Roman Holiday

Run..don't walk to Ciampini if you're ever in Rome. Seriously...best gelato EVER. If you go to Rome, ask me how to get there, I'll gladly point you in the right direction.

Sticking my hand in the Mouth of Truth

Inside St. Peter's Basilica. Seeing the sunbeams inside always give me goosebumps.

Old School Rome!

Parma and Prosciutto

I've been a bit spotty lately with my blog posting, but honestly when I don't have anything to say I'd rather just not post instead of forcing myself to write something. So if anyone was wondering that's why I haven't been posting as much.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of going on one of our Outdoor Rec trips to Parma for a parmesan and prosciutto tasting. I love trips and I love Italian food, so I thought this would be the perfect trip for me.

I was not disappointed!

To start the day we went to the factory where they processed the prosciutto. We were shown the various stages that the prosciutto had to go through before it was sold to the public. The factory that went to was one of the smaller prosciutto factories, but you'd never known it from all the legs of ham. I've never seen so many in my life.

Our tour guide explaining how the stick (made from the legbone of a horse) is entered into various points of the prosciutto to test that it is good.

Afterwards we were treated to a delicious spread of various kinds of meats, cheese and wine. I do love Italian tastings!

Next we were off to Parma for a little bit of free time for lunch and a quick tour of the city. I had some tortelli with fresh herbs for lunch (no pictures, but they were quite tasty) and the tour of Parma, although short was interesting.

Our last stop was the factory that made Parmesan. Unfortunately they only make the cheese very early in the morning, so we didn't get to see that, but we did get to see one worker turning the wheels of cheese and changing the cheesecloth.

These are the cheese wheels taking a bath in salt water to release the fat from the cheese.

Have you ever seen so much cheese in your life?

The finished product with the authentic stamp letting you know it was made in the region.

I ended the day with two packages of salami and a wedge of 24 month aged Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, all for 15 euro. I'd say it was another successful day in Italy.

Castello di Bardi

Last weekend I took a trip sponsored by Outdoor Rec here on post. I usually love taking trips with Outdoor Rec because they are normally cheap, you get to see someplace you might not normally go and you don't have to worry about travel.

However, this was probably the worst trip I've ever taken. For starters, I get carsick when a road has switchbacks. One particular road we traveled on for an hour had switchback after switchback. Then the little girl in front of me got carsick and puked in her seat. Being nauseous already and then smelling vomit almost did me in. Because of a detour on the autostrada, the trip took about twice as long as it should have, putting us at our first location, Castello di Bardi about an hour and a half late.

We had a guided tour of Castello di Bardi and it was very informative. The castle had an amazing view of the surrounding valley and it was interesting to see the torture devices they used to use, although somewhat unpleasant to imagine them actually being used.



A view of the top of the castle



Inside the castle courtyard



A view to the side of the castle. Isn't the valley below pretty?



I love the zig-zag road through the valley. Even though I don't think I'd like traveling on it!



The town below



A tranquil scene within the castle



The castle was full of spooky little corners like this



I thought this church was the prettiest part of the town



This way to the castle



Horse meat for sale! I haven't been adventurous enough to try it.



This was a first for me in Italy. They drank this wine out of what we originally thought were soup bowls. I've never seen that before. It was delish wine though! We were all starving since we got done with our tour too late to eat lunch. Thankfully we found an enoteca in the next location we visited that agreed to serve us dinner. They whipped up plates of meats, cheeses and some tortellini with spinach and mushrooms. Very fresh and very delicious.



Isn't this wedding dress gorgeous? I happend to spy it on my way back to the bus.

Happy (Early) Halloween!

Since Sunday is Halloween, our friends are having their Halloween party tonight. I'm not as excited as I was earlier today about it, as Sean found out he has to work tomorrow and therefore won't be attending the party with me.

I'm making chocolate chip cookies to take to the party (best cookies ever!) and I'm going to start working on putting together my cop costume in a couple of hours. Don't worry I'll take pictures!

I made a storyboard of some of my favorite Halloween type images to share. Some of the images were taken a few days ago at the cemetery outside Venice. It's on an island and there are several famous people buried there. I'll try to do a post with some of those pictures in a few days.

Wine Down Wednesday

Today I went on a short trip with our ODR for a Wine Down Wednesday featuring one of my favorite wines: Prosecco. In case you don't know what Prosecco is, it's basically the Italian version of champagne and it's delish!

We had two different tastings today and I ate more than my share of Italian meats, cheeses (parmesan and asiago) breads and of course wine.

The first vineyard we went to was huge, I can't even explain how much property they had and the cellars on site were enormous. I would venture a guess of hundreds of thousands of bottles of wine, if not close to a million. It was mind-boggling.



This whole long hallway on both sides is full of wine. There were tons of corriders like this.



Some more wine!



Me in front of the villa at the first winery.



The villa. I will miss beautiful places like this once we leave Italy!





This was at a bottega, but a distribution point of the first winery. I was obsessed with the vineyard and took a million pics.



Grapes at the second vineyard. I think the harvest season is pretty much over for the prosecco grapes, but there are a few stragglers about.



I love these flowers, they are such a gorgeous color!



This was part of the set-up at our second tasting. (Which, for the record, was my favorite of the two.)

Overall it was a successful trip. I got to tour two more places in Italy and I came away with 6 more bottles of Presecco for less than 30 euro.

Nove: Home of Ceramics

One of my favorite local places to shop here in Italy is a little town called Nove. They are known for their ceramics and after a few visits there, I am hooked.

They have some famous collections like Tiffany, Ralph Lauren, Lenox and Williams-Sonoma. Generally those collections are small, but I did spy a Tiffany cake stand that I really wanted this past visit.

My main objective this time, besides getting a gift for a friend, was to get some awesome FiestaWare-esque dishes for my own home. I'm obsessed with FiestaWare and the color turquoise, but currently don't want to spend the moolah on it, so I'm working on my knock-off Italian version.

I got everything in the picture below for 20 Euro. Not a bad price in my opinion.



There were about 3 other items in the collection, but I'm doing it a little at at time. Ideally I'd like a place setting for 6 or 8, but we'll see.

Now I just need to get to Poland for some Polish pottery....

Off to the Eternal City

Tomorrow I'm off to Rome with my brother, parents and two of their friends. Somehow I've lived in Italy for almost a year and a half and have yet to go to Rome. Don't as me how that happens. I've been to all the other major cities but Rome, but tomorrow I'm rectifying that.

Unfortunately for my visitors they started off their trip with a delay, a re-routed flight and five of their six bags didn't make it to Venice. Hopefully, the bags will be there tomorrow when we get to the airport.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have tons of pics and stories, but I'm thinking they might have to wait until I get back from the cruise.

Melissa in Milano

On Tuesday I headed to Milano with a couple of friends to check out the city. In all honesty it was fun, but the only reason I want to go back to Milan is to see the Last Supper. Other than that, once was enough. It's just not that interesting to me.



The train station in Milan



The Duomo. The 4th largest church in Europe.



Pigeons everywhere! Men try to force birdseed on you to feed the birds, but I wasn't having that. Pigeons are diseased and nasty. So no thank you!



I thought the stained glass windows were the best thing about the Duomo. They are gorgeous and numerous.



Inside the shopping promenade.



Random Snails....no idea why they were here.



My friend Dana and I with the snails



Ok...the guy on the left was our guide for the day: Claudio. His parents own a restaurant in our town that my friend frequents. He's a carbineri(sort of a military policeman) in Milan and agreed to be our guide for the day. He was AWESOME! Not only did he show us around Milan, but he insisted on buying us things like Nutella crepes and hot chocolate. He also saved me from a very embarassing fall on a tram by grabbing me at the last second. So..for all you ladies who out there who are single come meet Claudio! He's available. :)



I'm not sure why this Geisha statue was there, but it made for a nice picture.



Italians on bumper cars are brutal!!! I'm talking they go all out trying to smash into you. Melissa's Tip of the Day: Never ride bumper cars in Italy