Shiny strands of pasta, covered in a dusting of parmesan cheese; the fresh crunch of a wonderful baguette, or the overpowering smell of a typical ripe french cheese; the sound of waves washing up on an ocean shore while you lounge in the shade enjoying a serving of crispy fried squid rings…

Italy

On a regular basis we daydream about moving to another country; one that is less crowded then Holland, with more good food, fresh produce, a better food culture and more sunshine too! O and let’s not forget more space. Yes, I think that would be my number one demand; more space….

Lovely France

But then reality sinks in and I think about the food in Italy, France or Greece.. Abundant food, gorgeous food, fresh, local and full of flavor.. Even thinking about it now makes my mouth starts to water. I pause for a minute and look down at my ‘lovehandles’… Hmmm, what would actually happen when we lived in one of those countries? Would I lose all control and start to eat until I weight 300 pounds? Or will all that abundance make me more in control? Don’t they tell you that the people in the southern countries are healthier? Eat more healthy olive oil (o fattening!) and consume more anti-oxidants from wine and such?

Vibrant markets in Italy

I slump back down in my seat and start to really think this through… Would I seriously let my waistline determine the location of our home? Would I be so silly as to let that influence any decision making process? You have to know that my weight is something of an eternal struggle to control. It’s not something I obsess about but it is also something I am not really happy about. I eat too much, workout too little and therefore have gained too many kilo’s. It’s a fairly simple calculation that will tip the balance either way and in my case it is definitely going the wrong way. I am also a firm believer of the fact that diets don’t work. Let’s rephrase that; they DO work but they do not teach you the value of good food or how to properly nourish your body without gaining excess pounds. They only make you lose weight and gain it back quicker then you think. So no diets for me.

So I try to eat healthy and limit the intake of gorgeously smelly cheeses or whole fat products, but I can’t resist for very long. So I fall back into old habits. We snack too much when watching all those cooking shows on tv and at certain times I am too busy to even think about doing sports.

When we visited Italy for the first time last year I totally fell in love with the country, the people and the food. And to be honest if someone would offer me the opportunity to live there I would immediately jump at the chance and worry about my waistline later. It might, in fact, work out fine as I imagine our new life in Italy to be more outdoors then it is in rainy old Holland, so more fresh air, better food and maybe a little more natural exercise?

Worlds best icecream in San Gimignano

Not so very long ago; there was no food culture to speak of in Holland, people just ate whatever was seasonal (or whatever was cheapest in the supermarket) and didn’t worry too much about it. That is slowly changing with more and more people becoming aware of the importance of good food, the use of our natural resources and how to maintain them well for the future generations to come. Food – right now – is very fashionable. Almost to the point of extreme. Cooking shows are popping up, food festivals and little fancy shops that sell outrageously expensive exotic ingredients.

And on the other extreme end; here in my town (or our part anyway) there are only supermarkets and fairly mediocre stuff to be found. No specialty stores, no good meat to be found, not even a vegetable store or a bakery!! I mean; seriously…. how did that happen? If we want anything special we have to go to Amsterdam, where there is plenty of good things to be found. But that means traffic jams, hours of time that we don’t always have. Definitely not an ideal situation by any means.

And that’s one of the things I love about countries like Italy, France or Greece. Food there has always been part of their culture; everyone knows it’s important and they take pride in their own regional cuisine. Ofcourse I am looking at it from the outside and things might be different if you live in one of those countries.

And how did we even get to this topic in the first place? Well, I can tell you the answer to that, as one day, not so very long ago we at the Cold Coffee Club #coldcoffeeclub on twitter were discussing the fact that moving to another country might not be so good for your waistline. At which point a new writing assignment was mere moments away and born before we could actually think of the amount of work involved we signed up for this new challenge. Still in the spirit of Plate to Page! Joining in this challenge we have set ourselves are Jamie, Mona, Astrid, Jenn, Ilva and some are even sharing this topic with the challenge for Paperchef, which I will be posting about SOON… (making it tomorrow!)

Fresh baguette every morning...

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Spaghetti vongole

What better way to finish our last few days in Italy then by the seaside? Sandra and I specifically booked a room with seaview and wow, what a view we have!! I will post a shot of our hotel balcony at the bottom, so you can be envious… We chose Rapallo because of it’s location and convenience when travelling back. Because Levanto is quite close from here and because we thought that was a disappointing coastal town our expectations where not too high about Rapallo, but we were pleasantly surprised. Sure, it’s a little rundown, but our hotel is lovely, the food is fabulous and there is a beach, sunshine and nice people. I mean truly; is there anything else you need for a final few days of relaxation?

So the last few days are not gonna be very eventful and we have not planned much more then a little sightseeing, but basically our last days will be filled with beach, relaxing, reading and good food… So with that I will finish our trip in Italy with just a few more photos to keep you entertained and tomorrow we will already be in France; on our way back home!! (which is also always nice… and I would love to see Gizmo again!)\

Good food!

View from our balcony by day

View from our balcony at night

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Views of Siena (and yes, that is pecorino again...)

Ah…. Siena…. What can I say about Siena that possibly describes this beautiful city? Maybe because we were slightly disappointed about Florence or maybe because it’s just what it is; but Siena was a pleasant surprise.
The city is just gorgeous but while still being touristic is has retained it’s original atmosphere. The centre is filled with medieval buildings and obviously the most famous square in Italy is the Piazza il Campo where each year the Palio is held. Seeing the square you do wonder how they manage to get all those horses racing in there, but when you look at the photos it is really not all that big.
We were told by one of the waiters of one of the many cafes around the square that apparently if you get a ticket to watch the palio you cannot leave the square for the next 6 hours and there is no shade whatsoever!! We were there for about 30 minutes in the sunshine and because it gently slopes downwards, there is almost no wind but loads of sunshine…. I think I would probably still grab the opportunity if it would ever happen but it’s not a good prospect to be standing in the scorching heat for 6 hours!!
We managed to find a great place for lunch at a small Osteria called Il Ghibellino, which was packed with Italian families when we arrived but we gladly waited for a table as the food that they were being served looked really good.

Torta di parmiggiano with zucchini flowers

As a starter I had a delicious little pie made of Parmiggiano Reggiano and zucchini flowers, main was a pasta with ricotta and pomodori and no dessert (too many dessert where had already, so better skip one every once in a while…)

We walked around some more and had ice cream at Nanini I believe it is called which is supposed to be famous for it’s great ice cream. And it was good, but not as good as the icecream we had in San Gimignano at DiPiazza. If you’re ever there, go and look up that little shop. It will be worth it, I guarantee you!

Siena has many steep hills so after walking around for hours we starting to feel our feet and instead of staying for dinner we decided to spend our last day in Florence in Radda in Chianti where we had a lovely dinner before in the tiny bodega there. It’s small but perfect for a small meal and since we had a big lunch we figured a smaller dinner would be in order to be able to still fit into our pants the next day..

The trip from Siena there is not too long as most of the distances within the Chianti region are fairly short, although most have many many winding roads (unless you take the highway that is)

We chose for dinner just a plate of various pecorino cheeses for the girls and various salumi’s for the boys. Ofcourse mixed with a Chianti Classico, that was a perfect meal for another perfect day in paradise… (well, ok that is maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point!)

The next day we would be leaving for the lovely little town of Gorzano di Maranello where we would stay at Ca’ Penelope and have that wonderful cooking lesson from Lorna but you already know all about that. By the way Gorzano itself is really not much, but the b&b is wonderful, so I should point that out before mass tourism will go in the direction of Gorzano to be entirely disappointed..lol…

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Dessert in Pienza; lemon cake with wild strawberries sauce and chocolate

For most of our trip we have been eating in small Osteria’s, Trattoria’s or even little cafe’s; as much as possible enjoying the local food. Being surrounded by Italians is usually a good sign when you’re entering a restaurant or trattoria. But when we came into Pienza, one of the first restaurants we came upon was a lovely place called La Terrazza del Chiostro  with a gorgeous view over the entire valley.

A beautiful outside terrace (it was a hot sunny day) with a little wind, so we just had to book a table for later that afternoon for lunch.

But first we had to go in search of the famous Pecorino for which Pienza is quite famous… Did you know there are endless varieties of pecorino?? I only knew the one kind we can find in our supermarkets (and not even a regular supermarket) and the ones I had tasted sofar where too salty for my taste, but I’ve learned a whole lot more about pecorino and have been eating far too much of it…

Pienza

Now do you see that cheese in the photo above with the straw on it? It was actually worse when you saw it ‘live’ and combined with the strong smell…. let’s just say that my adventurous mind came to a rest when I saw that cheese. It’s probably lovely and in actual fact I might have eaten it but the whole cheese just looked a bit too much for me. One of the disadvantages of traveling in one car with four people is that space is rather limited when it comes to bringing stuff back home and since we have already bought a lot of wine, parmesan and some wonderful sausages… there is only a tiny bit of space left. Tom does not like cheese and the smell of pecorino makes him sort of ill, so no pecorino home for me. Unless I can find a place where they vacuum pack like they did the Parmiggiano Reggiano… That’s the only way we will be able to take smelly cheese back home. The meat we bought is dried so that should be ok and it’s certainly not smelly so far (we don’t keep it in the car unless traveling from one place to the other)

Lunch in Pienza

And then our lunch…. it was certainly not the best meal we have had (those where usually the ones in the little trattoria’s and osteria’s) but it was definitely the best looking lunch for sure! And the best place to sit too, which has got to be worth something.

And here I am wanting to write in this post about Siena as well, but it’s already long so I’ll leave it at just Pienza…

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Dinner in Radda, icecream in San Gimignano, Verraza

I am not really keeping a chronological order when telling you of our Italian adventures but I am sure no one will mind. We are at the moment still in Ca’Penelope, but will be leaving tomorrow. The weather is still not really fantastic but at least today has been a little drier then the last two days, so we actually got to see something outside rather then inside. But because of the weather I do have the change to write a little bit about our adventures sofar and bore you with more pictures of fabulous food and beautiful surroundings.

As you know we traveled from Alba to the coast where we visited the Cinque Terre and stayed in a coastal town called Levanto. I have to say that we all thought that Levanto was rather disappointing, but it was conveniently located so we could visit the places we wanted to go to easily. And since we were so close to the Cinque Terre, that was high on our list of places to go to… However; maybe because we had heard so much about it, or maybe it is just far too crowded with tourists…we found the Cinque Terre disappointing. Sure the surrounding area is beautiful and when you hike along the coastal path, some of the views are indeed breathtaking (see photo above on the right), but the groups of tourists (busloads full) are just far, far too many. And we are not even visiting in the high season, so I can only imagine the drama it will be in July or August! And I guess not all things are for all people. It became quickly evident that our preference lies in the smaller towns and the more personal approach of little places.

Famous Macceleria in Greve in Chianti

We stayed for a week in Tuscany itself in a tiny little village called Macie, which is close to Cavriglia (also not big) and very well located between Florence, Siena and the Chianti route. Our bed & breakfast was called Amoliv and unfortunately this did not live up to our expectations. It started with receiving a text message while we were already travelling that the appartment we booked for a week was not available, but she had a “beautiful appartment for us as an alternative. But then when we arrived the woman in charge had – by mistake – given that to someone else already, so we were rushed into our car to basically chase the other people out of ‘our’ house… I guess it was a combination of things with which I will not bore you, but if she had only handled it differently we would have felt completely different too. The house was big but just barely finished with piping still coming out of the walls. I mean; don’t get me wrong; we had a great week, but that was not in any way due to our hostess!

Tuscany itself was fabulous and the whole area is gorgeous. I had heard so much about it that I was afraid it would be a let-down but it wasn’t at all. The only thing maybe that we did not like as much as we had expected was Florence itself. Sure it is a beautiful city, but again; very very busy and loads of tourists. To be fair; it was pouring rain on the day we visited Florence and that certainly did not help our opinion of the city, but we had expected a little bit more then what we got. (Although the market was great in Florence!!)

San Gimignano is also very touristis but we loved that place and the medieval centre of town. Ah well so much has happened that I cannot possible tell you all…. I will write a little more about Tuscany in my next post about Siena and Pienza… But first a few shots of the market in Florence.

Market in Florence

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