Mangia! (Eat!)

Every time we go to Italy, we dream of all the food we will eat.  Pizza, panzerotti, pastries, pasta...all those "p" words that make our mouths water. 

Christmas dinner was really unorthodox for an American girl.  Seafood is the traditional Christmas Eve dinner, and Fabio's brother went to town buying all kinds of shellfish.  Yum.  Uh...yeah right.  Yuck.  Basically, we ate raw seafood for Christmas Eve dinner.  I was a good sport, and had one bite of everything, but I really had to choke down the oysters and clams.  It was definitely interesting, but let's just say, I didn't walk away stuffed like I would have at my parents' house.  Side note: Fabio got really sick from the seafood the next day.  He had to go to the ER in the middle of the night, and had serious stomach cramps for the next few days.  We won't be having that kind of dinner ever again, I can assure you of that.

I took pictures for posterity sake:

Breaking open the hairy mussels.  Notice how there are none on my plate.

 Boiled octopus salad.

 Unidentified shellfish salad.

 Giant shrimp.  At least they were cooked.  I only had to dismember them to eat them.

 This fish was pretty good.  I have no idea what it was, but it was cooked and tender.

 The obligatory holiday panettone:

 Enjoying Christmas Eve:

 Hot chocolate in the bar.  It's pretty much like hot chocolate pudding.  Amazing:

 Pasta at Boxing Day lunch.  Puglia is famous for orecchiette pasta:

 An amazing spread for lunch one day.  Just basic cheese and lunch meat from the store, but seriously, SO MUCH better than basic cheese and lunch meat...oh and don't forget the bread.  Wow.

 One of the many plates of pastries.  One day I had a craving for cannolis, and this is what they brought home. 

 Every time we go to Taranto, we must go to Ernesto's Pizzeria for a 2 Euro panzerotto.  The only ingredients are mozzarella, tomatoes and the dough, baked in fire wood oven.

 La Nonna wanted her picture taken in from of the mozzarella and prosciutto at the grocery store:

 Lasagna on New Years Eve:

 This is an interesting side step.  We needed to pick up some baby food for Teo.  We considered getting some horse and rabbit, but thought that might freak him out:

 Even though it was FREEZING, we HAD to have gelato:

 Pizza, of course:

The world's largest salami.  Just kidding.  I don't know about that, but it was certainly the largest salami I had ever seen.  As you can see, Matteo is loving it.

One thing I told Fabio's family was that American's invented airplanes, TV, cars, the assembly line, electricity, etc.  However, they cannot manage to make decent bread, cheese, pizza or pastries.  So sad.  That said, we always end our trips feeling fat and seriously gross.  We are happy to be back, eating a lot less sweet and rich foods.

Emilia-Romagna

Emilia-Romagna is a beautiful northern region in Italy.  It's where Fabio's dad and brother live, and we love visiting.  It borders Tuscany, and the landscape is very similar.  Rolling green hills with rows of tall, skinny cyprus trees, medieval villages. Fabio's dad and brother live in a city called Rimini, which is along the coast.  It's a HUGE Italian seaside resort town.  The coast is crammed with hotels and, unlike American beaches, each hotel owns a piece of beach, and the beaches are crowded with chairs, games, dressing rooms, food stands, etc.  It's pretty gaudy, and not really my style, but the surrounding countryside is to die for.  There is so much to see, and because it's NOT Tuscany, it's not over crowded with tourists.

Every afternoon, Fabio's dad and his wife take the ritual nap, so we took advantage of that time to sight-see.  On our drive from Puglia to Rimini, I spotted a walled, hilltop, medieval village.  We looked it up on the GPS, and the next day, we made our way back.  Gradara is remarkable.  It's geared towards tourists, which only bothers me minimally.  It was a cold day, so it was just us, and tour bus of retired Venetians.  (Who gawked over how beautiful Teo was, by the way.)

You can imagine my excitement as we approached the gate!  I mean, talk about stepping back in time!

As you can see from Teo's face, he's not too sure about Pinnochio.

 A view from the castle at the very top of the hill.  The holiday decorations were a nice touch. 

Downtown Rimini was all decked out for Christmas.  It's such a fun shopping area, and has a really sweet Roman gate.

I have always wanted to visit Ravenna.  It's the home of early Christian Era basilicas and baptistries that are laden with the most intricate mosaics I have ever seen.  You can see the apse of this basilica is completely covered in mosaics portraying Jesus, the twelve apostles and Emperor Justinian.

Basilica di San Vitale:

 Inside the Arian Baptistry.  Yes, all mosaics:

 Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe:

Ravenna was suuuuuppper cold, and it was an interesting experience to try and soak it all in with a baby in tow, but I'm so glad I finally got to go.  I'd like to go again, and take more time to learn about the history.

Every time we go to Rimini, we have to visit the principality of San Marino.  It's only 20 minutes away and is this incredible hilltop, medieval town with amazing walls and towers.  This particular day, though, was maybe the coldest day EVER.  The wind was ruthless and we did our best to protect Teo, but he wasn't lovin' it.  We walked around for about an hour, stopped in a warm, cozy gelateria for some gelato (we hadn't had any yet, and we were running out of time at that point) and then headed back to the car.

Oh. My. Goodness.  On our last day in Emilia-Romagna, we drove to a BEAUTIFUL medieval village called San Leo.  Hands down, the most beautiful drive/village I've done in Italy. It was a gorgeous day, there was hardly anyone around.  It was perfect on so many levels.  These two pictures help you get a glimpse of how beautiful this region is:

 In the village of San Leo with the castle on the cliff in the background:

 The views from San Leo were breathtaking:

 I love going inside really old churches.  This one was built in the 1100s.



Oh man.  I'm still feeling the thrill of our day trips in Emilia-Romagna.  There is still so much to see  in the region, and I'm glad we have lots to look forward to as we go back again and again!



10 Days in Puglia

We spent our first 10 days in Italy in the Southern region of Puglia.  Fabio's mom's apartment is very small, and since his brother and brother's girlfriend were also coming down, she decided to rent a trullo.  Puglia is dotted with homes called trulli (plural for trullo).  Trulli have been around for hundreds (maybe over a thousand?) years.  They are white stone homes that have cone shaped roofs, mostly located on farms, and were lived in by farmers and their families during the summer months because they stayed very cool.  Many have been renovated and now serve as vacation homes. 

This was our trullo.  It had been renovated and was beautiful inside.  It had three bedrooms and two bathrooms and a nice sized kitchen:

The nearest village, San Michele Salentino was only a few kilometers away.  We went there for pastries and cappuccinos and hot chocolates on a regular basis.

We had Boxing Day lunch at a quaint little restaurant in Ostuni.  Part of the restaurant was built into a cave.  The food was delicious too.  Teo looked so cute in his new outfit from Nanna!

 Fabio and I stayed behind in Ostuni for a walk, while Teo went home with la nonna.  Ostuni is famous for its quaint white, cobblestone streets.

 Check this out.  Fabio in 2011:

Fabio in the same place when we visited in 2007:

We stopped at an old trullo in the country.  It was really cool to see one as it was left, who knows how many years ago.

I visted Ceglie Messapica with Ugo and Valentina.  It's another charming white village.  All the villages had Christmas trees in their piazzas and had lights hanging in the streets.

 We visited the city of Lecce, which is famous for its Baroque architecture.  Too bad we were visiting during nap hours: 1:00-4:00.  Grrr.  Everything was closed.  Even the churches.

 Loved seeing the bridal photo shoot!

The whole family, minus Gianni (aka: Nonno Bis). 



We mostly had fun just hanging out together in the trullo, making trips to San Michele and eating lots of good food together.  Fabio's family hadn't spent Christmas together in 15 years, so it was quite a momentous occasion, and everyone loved doting on Matteo.