Tag Archives: Italy

Looking back at [vegetarian food in] Rome

Despite lots of great potential content, I didn’t write much about our fabulous trip to Europe last spring.*  Over the next couple of weeks, I  will rectify that by sharing snippets from my travel journal in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.

If you’ve read the other posts in this series, you know that I talk as much about what we ate while traveling as anything else, hence the slightly altered title of this post.

Rome, April 3-7, 2011
Sunday (4/3): On to Rome for the last bit of our journey, with panini ingredients for lunch on the train.  We arrived at Termini Station, and, after a bit of hunting, found the Roma Pass desk, where we bought the passes that would cover all of our metro and bus trips for the next three days.Continue reading “Looking back at [vegetarian food in] Rome”

Looking back at Siena

Despite lots of great potential content, I didn’t write much about our fabulous trip to Europe last spring.*  Over the next couple of weeks, I  will rectify that by sharing snippets from my travel journal in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.

Siena, April 1-2, 2011
Friday (4/1): Up at 5:30am to make the first train out of Vernazza on our flight to reach Florence while the guaranteed trains were still running.  [There are some trains that run during the morning and evening rush hours, even during train strikes.]  Three trains later (Vernazza to La Spezia, La Spezia to Pisa, and Pisa to Florence), we arrived in Florence a bit after 9am on one of the last trains running.

Fortunately, the best way from Florence to Siena is actually bus, and not train.  Next thing we knew, we were on the “rapida” bus to Florence.  The driver took the “rapida” part very seriously, which made for an interesting ride, especially through the narrow, crowded streets of Florence.

After a stressful, but still surprisingly smooth, morning of travel, we made it to Siena before noon – masters of navigating Italian train strikes.

In Siena, our B&B (Casa di Antonella) came with kitchen access and was conveniently located next to a nice market, which provided a delicious, affordable, and veggie heavy lunch (plus delicious pears and kiwi, grown in Italy).

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Our time in Siena was pretty low key.  We discovered and thoroughly enjoyed their secret botanical garden (Orto Botanico: very nice, with carpets of flowers and moss steps), walked around the top of the fortress and viewed the city (La Fortezza), walked through the campanile, and viewed the Duomo from the outside.

We found a decent pizza place for Friday night dinner, and were planning a splurge dinner for Saturday night at Da David, but were turned off by their attitude and the smell of smoke when we stopped by to make reservations.  We ended up dining at Osteria da Cice, where I enjoyed a nice pasta dish with kale and we found our first menu with a non-meat secondi, grilled vegetables with smoked cheese.

We also added to our souvenirs in Siena, purchasing some of the extra fresh dried porcinis (Consorzio Agrario, also place we bought pici), truffle-infused pici (a regional pasta), and a pretty wooden soup ladle and baby spoon, locally carved from olive wood (Il Casale).

The best ricciarelli came from Nannini bakery (also good pastries), and we had a great gelato combo: dark chocolate (chocolate fondante), vanilla cherry, and pistachio (Gelateria KopaKabana; we also liked Gelateria Mascellano).

Other: Pizzicheria Wine Bar (for Panini ingredients, on way to Orto Botanica), moist citrus ricciarelli & good whole wheat baguette (Il Magnifico SRL), skipped dinner at Antica Osteria Da Divo, pizza at Pizzeria Di Nonno Mede

Read the previous post in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.
Read the next post in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.

Looking back at Cinque Terre

Despite lots of great potential content, I didn’t write much about our fabulous trip to Europe last spring.*  Over the next couple of weeks, I  will rectify that by sharing snippets from my travel journal in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.

Cinque Terre, March 30-31, 2011
Wednesday (3/30): On to Cinque Terre.  Due to slow service, we abandoned our plans for delicious looking pizza in La Spezia (at least we hadn’t paid for it yet) in order to catch our train to Cinque Terre.  Given the sub par pizza lunch that we ended up eating in Vernazza, perhaps we should have just waited for the pizza and taken the next train.

After checking into our “hotel” (Albergo Barbara, identical to the B&Bs, but without breakfast), we filled our water bottles and headed out for some hiking.  The high trail from Vernazza to Monterosso was beautiful, and I was glad I pushed through the challenge of the initial climb, which I took at an embarrassingly slow pace (maybe I DID qualify as a person of impaired mobility!).

After a great hike, including some thunder and a bit of rain, we arrived in Monterossa at a proper Italian dinner time, only to find most of the town, including the most interesting looking restaurants, closed.  Turns out many of the restaurants and stores in Cinque Terre were still closed for “low season,” even though all of the lodging establishments were charging “high season” prices.

The day continued to be a food flop, with a dinner that consisted of pasta (the noodles themselves were decent) with the worst pesto we’ve ever had, plus some minestrone that was decent, but was likely a decent variety of canned minestrone.  If the prices reflected the quality of the food, this would have been somewhat less painful, but instead we paid about 20 euros (~$28) for the privilege.

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Thursday: Found a bakery (Il Discovolo) specializing in local products in Manorolo, where we really enjoyed the farinata (chickpea flour savory pastry filled with cheese) and the lightly sweet chesnut bar.  In Riomaggiore, we found a place to buy nice panini ingredients (buffalo mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, eggplant, and olives) by the kilo, so we loaded up on lunch ingredients and set off on the hike between Manarola and Corniglia.

Another great hike, through terraced vineyards, and overgrown terraces that must have once been vineyards or otherwise farmed.  For dinner, we headed back to the bakery and picked up a savory spinach pastry (similar to spanikopita), plus more panini ingredients, since the restaurants in Cinque Terre left us quite nonplussed.

We also found out that the train strike [that we’d heard rumors of all day] was ON, which put Friday’s travel to Siena in jeopardy . . . .

Read the previous post in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.
Read the next post in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.

Looking back at Florence

Despite lots of great potential content, I didn’t write much about our fabulous trip to Europe last spring.*  Over the next couple of weeks, I  will rectify that by sharing snippets from my travel journal in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.

Florence, March 27-29, 2011
Sunday (3/27): After a night at a smoky B&B on the outskirts of Rome (Ciao Ciao Roma), we experienced our first Italian “breakfast,” Matthew hit up an ATM, and we headed to Termini Station to find a train to Florence.  We chose the 18 euro/person 4-hour regional train over the 48 euro/person 2-hour fast train, and, with an hour-and-a-half to kill, went in search of some lunch.  Lacking time (or so we believed) to make it to the place we first planned to eat, we randomly ended up at a Chinese restaurant.  First meal in Italy = Chinese food?  Only slightly weird.

We returned to the station without much time to spare, only to discover that, surprise, Italy did the whole “spring ahead” thing last night, and the train we planned to take departed an hour ago.  Welcome to Italy!

We made friends with a sister and brother traveling together on the train to Florence, and chatting with them helped the 4+ hours pass.  We arrived to a rainy evening in Florence.  Once checked in at our B&B (Residenza Betta, not smoky), we went in search of dinner.  Being 8pm and proper Italian dinner time, our first choice restaurant was packed, with no sign of a table opening soon in the tiny space, so we headed to Trattoria Guelfa (recommended by the B&B hostess), where we ran into our train friends.  We enjoyed a nice dinner there, including a “lasagna” with wide noodles and tasty porcinis, delicious bread soup, and complementary dessert wine and biscotti.

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Monday (3/28): The next day, we climbed the Duomo and stood outside on the top in a thunderstorm, while I thought about cathedrals collapsing, a la Pillars of the Earth (if I’d only read the book, it might have been okay, but we recently watched the mini-series on Netflix, so I was a little nervous, especially after Matthew helpfully pointed out the Duomo’s infamous crack – you couldn’t have told me about that before we climbed all the way up here?).

We found a very cheap cafeteria-line place to eat lunch and dry out, and by the time we were finished, the skies were clearing.  We found the much-recommend Grom and thoroughly enjoyed our first gelato in Italy – the pear was particularly amazing.

We crossed the river to the Oltrarno area and followed the recommended walk in our guide book.  We discovered a clothing boutique with locally hand-made clothing and narrowly escaped without depleting our euros.

After lots of walking, peaking into some churches, and watching the sunset at the Piazza Michalangelo, we dined at an all-organic, vegetarian restaurant in Oltrarno (Vivanda Gastronomia).

Tuesday (3/29): We spent the morning at the Uffizi Museum, and for lunch we found the panini place (Vinaino di Parte Guelfa) recommended by our friends.  Continuing our museum blitz, we went to the Academia to see David.  That night, we arrived early and dined at the place that was full on our initial attempt on Sunday night (restaurant name???).  After dinner, we headed to the Pitti Palace, hoping to get to see the Boboli Gardens, but the gardens were not part of the special free late night.  We caught the bus up to the Piazza Michelangelo so we could look down on Florence in the dark.

Read the previous post in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.
Read the next post in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.

Last day in Rome

So I’ve written about the beginning of our trip, which started in London.  In between London and Rome, we visited Florence, Cinque Terre, and Siena.  Today I feel like writing about Rome, where we ended our trip.

We began our final day in Rome with a large dose of cuteness.  A quartet of perfectly fuzzy ducklings salvaged Rome’s otherwise not-so-memorable botanical garden.  (We recommend Kew in London, and Siena’s small, but nice (and free) Orto Botanico.)

After our garden time, we headed across town for lunch at Il Margutta.  This vegetarian restaurant has a buffet-style brunch.  Huge variety, and all top quality – the soup was the only flop, but by then we were so stuffed it didn’t matter.  For affordability, both here and at the Naturist Club (another vegetarian place where we enjoyed a meal the previous day), lunch was definitely the way to go.

Only catch?  Instead of the typical U.S.-style “all-you-can-eat” buffet, Il Margutta limits diners to one plate.  So, as you can see, we made the most of our one trip through the line.  We thought we were embarrassing ourselves, and being “those Americans,” but there were some real authentic Italian diners with plates that rivaled, and perhaps exceeded, ours.  We both cleaned our plates and were actually NOT uncomfortably full when we left — so no food wasted!

Fully sated, we made our way to the beautiful Borghese Gardens (wish we had more time to spend in the park) for our reserved slot at the Borghese Gallery, home of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne sculpture, as well as a number of other beautiful Bernini pieces.  We paid for the audio guide, which was nice accompaniment.

For our final meal at Rome, we ate delicious pizza at ZaZa, followed by gelato at a shop Matthew frequented ten years earlier.  We also bought pizza to sustain us on Thursday’s plane ride.

We ended the day with a moonlight stroll through Rome, including a pass by the Trevi Fountain.  I tossed in a coin for good luck 🙂