Postcards from Italy

06 June 2011

Culinary adventures at Pian del Lago

Nonna feeds us really well. Most of the food we eat for dinner comes from her garden, fresh and organic. These are a few of my favorite dishes:

Hard-bolied eggs with salsa verde, which is kind of like a milder pesto

Rice with vegetables

Macedonia or fruit salad - our dessert most nights

Breakfast. Nonna puts our cereal in glass jars. These Miel Pops taste like Honey Nut Cheerios, but are 10 times better. I will miss them.

Spaghetti al pesto

Stuffed zucchini with tomato

Chicken with lemon and sage

Honey from our backyard--Nonna and her family are beekeepers

My birthday cake, made by Liz and Margaret

04 June 2011

Ravenna

On Friday we headed to Ravenna. We saw a church I've been dying to go to since I first saw it in my 12th grade art history textbook: San Vitale, a church with an apse of mosaics. I practically got chills when I first walked in--it was stunning. I only wish photos would give it justice.

Gala Placidia Mausoleum

Detail of the mosaics

the Tomb of Dante

Bologna

This weekend we spent a couple days in the region of Emila Romagna, which is just north of Tuscany.

We arrived in Bologna Thursday morning since we had the holiday off--Festa della Reppublica, the equivalent to our 4th of July--and walked around the city, which is ORANGE. Every shade of orange. After seeing the sights we found a nice little trattoria and treated ourselves to some traditional Emilia-Romagnese foods: tortellini and ragu` al Bolognese. Sooo good. We also had some gelato--but that pretty much goes without saying!

29 May 2011

Lucca (and Pisa)

This weekend we took a day trip to Lucca, another little Tuscan town just a couple hours away by train. Lucca is charming, probably one of my favorite places here (but I tend to say that about every city in Italy...). There are bikes everywhere, of every color and every decade. We rented some out and rode them around the city wall, which was a lot of fun and allowed us to see more in less time; it was beautiful.

On the way back, when the train made a stop at Pisa, me and Liz made a split-second decision to get off and see the complex. It was an impulse decision but it turned out great. In about 30 minutes were were back at the station and took the next train back, after having taken a bunch of cheesy tourist photos that one must take of the Leaning Tower. But people weren't lying to me when they said that there's nothing in Pisa but the complex--30 minutes was just the right amount. We even met back up with the rest of the group at on of the other train change stops.