HUGE calzone was for one person...luckily that one person was Dave!

Seafood might not be a groundbreaking pizza topping but when the clams are still in their shells, it does present an unexpected challenge.

We couldn't go to Bologna without having bolognese! It came with tagliatelle rather than spaghetti, and was pretty darn delicious. Best I've ever had? I can't be sure about that one, as it was a favourite of mine for quite some time so I've eaten a fair few bowls of the stuff over the years. But it was scrumptious.

Dave ate this spooky looking squid-ink pasta with seafood and loved it. It's not often you get the opportunity to eat black food, and it amused me greatly that it turned the inside of his mouth black!

This next one is a little weird - bigoli, which is like a thick spaghetti, with a ragu made from...donkey meat! To be honest, everything tastes so good in Italy that I'd eat doormat ragu if it was a local delicacy!

The final pasta dish I want to show you are these three, plump, shiny, beautiful raviolis. Truly delicious - so rich and flavoursome. 

Right, now it's time for some other, less "obvious" tantalising tongue-ticklers...man, I am salivating so much writing this!

PANINIS! Did you know that 'panini' is actually plural? So it's one panino, two panini...but when they're this tasty, who's ordering one at a time?! I can honestly say that this was one of the best sandwiches I've ever had. The taste-memory has faded with time but I can distinctly remember a flavour of fennel in the salami, which went beautifully with the roasted aubergines.

This simple looking dish was deceptively delicious. The beans were tender and well seasoned, and the meat was well cooked but both of these were completely forgettable once we tried the main attraction - BONE MARROW! I think this was the first time I had tried this heavenly nectar and wowzers...there are no words.

This is something I hadn't seen before - deep fried olives stuffed with tuna. I didn't try them, obviously, but Dave really liked them.











We did try some arancini, but I have to say I'm not a fan. They are balls of risotto rice, stuffed with various fillings and then deep fried with a cripsy coating. I'm just not a fan of the texture of the rice, but maybe I just haven't had really good quality arancini.








One of our favourite things to do in Venice was have a glass of wine and some cicchetti. These are little snacks, usually bread topped with something scrummy. Here we have cream cheese with smoked salmon, whipped goat's cheese with walnut and redcurrants, something like brie with an anchovy, and a nutty, creamy spread with pistachios. These dreamy bites with two glasses of wine came to €8.80, which is a blumin' cheap way to eat in Venice! And if you pick the right place, you can take your treats outside and enjoy the view while you eat.

These next dishes stood out from the crowd not only for flavour, but for the size of the portions. The Italians sure are generous!

If you can believe it, this huge plate of carpaccio was Dave's starter! Now I know you think this is something I'd remember, but for the life of me I can't be sure whether this was beef or horse...either way it could feed an army.

And it was followed by this ENORMOUS piece of breaded veal, topped with a layer of ham and melted cheese. Man were we stuffed! 

The next mega-meal was this gigantic seafood stew, which had every kind of aquatic creature you can think of, bones, shells, tails and all. It was an orchestra of textures and flavours. Or so I'm told.

And while Dave was slurping his way through the ocean, I was attempting to polish off this ridiculously large tomato, parma ham and mozzarella "salad". How this can be classed as a salad, I just do not know. But boy was it yummy.

And finally, the star of our trip - the one thing I would say without a doubt, anyone visiting Florence should go and get. This, my dear readers, is the biggest and best steak I have ever eaten. The meal, for which we had travelled to Fiesole, started with a beer, followed by a glass of wine. These were polished off before the food came, so of course we ordered a carafe of wine to enjoy with the steak. I think this is the main reason we both fell asleep on a bench in the village square afterwards. Anyway, I digress. 

This huge hunk of meat was served to us rare, with our choice of sides. We opted for simple potatoes and red peppers, which were a perfect match. There was a huge bone running through the middle of the steak and it was carved and presented to us in this rather bemusing way. It was a beast of a meal, but my god were we determined to finish it. And finish it we did! 

As someone who likes a lot of flavour in her food, I am sometimes a little disappointed by steak. I can get a bit bored, chewing my way through endless mouthfuls of meat. But this was so charred and gnarley on the outside and so juicy and sweet in the middle...this is what a real steak tastes like. Trust me, go get yourself one! But definitely take a friend - they don't do individual portions!

Roma

“All roads lead to Rome” said a Roman once, and this has been repeated a million times since. This would be the final leg of our Italian tour so maybe the saying was right after all. 

We had three days to explore the 28th most visited city in the world (according to Paolo), which seems ridiculously low if you ask me. We knew three days wouldn’t be enough time to explore a city that had been the capital of the world for hundreds of years, and which is so steeped in history and culture that it makes your brain hurt. We know we will return to Rome, so there may be another blog post in the future, when we will explore Rome again and it'll have a catchy title, such as “Roma II.” 

Whatever expectations we may or may not have had upon arrival, Rome would prove to be one of the most interesting and culturally beautiful cities we have ever been to. More so than London, New York, Berlin, Tokyo, Beijing, Hong Kong and Bangkok, to name-drop a few. Literally everywhere we turned we hit upon some kind of beautiful building, exuding enough history to make me want to pick up a book. There were so many incredible sites and ruins that it was hard at times not to become a bit passive, and at times I felt like I was maybe just snapping photos (and therefore “memories”) of anything and everything. 

Don't get me wrong, we certainly didn't take it for granted and straight after the holiday I went to London, where I did not see anywhere near the same level of beauty, even from high up on the London Eye. Rome was just spectacular.

On day one we went to a 2000 year old stadium called the Colloseo, or in English, the Coliseum. It was fascinating. We paid extra to have a tour by an Italian lady who was enthusiastic and descriptive and appeared especially cheerful when talking about bloody battles and executions, carried out by starved animals tearing off people's flesh. Sand was placed on the battleground to soak up the blood and because it was easily replaced once it had reached blood saturation levels. For this reason the battleground was called the Arena, which means sand in Latin.

Secret doors using pulleys and ramps shielded the audience from seeing the animals and gladiators that ascended from below, surprising and delighting the spectators. Gladiators would only fight two or three times a year so they had ample time to heal. The games were free to watch and the seating was allocated by class, with the Senate in the closest seats (ring side) and the women and povvos in the highest seats. The senators had their names engraved into the chairs and over time, as senators died, their names were crossed out and a new name was written.

The Coliseum truly was a phenomenal place to see, both at day and night. I really want to see a UFC event held there. The new gladitorial battles take place mostly in Vegas but what better venue is there than this one?! Make it happen Dana White.

That night we went to an area of town that I decided to refer to as Transvestite, because the real name (Trastevere) just would not stick. As we had experienced in Florence, night time makes this city glow with intrigue. Beauty wasn’t hard to come by on the streets of Roma. 


The second day started with a slight delay due to our Chinese neighbours utilising the shower as a washing machine. The place we were staying had a shared bathroom between two bedrooms, which was a bit annoying. But the apartment was in the centre of town, near Pyramide Metro, so we were happy enough.

Our Colliseo ticket could also be used to visit the birthplace of Rome (Pallatine) and the Roman Forum, so this is what we did. The Pallatine had a series of aqueducts and the earliest finds dated back to 800 BC. We also found the house of Augustus, which had paintings that had stood there for millennia. It was an impressive sight and the detail was still there in places, which the photos don’t show. 

The Forum was outrageous. Buildings still stood that had existed over 2000 years ago. There's a bronze door that still has a working lock – 2000 years of opening hasn’t broken it. It was sublime... bar the fluff that scratched my eye, which I barely made a fuss about...

Now the next building I'll mention was probably the grandest of them all. We saw it first at night and it figuratively blew our socks off. It was a towering structure of stone with dozens of statues and it radiated beauty like no other building I have ever seen has. It was built in 1925 and is called Altare della Patria (Altar of the Fatherland). We loved it.

The next major tourist stop was the La Bocca della Verità, or Mouth of Truth, made famous in the film Roman Holiday. This two thousand year old statue didn’t bite off any liars' hands when we were there though. I went for a slightly different take on the traditional photo as I am so wacky!

We wondered the down the beautiful Spanish steps and went into several churches. We saw more palaces and carried on walking until our feet were pleading with us to stop and my camera's SD card was no longer hungry. 

As well as buildings, there are a plethora of fountains that are easy on the eye too. This is where I take over, but just briefly so don't worry! I just want to tell you about one fountain which is probably the most famous - Fontana di Trevi. It was built in 1762 and is absolutely beautiful. It has featured in quite a few films, including The Lizzy McGuire Movie! Understandably, it's a huge tourist attraction and so it took a bit of time to get a good view but once we did, it was definitely worth it. It's truly beautiful and so incredibly intricate and outrageously elaborate. These Italians definitely know how to do art and architecture and whatnot, that's for sure.

We also visited the Pantheon, which was brill. How could have been constructed over 2000 years ago?! It blows my mind. We ate a fly riddled pizza outside while staring at the, frankly beautiful, building. Another great day! 

Unfortunately we had to leave Rome all too soon, but our Ryanair flight afforded us some lovely views of the mountain ranges as we flew home. Until next time - ciao bellas!

The famous Colloseo!

The Roman Forum

Door with a dead old lock!

Altare della Patria (Altar of the Fatherland) by day...

...and by night!

Outside the Pantheon...

...and inside the Pantheon

A fly baked onto a pizza, yum!

Fontana di Trevi - this photo really doesn't do it justice. It's HUGE!

Miscellaneous snaps of ruins we stumbled across at various points... 

And finally the view from the plane. Bye Italy!

Florence

Whenever we talked to people about this trip before we went, everyone that had visited Italy had expressed their delight with Florence. It was the highlight of many people’s trips and has a reputation for fine food and even finer art. 

Besides a mix-up with where we believed our hotel to be and where it actually was, the journey from Bologna was very pleasant in our first class carriage. I say pleasant - we shared it with two toddlers and two weary Italian parents desperate to keep their energetic boy in check. 

Once in Florence, we went around all the usual hotspots - the Duomo, the cathedrals, the basilicas, and the archways.

The difference between a basilica and a church, by the way, is that a basilica was originally used in Roman times as a meeting point and public space where markets and trades would take place. The Christians soon took over and used the word to denote large and important churches. Yay religion. 

We saw literally dozens of statues of various naked dead men and fictional beings. Nipples were never too far away and the odd pair of animal testicles was also a common sight. It was all very sophisticated and cultural. 

Florence has an interesting bridge called Ponte Vecchio, which is like no other I have ever seen, although Katie recognised it from the film Parfum. Instead of a bridge being just a simple crossing over some water, the wise old Italians decided that it could also have shops and presumably houses on it as well. If you approached the bridge a certain angle, it was actually possible to miss the fact you were crossing water at all. 

The second day we were in Florence was a Monday, which in Italy means that all public museums and galleries are closed. What to do in a city of culture when the culture palaces are closed? Why eat, of course! Katie will go into detail in an upcoming food post, but needless to say the search for gastronomic bliss took us on a short bus ride to a nearby hillside town called Fiesole. And it was magnificent. We walked around this small Roman town, taking in the rural beauty, while examining Florence from above, from this idilic Tuscan viewpoint.

Back in Florence we continued our exploration of the city. We saw a market that had some excellent fresh produce, although it did seem a little geared towards the tourist bandwagon. 

One of the days we went and decided to queue for the Uffizi. It became clear after five minutes that we would be queuing for around 3 hours unless we did something that went against our morals and our budgeting nature. We paid a tout for a reserved ticket (€25 euros each) that would get us in to the museum quicker! 

We were inside in 15 minutes and it was a good decision. I would like to point out that the Uffizi really doesn’t help itself with the buying tickets and queuing. It was nearly impossible to figure out which of the dozen queues was worth joining. We could have bought a ticket on the day for €11 but the signage and instructions were awful and the museum was poorly run from a ticketing standpoint. I sometimes feel like venues and arenas don’t do enough to stop touts or to quicken the ticket buying/queuing process. 

I also find it strange that people are willing to queue for several hours to go round an art museum. Since when was your average person so cultured and interested in art? You would never get such a long queue for a classical art museum in the UK. It is the pull of the guidebook that implies you haven’t seen Florence until you’ve seen the Uffizi – a tick-box exercise for all “well travelled” persons. 

We weren’t allowed to take photos in the museum so instead of my shoddy handiwork, I will google and add our favourite pieces below. 

Image from pinterest.co.uk

Image from seeker.com

Image from slowflorencetuscanytours.com

After walking round what can only be described as one of the best art museums in the world, we came to an important decision. Neither of us is too fond of art. We have tried to initiate ourselves into this game by going to a top museum but it’s simply not for us. We appreciate the skill required and enjoy looking at the paintings but thousands of similar style paintings and sculptures do not excite us. 

We like architecture and I definitely prefer sculptures to paintings but generally it is just a bit dull. Room after room of very stylistically similar paintings gets a bit tedious. I prefer to explore a church, which has paintings and sculptures (preferably with a description). However, this dislike didn’t stop us spending nearly 3 hours in the Uffizi and we certainly enjoyed a few bits of artwork. 

One thing we did not see was the original statue of David by Michelangelo in the Galleria dell’Academia. We saw a couple of replicas around the city and decided that this was enough. We weren’t going to queue for several hours (or pay a tout!). I realise now I didn’t actually photograph any of the replicas so you’ll have to make do with pictures I stole off the internet of this famous David, and also pictures of the one who wrote this. 

We also walked round the Forte Di Belvedere, although were unable to enter due to it being closed. 

Something we try to keep in mind when travelling is that it's one thing to see a city in the day, but another to see it at night. Beauty seems to be amplified at night and even ugly cities can turn into treasures with the right lighting. It is like when you spend all night snogging some stunner in a nightclub and then the last song finishes, the lights come on, and you realise you have been kissing the Elephant Man’s uglier sister. Basically, things look better in the dark...Let’s leave it at that. 

Anyway, on the first night we were both in good spirits and were intrigued to see what the beautiful fully lit Florence would like in the darkness, which has caused so many clubbers such deep regret the next day. 

We traipsed up a stubborn hill (we had been walking all day and we were tired) to the summit of Piazzale Michelangelo. From here we stood and enjoyed a panoramic view of the city – it was immense. The colours of the river, the lights of the city - it was all in full beauty that night. 

We spent the subsequent two nights going around already visited tourist hotspots, admiring them in the orange glow. What a way to spend an evening - care-free and gelato-full. 

All in all, Florence was a master class for wondering around looking at pretty buildings and taking in the sights. We left the city happy bunnies with tired feet, unaware of how much walking was still to come...

The aforementioned bridge at various times of day...

The views from Fiesole...

Borelogna

Katie envisaged Bologna to be the slight dip in brilliance that all trips must have. We hoped it wouldn’t be, but the Roman gods were not kind and she turned out to be right.

Originally we had planned on going to Bologna with Paolo and Ashleigh and enjoying the nightlife in this very studenty town. But because of the sudden move to Manchester they were undertaking a few weeks later, it was understandably a bit much for them to fit in.

So instead of partying, Katie and I wandered through endless piazzas and ate some delicious food, sticking to the theme of the holiday! We had fun, but Bologna didn’t have the pizzazz of Venice or even Veraina, nor did it have the serenity we experienced in Bergamo, Como, and Garda. It also did not help the situation that the weather had turned again and it rained the whole time we were there, although this is less of an issue in Bologna than other places, since a lot of the pavements are under covered walkways, like little arcades.

One thing we did start doing in Bologna, which we had ignored up to this point, was visiting churches. Catholic churches are very grand and ostentatious and it is impressive to see such structures. One night I wandered off in search of some late night drunken gelato and ended up stumbling into a huge church. It was stunning, and I do always find sights more interesting when a little drunk. Note to self: Buy a hip flask.

One peculiar oddity that I have noticed so far during our time in Italy is the men’s bathrooms. I have had the pleasure of visiting many bars, restaurants, and public toilets over the last week or so and have yet to find a single urinal. Men have to queue like the female gender for a cubicle. This is absurd. I am a firm believer that the best feature of being a man is the shorter queue for the bathroom. No matter where equality goes, we – as men – will always have the urinal and our external weeing appendage to quicken our yellow release. Unless of course you are in Italy, where urinals don’t seem to exist. From watching such historical dramas as Spartacus and Rome, I was led to believe that Italy had looser rules on public privacy. This has been shattered. I have found a place that goes beyond even our British Victorian reserved ways.

I wonder if Italians look upon our urinals with the same distain that I had for the public shitinal that was common in China. Oh cultural norms, you have thrown up another talking point.

So much deliciousness!

The tipsy night time Church