Food coma

Note: I wrote this but didn't post it in October 2013 while we were vacationing in Italy.
It's now getting towards the end of our Italian vacation, and once more, we find ourselves stuffed to the gills with amazing food.

The binge started in Bologna, where every meal was delicious and then topped off by the "Italian Food Experience", which included tours of parmiagiano, balsamico, and prosciutto factories. After all of that (including generous tastings) we had a "light lunch" (Ha!). OMG, it was amazing. We ate and drank far too much, then wedged ourselves into the rental car to being our journey to Tuscany.

A few months ago, I bought an Italian map for my GPS. It was a lifesaver. We set it for "La Befa" and followed it until it told us we had reached our destination. At this point we were on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, but just up ahead we found our home for the next week, "Il Palazzotto".

Maurizio was waiting for us with a delicious dinner, although we were both too full from lunch to really appreciate it. Then we crawled up to bed.

We woke and checked the time in our darkened room: 11:10! Had we never slept so late? Nonetheless, Maurizio and Alexandra served us an Italian breakfast (toast and jam, coffee, juice, yogurt), and we set off our our first day of Tuscan site-seeing:

A few days later we went with our new friends Regula, Patrice, and Claire (from Switzerland) to the Innocenti winery for a lovely wine tasting:

Brunello, Super Tuscan, even some Grappa, which was reminiscent of lighter fluid. Regula acted as our interpreter since our host, Gianna, spoke about as much English as we speak Italian. It was great!

 After re-visiting Montalcino and then the Abbey of Sant'Antimo,we returned to Il Palazzotto. The smells coming from the kitchen were amazing, and we knew we were going to be treated to another fantastic dinner. Tonight we started with pancetta, parmigiano, and arugula. This was followed by a luscious risotto, and then pork loin stuffed with plums and hazelnuts. Oh, and a delicious plum cake.

So the food coma continues. More tomorrow!

First stop: Venice

Note: I wrote this, but didn't post it, while we were on our trip to Italy in October 2013. Better late than never!

We returned to Italy again this year (although didn't write about our trip last year to Puglia, Sorrento, Pompeii, and Rome, which was amazing), starting out in magical Venice. The flight was smooth and pretty painless, a huge surprise since I have a herniated disk and have been barely able to move for the past week. That lumbar pillow I bought at Brookstone was a gift from God, or maybe my back is just getting better (I'm hoping for the latter). Anyway, from the Marco Polo Airport we took a bus to Piazzale Roma and then the vaporetto to Rialto;

then followed detailed and excellent instructions to the flat we rented that is about half-way between Rialto and San Marco.

Today was an absolutely beautiful day and we enjoyed a lunch of pizza (Lisa) and pasta (Garrett) and exploring our new neighborhood. Last time we were in Venice we stayed in Dorsoduro, and now we know why people love that neighborhood so much. In contrast to peaceful Dorsoduro, San Marco teems with crowds of tourists. We did, however, enjoy the dueling musical groups playing at three different restaurants on San Marco Square.

Having not slept much in the past 24 hours, we rested in the afternoon, then set out again to find a place for dinner. I found a place on TripAdvisor that sounded perfect, but found it next to impossible to navigate to any specific location in Venice. GoogleMaps was absolutely no help whatsoever. So we just wandered until we found something that looked good... and it was! Tourist menu (three courses) only 15 euros, a bottle of the house wine (always good), and a couple of extra treats on the house (Campari and soda to start the meal, Limoncello to end it). Ahh...