Dave and Sara’s Excellent 2018 Adventure

Real italy

By Dave and Sara on Wednesday, March 21, 2018

It is surprising to me that it took nearly a month and a half to feel something real but it is true. Today we started out our day with a wine tasting at Passeti. When we arrived we felt like we made a mistake because the lobby was basically a gas station for wine. Note: that is our type of gas station.

It turns out that we were in the right place. Laura, the owner, met us and took us around the winery. While it is tucked in the middle of a super industrial area, the winery is typical of what you would expect. Lots of tanks and wine production equipment. After touring the winery, that is when everything changed. Laura was welcoming us to her home. She had prepared many home cooked items for us to enjoy with our tasting. We unfortunately had just eaten breakfast but we had to suck it down.

It was easy though because everything was so delicious including the wine. At some point her daughter also joined us. This wine tasting ended up taking about 4.5 hours and includes tasting four wines and finishing the bottle of Montepulciano d’abruzzo. Honestly with a wine tasting at 10:30 we were worried about what to do between our appointments with our next one at 15:30. Turns out we would barely have enough time to make our next one because we spent so much time with Laura.

Our next appointment was not nearly as homey but still quite fun. We headed to San Lorenzo which is more up in the hills. They again had a gas station of wine. We tasted about five wines here. While the Montepulciano is what is famous, they also do a nice job on whites and rose. Again here we were hosted by Gianluca, the winery owner, and one of his associates that manages their wholesaling. The tasting including sitting by the fireplace with them watching the rain and chatting about everything from overly tanned politicians to the industrial agricultural complex. Oh, also Gianluca also gave us a ride up to his family’s castle in the hilltop village above the winery where the Montepulciano is stored for aging for a visit in the middle of the tasting.

After finishing up our tasting around 19:00, we started the drive back towards the hotel and to our dinner at Villa Maiella, a Michelin started restaurant. The food was delicious.

We have seriously loved our time in Abruzzo, an area that is usually left off the typical tourist itinerary. Unfortunately last year’s appolyptic earthquake/avalanche in the Rocorasso ski resort of Abruzzo has severely impacted what small amount of tourism they do have. So this is our little plug for Abruzzo, come here it’s awesome!

Our next stop is a slight change of plans. With the weather turning a bit worse, we decided to spend a few more days in the city. Therefore, we are headed to Bologna.

Italy Road Trip

Puglia Catchup and Abruzzo

By Dave and Sara on Monday, March 19, 2018

On the road again today headed for Abruzzo, a mountainous area on the eastern side of Italy. We may even see snow again.

We spent the weekend in Locorotondo at a country B&B surrounded by Olive trees and wineries. This is in Puglia.

Our room was in a Trullo which is an adorable little hobbit house that are native to Puglia, especially in the area around Bari.

The resort makes everything themselves and take a lot of pride in it including olive oil, wine, grain and all of the food served in the restaurant. When we arrived they gave us a welcome drink of their propriety white wine and checked us into the room. After that we drove the short drive into the historic center of Locorotondo for lunch at a place called Bina. The B&B arranged a wine tasting for us in the late afternoon about an hour away at a family run winery called Polveranera. Right before leaving for the winery is when we realized the Internet (and also the Sky TV) was out for the weekend. The owner of the B&B, Rosabla was very sweet and lent us her iPad for the weekend even though that didn’t really work either since the Trulli are made of 1 ft thick stone walls.

The wine tasting was interesting. At first the daughter called and tried to canceled because someone hadn’t shown up for work and she was all by herself manning the store and was worried she wouldn’t be able to show us around. Since we were already on the way and it was kind of a ways she agreed to just give us a tasting in the shop which was fine by us. We noticed this in Spain as well that the wineries prefer to show you around, tell the history of the winery and the how the process works and then do a formal sit down tasting at the end. The idea of just coming in to taste at the counter doesn’t seem to be as common here as in Napa. They had a really nice wine tasting dog.

When we got to the winery there was another couple there with their young children. The wife was pretty knowledgeable about wine and since the winery was pretty quiet we ended up getting the whole tour and story and trying a bunch of their wines. We were there for almost 3 hours but at the end didn’t really buy much because we didn’t love the wine that much. Still, it was nice to visit a family run spot that clearly gets a lot of love and support from the locals.

We showed up for dinner back in Locorotondo around 8:45 to a place again recommended by the hotel. This place was a little bit out in the country and when we got to the front door we had to be buzzed in. A first for both of us. The restaurant was dead empty when we got there but by the time we left at 10:45 it was in full swing with every table full and kids running around between the tables. They eat a lot of seafood in Puglia and when you order fish at a restaurant they let you go up to the display case and pick the one you want. Everything is super fresh like it just came out of the water. Dave chose the fish named Eric.

On Sunday morning we drove out to the ocean and a town called Polignano a Mare.

The weather was nice and the town was really lively with families out walking around and having drinks at the outdoor cafes. We grabbed a Spritz where we could enjoy the people watching. For lunch the first place we checked was completely booked so we decided to try the fancy looking seafood restaurant built into a hotel hanging over the water. The place was full of very well off Italian extended families (each table was set for at least 10 people.) Dave again was able to pick his seafood.

After spending the day in the sun, Dinner was somewhat quiet.

Today we we drove to Semivicoli. It was a long drive. The drive was through some rolling hills and ended in the foothills beneath a snow covered mountain. We had a wine tasting at the hotel. Tomorrow we hope to get out and about to try the local wines.

Italy Road Trip

Donkey Chops!!!

By Dave and Sara on Saturday, March 17, 2018

Aww…Donkey Chops! It sounds like something you would say when things aren’t working the way you want them to. We just arrived in Locorotondo and it turns out that they actually eat donkey chops. That being said, unfortunately, the WiFi here is broken. That means we are going to take tonight and tomorrow off from making a post as it is quite difficult without the internet. We will try to remember everything we did here and summarize it once we get back to a connected lifestyle.

Italy Road Trip

Spelunking through Matera

By Dave and Sara on Friday, March 16, 2018

As we let on yesterday, Matera is quite an interesting place. From the outside of the buildings, they look like normal housing. Once you step inside, you realize that it is just a facade in front of a deep cave. This area used to be a really bad place to live.

The Italian government stepped in the 1950s and kicked the entire city out. Afterwards, some leases were granted in the 1980s but for the most part, the historical center of town consists of hotels and bed and breakfasts. That means that it is quite touristy here.

Even though it is touristy, it is still an incredible sight to see. We went in to several church’s that were built in the 11 to 13th century. Inside there are several frescos that date back to the same period.

As the town is built in the hillside there are a ton of stairs to venture across.

After finishing our Church visits, we headed to lunch at Osteria Pico. Food was pretty good. For dinner we will hit the town again and find something delicious.

Italy Road Trip

Back to the Mountains

By Dave and Sara on Friday, March 16, 2018

We left the coast and Camapania this morning headed east for Matera. The drive took us almost immediately into the rugged Appennini mountains of Basilicata. Basilicata was well known for a long time for being really poor. (Carlo Levi’s book Christ Stopped at Eboli takes place here) We actually drove through Eboli on our way here however we did not stop.

By far this has been one of the most dramatic and stunning drives of the trip. There is little industry and it kind of looks like how the Alps must look in the Summer, very green and tons of flowers and steep rock outcroppings . There is still a little snow on the highest peaks.

We broke up the trip with a stop at Castelemezzano, a small town about 20 minutes off the main road up a ton of switchbacks and a few log tunnels. The town is stuck to the side of the mountain just below a couple of large outcroppings. We walked around a bit, it seemed much more lively than some of the other small hill towns we’ve stopped in.

The second half of the drive reminded us of Colarado with gentle, scrubby hills. It’s all very green right now but in the Summer it must look like scorched earth, no trees anywhere.

You can see Matera from a long way away, it’s good size and sits on top of a hill above a steep ravine. Matera is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, dating back to the prehistoric times. The old part of the city called the Sassi where we are staying were once the embarrassment of Italy (even as late as the 50s people lived in the ancient caves with their animals and rampant malaria). Now it’s a UNESCO world heritage site and the 2019 European of culture. It is also breathtaking in a beautiful but sort of melancholy way, like a place that suffered a lot.

We got into town around 2 and had a late lunch of orecchiette which were delicious. We’ll be touring around tomorrow, exploring the labyrinth of streets in the Sassi area and also hopefully the Neolithic caves remains outside of town. Sara is very excited that there are Byzantine art examples in some of the churches here as that is one of her favorite periods of art.

Italy Road Trip

Old Stuff and Coastal Drives

By Dave and Sara on Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Last night after settling into the hotel we headed to Oasi for dinner. Being down south and close to the ocean, it is great to have non-pasta seafood meals. The entire area is pretty quiet. Most places appeared quite shuttered. Overall everything was good.

This morning we woke up and went on a run around the ancient town of Paestum. We actually got very lucky as it started raining very hard as soon as we got back to the hotel. We had some breakfast and it was time to enter the ancient town of Paestum just as the rain cleared and the sun came out.

The ruins reminded us of Pompeii; however, some were in much better shape including the temples. It was mind blowing to be standing in a temple that was built nearly 2,500 years ago. Throughout the town there are a ton of stray dogs. Some were quite cute. Of course, we kept our distance even though they appeared friendly.

After walking the ruins we headed in to the museum next door. It was quite impressive all of the frescos they were able to recover.

After we saw the sights, we hit the road to find a small costal town for lunch. Below Paestum there is a large national park that is also a UNESCO site called Cilento. It sort of looks like Amalfi with towns tucked into little coves but the hills are more gentle. We drove the coastal route which is really, really beautiful but also pretty windy so we were happy to not encounter too much traffic. Our first attempt to find lunch brought us to a beautiful seaside locale; however, everything was closed up tight. Luckily we were able to find a place in the nearby town right on the water called Cefalu. The family who ran the hotel and restaurant have a sister in San Diego who owns a restaurant in Cardiff called Trattoria Positano. They were nice and we chatted about their trips visiting California, they told us we had to come back sometime when it’s Summer. We would happily come back here.

Italy Road Trip

Cow a Bunga

By Dave and Sara on Tuesday, March 13, 2018

This morning was bittersweet. We were very sad to say goodbye to Matt and Anna. We had such a great time with them exploring Rome. Maybe even too good of a time at points. That being said, Italy isn’t going to see itself, so we must move on. We left the apartment and headed to the train station to pick up our next rental car, the Alfa Romeo.

Southward bound! We got on the autostrada towards Naples and even though the weather was a little unsettled the scenery got more and more Spring like with green hills and flowering fruit trees everywhere. For quite a bit of the drive we had Vesuvius directly in front of us and eventually the ocean. Towards the end of drive we took a detour looking for food then Waze went on the fritz so we got a little lost around Salerno. Instead of driving the highway for the last 20 minutes we took the coastal route through fields and a ton of greenhouses with the ocean peaking out between the Cyprus groves that separated us from the beach.

When we got into Paestum, our destination for the day we were ready for lunch so we went directly to the buffalo farm called Caseficio Berlotti. We thought they’d just have a little store where we could buy some cheese or a snack but they actually had a really nice restaurant serving dishes based around meat and cheese from their herd, which were also hanging out in the paddock right by the window. After lunch we got to meet the buffalo, including the little babies, some of whom were born last week and were really, really cute.

Paestum is an archeological site like Pompeii except it never got buried in ash and also it’s not as crowded. (And there are the buffalos across the street). Now we’re in the hotel hanging out and the plan is tomorrow to check it out and also maybe see the beach if it’s warm enough.

Italy Road Trip

We Came, We Saw…

By Dave and Sara on Monday, March 12, 2018

Last night we went to a great fish restaurant called La Gensola. We had many different creatures of the sea over pasta. Also apparently judging from this photo we had some wine. Sara asked for a band photo and this is what she got.

After dinner we had a night cap at a wine store that had a few tables out front directly next to our apartment. The elderly owner was out going and spent the time cracking himself up teaching everyone Italian phrases.

This morning started slowly as we watched a thunder storm roll through and hung out at the apartment. We left for lunch and with a little pizza and white wine everyone was feeling much more equipped to tackle the Vatican.The line for the basilica was kind of long but it’s so impressive inside it was worth it. We also jumped the line accidentally at the Vatican Museum and got to see the Sistine Chapel before closing, along with a few other cool rooms. The map room was a favorite.

After all that churching and arting, we headed back to our neighborhood to have an Aperitivo at Freni e Frazione. They had quite the spread of food. Upon completion of our first drink, we headed to our next Aperitivo at caffe del Moro. Dinner tonight is at Taverna Trilussa Trastevere.

We’ve had so much fun here in Rome with Matt and Anna we are sad to say goodbye so we’ll just say “Roma, alla prossima” instead.

Italy Road Trip

Roman Holidays

By Dave and Sara on Sunday, March 11, 2018

Last night Matt and Anna got in around 8pm and we had welcome drinks ready. The four of us enjoyed the night skyline from the top terrace of the Airbnb with a cocktail and then Matt and Anna freshened up from their flight before we went to dinner. Sara had made a reservation at a place around the corner recommended by our host called Il Duca in case they were up to going out after they arrived. The reservation was for 9:30/10 as the gentleman at the restaurant said but we ended up getting there around 10:30. The place was completely packed and it was probably better that we were late because they were able to seat us right away. The food was pretty good if not a little heavy and the portions were huge. We did get artichokes though (high five)

The Airbnb is in a very popular part of Rome that has tons of bars and restaurants, even after we finished dinner around midnight the streets were so full that it would have been hard to walk anywhere purposefully. Thankfully we were without purpose and so enjoyed meandering the streets filled with Romans and expats enjoying a relatively warm evening, spilling out of bars and restaurants, drinking wine and beer from plastic cups and bottles. We walked down to the river and watched the street musicians for a while and then headed back to the apartment for a nightcap on the terrace above the street.This morning was sort of overcast but warm, we had a coffee from the bar directly in front of the apartment before taking off for a day of sightseeing. Being Matt’s first trip to Europe we made sure to show him a bunch of cool old stuff on our way to the Coliseum. Unlike when we were here six years ago in January, today the major attractions were packed with people and the line was almost two hours long. We decided to buy the Roma Pass which gets you into a bunch of museums and archeological sights for discounted rates or free and allows you to jump the line. It also lets you ride the buses and metro for free so if you plan to see more than one or two places it’s a pretty good deal. Plus not waiting in line with street hawkers in your face for two hours has got to be worth something…

The sun was out and it was a great day to explore the Coliseum. After we heard a few of Dave’s art stories, it was time to go in search of lunch. We ate pizza at a place near the Pantheon, the restaurant was kind of weird but the pizza was ok (more flatbread than Neopolitan style). It started to sprinkle a little bit as we left lunch, but since we were right there we decided to go into the Pantheon (we confirmed the hole in the middle does not have glass in it when the sprinkle turned into a steady rain) and walked through Piazza Navona.

After that we turned back to the apartment, stopping on the way for a coffee and at the grocery store for wine. It’s now raining fairly heavily and we plan to sit on the terrace under the awning and watch it rain while enjoying said grocery store wine. A great way to spend a Sunday evening with friends!

Italy Road Trip

All Roads Lead To…

By Dave and Sara on Saturday, March 10, 2018

This morning we woke up early and said goodbye to Assisi which really is a magical place. Also last night we had a great dinner at a place called Osteria la Piazzetta delle Erba, the food was a little more progressive than most places we’ve seen so far and almost all organic.

On our way out we stopped at Santa Maria degli Angeli which is a giant cathedral down in the valley below the main town and the Basilica. This cathedral is very important to Franciscans because the cathedral houses the church of San Damiano which is the broken down church St Francis rebuilt with his own hands (symobolic of his role in repairing the corruption of the church at that time based in Rome.) You walk into this huge cathedral and right in the middle of it under the dome is this tiny little medieval church. It was, in Dave’s words, quite incredible to see how moved the pilgrims who come from all over the world are when they see and touch the little church. He also called it the inception church. Also inside the cathedral is the stall where St Francis died, originally it was next to his church but now they are all under the same roof. There is also a rose garden which grows thornless roses and doves.

We got on the highway and were making really good time to Rome so we decided to stop in one of the Umbrian hill towns to kill some time before we could check in to our Airbnb. We picked Narni because it’s the namesake of the books but there wasn’t really anything that special about it. We walked around and the photos turned out ok, then we left. The drive took us through some really beautiful country between Umbria and Lazio. It’s starting to look like Spring the farther south we go, the fields are so green they look neon and some of the flowering trees are starting to blossom.

Getting into Rome by car is HECTIC. You get off the main autostrada and follow a bunch of roads that go in concentric circles around the city through the grimy periphery until eventually you get into the historical center. The strangest part is that once you do get to central Rome it hits you with all the highlights (Foro Romano, Circo Masssimo, random lesser ruins) immediately. We had to go around around Roman ruins to get into the parking lot of the Radison next to the train station where we were dropping the car. Dave does an excellent job driving in Europe and today was no exception, he kept his cool even in the crazy streets of Rome when our car sat nav gave us wrong directions and we had to navigate a little bit more old school.

After dropping the car we hopped in a taxi that took us to our Airbnb in the Trastevere. It’s a walk up but so worth it- there is a rooftop terrace with views all over the city (amazing sunset too!) It’s a good size place which is great because Matt and Anna are arriving in a few hours, yay! The location is really central to everything and we are looking forward to a fun few days here with them. We spent the afternoon walking around and had a late lunch of salads and artichoke (finally!) The city is full of people out and about enjoying the beautiful weather so there is great energy.