Ok, we’ve been in Rome for four nights and Kate one of our daughters joined us here three days ago! I’ve been trying to decipher in my mind how to blog Rome when there’s so much to do and see. So I’ve decided to have a separate blog for the food in Rome, it’s that good.

Many, many city’s across the world are known for their food scenes, however Rome is truly a gastronomical delight for us. I cook most of the food we eat on this adventure, but Cindy and I agreed, and budgeted, to enjoy the food and food lifestyle of Rome.

So, here we go with my overview of the great Roman food scene.

Bars

Every neighborhood, city, town and village have what they call bars everywhere, they are very interesting spots.

They are really neighborhood coffee shops and cafes. They are open early in the morning and sell coffee drinks and light bakery items, baked crumb cake and croissants are favorites.

Italians love coffee and drink it all day. At lunch they offer light food items and coffee. During the afternoon they offer coffee and snacks, cookies are very popular. In the evening, they offer coffee and flavored liquors. Italians will spend hours chitchatting in bars, it’s their hangout. The bars in Italy are where Howard Schultz came up with the idea for Starbucks. It’s what he calls the third place, Work, home and the coffee shop/bar. We enjoyed the coffee in many a bar.

Pasta. Italians eat pasta at lunch and dinner almost everyday. The selection of dried and fresh pasta and tomato sauce is huge in every store. Our Airbnb host says he keeps 20 pounds of dried pasta on hand, he never wants to run out.

Pizza, we love pizza and I make them at home regularly. I think I make a pretty mean pie. In Italy, pizza is king. They make three types, Thin crust, that’s Roman style

Napoli style, that’s with a little air in the slightly pillowy crust.

And foccacia style, which is proofed 12-24 hours on a sheet pan, then baked until half done. They then top it with assorted toppings and baked until done. Fresh ingredients are added after baking in some cases.

Pizza shops in the neighborhood are very important and a social hotspot. Some also sell other food, including chicken and panini sandwich’s. We visited way too many.

Gelato is a staple in Italian life. There’s a shop on every corner in every city. It’s not just for tourists, Italians believe it helps your digestive system to eat a little gelato. Who am I to argue.

Vino, Italians love to drink vino, and it’s very inexpensive in Italy, €5 buys a good bottle. Most Italian wines are blends to be drank with food. Italians don’t usually sit around and drink just wine, they have food with there vino. We did our best to help the economy.

Great, great food scene here in Italy and Rome, we love it

Ciao! Ciao🍷

Quick and easy drive from the beautiful Dolomites to Southern Tuscany and Chiusi, our home for the next three nights. We are staying at Al Giardino Degli Etruschi, our friends, Carolina and Paulo’s lovely B&B in Chiusi. They also have a two bedroom apartment we rented, quite lovely.

This is our third time staying with Carolina and Paola, it only gets better!

Ok, there’s nothing better than Tuscany. Let’s take a tour of old favorites and new city’s!

Montepulciano, it’s one of our favorites in the world. It’s a walled city full of historic scenery.

Wine tasting is a little different in Italy. The city’s specialize in Enotecas, which offer wines from the area and tasting of such wine. You can hurt yourself here$$

On to Monticchiello, a quiet little village with no tourists!

Ok, Montalcino, home of Italy’s most expensive wine, Brunello, delicious but very $$$

Back to our lovely Chiusi for a Charcuterie plate and Vino on the patio👍😎🍷

Next day, on to Civita di Bagnoregio, a city created by the erosion of sandstone around the city. All that is left is the old city on rocks, quite interesting!

One of the fun things in Tuscany are the little motorcycles/converted pickup, I want one!

Last stop today, Todi. A quiet little city on top of the hills in Umbria. Like the Italy you dream of.

Tuscany is truly a magnificent place, it can be anything you want, from big city’s and tour buses to quiet villages where you can be the only visitor that day, your call and your planing.

P.S. Tuscany is hilly. Tour director Cindy was brutal. Ten miles a day plus hills and steps. Thank goodness for beer and wine😜

Off tomorrow to Rome for five nights. Kate, our oldest daughter will join us. Unfortunately, Kellie and Pat won’t be able to join us.

Ciao Ciao

Wow, what a beautiful village we are staying in Barbiano is one of many small villages doting the mountainsides of Tyrol, it’s lovely. The view from our wonderful Airbnb.

Quite the view😎 What a crazy day we had last Thursday, between traffic and rental car issues, it was a 14 hour day to arrive in Tyrolia. Crazy, but worth the effort. We explored our village Barbiano, on a steep mountainside covered with beauty and very steep trails.

Interesting place, the people speak German, the buildings look German, but we are in Italy😳

The main business is tourism of course, with dairy farming and wine, making for quite the vista.

The next day we drive the world famous Gardena Pass, famous for hiking, skiing and touring. Unbelievable beautiful.

Tram rides in the Dolomites

Beautiful trip, unbelievable scenery and crazy drivers. Motorcycles and cars playing speed racer, we must be in Italy ✔️

Ok, day tour of the Dolomites and the valleys, staggering.

The residents here love to garden in their yards, steep hillsides cut with beautiful gardens,

When we planned this adventure, we knew the traveling would be exhausting, so we tried to plan some R&R days, this place is one of them. Five nights, fours days to relax and catch our breath, great choice here. Tomorrow we travel to Chiusi in southern Tuscany to visit our friends Paulo and Carolina for a few days👍

Auf Wiedersehen!

Google maps says a four hour drive from Pula, Croatia to Spinea, Italy, where we are staying outside Venice. So, tour director Cindy says let’s take a side trip to Vipava Valley in Slovenia😎 O.K. says I, and away we go. Easy drive, easy boarder crossing into Slovenia, and some great views and vino 🍷 We even enjoyed a picnic in a vineyard.

Ok, into Italy. Northern Italy is where the manufacturing factories are in Italy and it’s a very wealthy area. We arrive at our Airbnb with no issues. Basic place, safe and clean, and closed gate parking for the trusty Peugeot. We take a walk to check out our new neighborhood. Safe, clean and fun, no tourists and gelato 😜

Ok, we game planned that night. Venice is a huge tourist destination and world famous for its crowds, and with a forecast of heavy rain at 14:00 we decided to take the regional train from Spinea to Venice at 6:00 am😳

Easy train in. The train station, Stazione di San Lucia, opens right to the Canal Grande, awesome. These pictures were taken at sunrise 😜

Venice has a wonderful water-bus system, it’s called a Vaporetto, €20 you can ride all day to every major sight. It’s so much fun, even I laughed.

Unbelievably beautiful. Takes your breath away and empty at 7:00 am.

Remember Venice is a collection of islands. Everything here comes in on boats, everything 🧐

Also everything must come off, this is a garbage boat in Venice.

A day in Italy without pizza is like a day without sunshine 😎

Ok, 14:00, it’s pouring we head for the train station and arrive safely home. Excellent city, unbelievably beautiful, clean, safe and great memories.

Tomorrow we drive to Milan to give the trusty Peugeot back (it’s been almost six months😳) and pickup a rental car for one month. Then, we drive to the Dolomites, that’s in the southern Tyrol area of Italy for five days. Hope it doesn’t snow.

P.S. Tour director Cindy was nice again today, only 11 miles, large flat cobblestones and the only stairs were bridges!

Ciao Ciao😜

After a fantastic time in Trogir we headed east then north to our next stop in Pula and the Istrian Peninsula. It’s an easy drive on the Toll highway, up the center of Croatia up and over the mountains, then dropping back to the coast, six hours total.

Arrived safely, thanks to our GPS, at our Airbnb on the top floor of a Condo building in the suburbs. Cute space and a much needed washing machine 😜

Simple dinner on the balcony and a little research for tomorrow and catching up on paperwork! Ok it’s a 40 minute drive to Rovinj from our home base, so we head out early 7:00 to beat any crowds. Map of the area.

Rovinj is the center piece of the Istrian peninsula. It’s an island that was filled in over the century’s to become a peninsula. Very small and quaint. Great walking with easy parking✔️

Fun place, notice the marble cobblestones🧐 Rovinj’s language is both Italian and Croatian. It’s industry is tourism and fishing, with lots of folks still living in the city. It’s not a tourist trap. We are very close to Italy, and it’s Italian influences are everywhere. You can find pizza and gelato stands all over.

Back to our Airbnb for a quick bite then down to the old town of Pula. It’s a mid size town, 300k with a very long and complex history.

Greeks brought civilization to the nomadic tribes here in 300 BC, then the Romans came around 50 AD and made Pula a very important colony. The harbor here is huge.

Old town Pula.

Pula doesn’t seem to be geared for tourists. The beautiful buildings are in bad shape and the Soviets built several ugly apartments in the historic old Town😳

The shipyards and huge harbor were empty of cargo ships and the huge ships under construction looked abandoned😳

Sorry, Pula’s not on the return list.

Headed to Venice, Italy tomorrow, with a stop in the Vipava Valley in Slovenia for some wine tasting 🍷🧐

P.S. Tour director Cindy was nice to me today, only 8 miles with stairs and cobblestones😜

Italy, wine, pizza and gelato 😎✔️

Ciao! Ciao! 🍷

Leaving Dubrovnik under beautiful, sunny skies and temperatures in the high 70’s, we headed north to Split, Croatia. We retrace our route traveled to Dubrovnik in reverse for 2 hours, crossing into Bosnia and returning to Croatia with no problems! We turn off for Split and Trogir after an easy four hour drive.

We are staying at Airbnb’s for most of this trip and when we booked this segment, we didn’t notice that we were actually booking in Trogir, not Split. Trogir is 45 minutes from Old Town Split, sometimes mistakes are good. This one definitely was👍

Our GPS guided us close to our Airbnb and our hosts instructions delivered us to our new home. Lovely place, small, one bedroom, but safe parking and check out that view at night✔️

Ok, after check in we decide to walk down the hill into Trogir. It’s a lovely, small town with a huge business of transporting people to and from the islands in the area. Literally hundreds and hundreds of boats taking people to and from the surrounding islands. Quite the happening place on the water.

Fun, fun place 😎👍

Ok, up bright and early to go to Split. We drive to Split as it a distance away and the bus would take hours. Split is a big city, over 400k in population with lots of high rise apartments, glad we didn’t stay here✔️ We find the worlds second most expensive parking lot and start our tour of Split. It’s 8:00 AM and quite peaceful, walking tour here we come!

Split has a huge harbor and is a main point of departure and arrival for the Croatian ferry service to the nearby islands.😎

The main attraction here is Diocletian’s Palace, started by the Greeks in 300BC and rebuilt by the Romans in 300AD. It’s been rebuilt and destroyed many, many times.

The Roman vision.

Today, parts have been restored, but mainly it’s a tourist area, shops and restaurants aplenty. Still some great sights and fun walking.

Ok, it’s 12:00 and the tour bus crowds are in full swing. Back to lovely Trogir for a light lunch, walking tour and some serious people watching 🧐

Trogir has a great vibe, great restaurants and bars and was very, very enjoyable, highly recommended 🍷😎😜

Excellent visit, great place to chill and enjoy the sun. Have to put this one on the list for another visit and check out the islands 😎🍷✔️

Off to Pula, Croatia today, with a five hour drive, all toll roads 😳

P.S. We are getting closer to Italy. I can smell the pizza😜

Ciao! Ciao!

After our quick overnighter in Plitvice Lakes National Park we headed to Dubrovnik Croatia. Google says five to seven and a half hour drive. It’s going to be interesting🧐

The drive through the National Park is interesting. We started out in heavy fog going through heavy timber, then, we left the fog behind and transitioned into a rocky landscape with scrub trees. Again, no agriculture, nor farm animals. However, everywhere are stands in front of homes advertising honey and cheese. Doesn’t cheese come from cows or goats😳

Ok, up the hill we go, really rocky, windswept area. Lots of old machine gun nests (remember they fought a civil war here 1991-1995), then down the hill we go. All toll highways by the way. Lovey lake we passed.

Then, just like that we dropped down to the sea, lovely Mediterranean feel here. Lemon trees, grapes and olives and humid as heck. Our lunch spot and some views.

People selling fresh limes, lemons and farm fresh veggies roadside.

Driving down the road (it’s two lanes now), we see beautiful beaches, lovely villas and condos, quite the tourist spot.

We enter Dubrovnik, it’s not a huge city but very old and the GPS takes us to our Airbnb. We have a little issue finding our exact street (the Polish map guys must have built Dubrovnik) but get checked in. Only street parking here 😳

Cute little Airbnb, small but functional, with a great balcony😎👍

Afternoon walking tour of the city, we are right on the water.

Ok, two days to explore Dubrovnik, really the old city of Dubrovnik is the sight everyone comes here to see. The Game of Thrones had some scenes from a show filmed here and the tour buses and cruise ship crowds are huge! The first day we slept in so we arrived at Old Town around 10:00 AM, big mistake! Huge crowds, tours everywhere and literally thousands of people in a small area. We do our best to regroup and see what we can🧐 Beautifully restored city, it was destroyed in an earthquake in 1667, rebuilt, then was shelled in 1994 during the civil war, destroying 50% of the Old City. It’s beautiful now, just full of people.

Pile Gate, world famous!

The Old City and harbor.

Ok, today we get back on the Mike and Cindy plan, up early and at the city by 7:30. We pay for the walking tour that lets us walk the entire Old Town walls, awesome.

It was approximately two km around the loop with thousands of stairs and slopes😳

Beautiful city, lovely sights, just lots and lots of people😎 We did take an afternoon and enjoyed the beach and then sat on our deck and watched the ship traffic. It was substantial from the tours and ferries to the extensive group of islands. Tour director Cindy was nice to me here, we only walked 18 miles with thousands and thousands of steps.

Off tomorrow to Split in the middle of the Croatian coast line. Should be a beautiful drive.

Ciao, Ciao!

We left beautiful Budapest and crept our way out of the city on two lane roads. City’s in Eastern Europe have terrible auto access to the city centers. You’d almost think those roads were there before cars🧐

Onto the freeway and smooth sailing, until the boarder of Hungary and Croatia. We’ve visited 23 countries now and been in Europe over five months with no border crossing issues until yesterday! We drove to the border with our passports in hand, with French license plates on the Peugeot. Usually we are waved through, a couple of times we are asked a few questions and then waved through. Not yesterday. The border guard asked for our passports and vehicle registration and asked us to pull out of line😳 Then five minutes later he comes back to the car and asks for a form that allows us to stay in a country for 90 days. We explained we are driving through 23 countries and the US state department says we didn’t need one because we were not staying in any one country for 90 days. Long story short after being “detained” 20 minutes, a different person walks up, hands us our passports and registration and says “Good Bye” and waves us off. Welcome to Croatia😎

Ok, we continue our drive through Croatia to the Plitvice National Park, an area of world renowned beauty. Driving through the countryside, you can’t help but notice the empty, destroyed homes and the homes damaged by warfare during the Croatia war of Independence. They are very common.

We arrive at the National park area. We are staying one night in the village of Rastovaca, a very small village. The industry here is tourism. Hundreds of homes in the area are now Airbnb and B&Bs, incredible. Ours is a perfect example, seven rooms in one house.

The Park is renowned for its beautiful water and waterfalls. The watercolor is green to blue depending on the sunlight and clarity. The Park is much more spectacular in the spring as the falls are all spring fed and much more dramatic in that season. Still awesome and we got to walk eight miles up and down the hills to see everything.

Fun day, but the crowds were huge. Some people report in the summer they wait four hours in line for tickets😳 We were lucky, we walked right in. At least 50 tour buses we passed on our way today driving to Dubrovnik Croatia, were headed for the Park. Crossed into Bosnia once, then back into Croatia without be detained😎👍

Sitting on our patio now, enjoying the cocktail hour

Three nights here, enjoying the sunshine and views

Ciao, Ciao😎✔️🍷

We left lovely Vienna, under perfect fall skies to head to Budapest Hungary. Tour director Cindy says the trip is only two and a half hours so we need a quick stop in Bratislava, Slovakia. Ok, I say😳 so off we go in the trusty Peugeot. It’s interesting in Eastern Europe, there are very few city’s/towns between the major city’s on the freeway. Just farmland and forests, no farm animals, just range land, weird😳

Ok, made it to Bratislava. A small city, looks like a tourist layover to me between Budapest and Vienna.

We did manage to find the worlds most expensive parking lot, €9 for 90 minutes, must be in NYC😜

Ok, on to Budapest Hungary. I don’t know about you, but I never thought I’d drive into Budapest in a trusty Peugeot 😳 Feeling a little nervous, we find our Airbnb right downtown, in the heart of the action. Very unusual for us!

Easy check in with the guard, a woman who speaks no English and we park the Peugeot in the basement and away we go!

Ok, up bright and early on Thursday to start our tour. Tour director Cindy says we are in the heart of the city. No use for the Underground or the trams, we can walk. Oh boy, I say, it could be an interesting trip😳

Budapest is a very, very beautiful city, unbelievably well designed with the Danube River cutting through the middle. It’s actually two city’s, Buda and Pest. We’re staying on the Pest side which is considered the newer side.

Budapest is a huge tourist destination. The Viking river boat cruises start and end here and it’s tour bus central. However, it’s a huge city geographically, and can hold the huge crowd! We counted 25 cruise ships on the river the first night😎

Ok, walking tour says tour director Cindy!

Great underground and tram but we don’t get to ride them much, we must walk!

First up, the Széchenyi Lanchid bridge between Buda and Pest!

Crossing the river again, Shoes on the Danube Bank, a memorial where 20,000 Jews were shot in WWII and fell in the river after removing their shoes.

Parliament and Kossuth Lajos Square, home to parliament and the site of the Hungarian uprising to the Soviets in 1956!

Ok, day one 12 miles, I’m in deep trouble😎

Next day, Buda castle with a fun tram ride.

Ok, Fisherman’s Bastion and Matthias church, stunning!

Buda Tower

Ok, we have the afternoon off, let’s go to the Széchenyi Thermal Bath, the largest and most famous thermal spa in Budapest! Unbelievable…pools, saunas, steam rooms and pools with different temperatures, all thermal water. A life experience😎

Ok, food time. Interesting city for food with lots of influences, Asian, Greek, Middle Eastern and Slavic. Fun place

A

A Transylvanian BBQ festival. Different stews on the BBQ with bands playing 😜

Budapest’s first Food Cart street party🍺😎

Unbelievably beautiful city. Huge,

Multi-cultural and a party spot all in one! Off to Croatia tomorrow, with an overnight in Rastovaca, Croatia, in the Plitvice Lake National Park.

FYI, we walked 50 miles in the last four days, with steps up many a hill.

Ciao! Ciao! from Budapest!

Leaving Krakow Poland with a little case of nervousness as we needed to backtrack 90 km on the freeway under Czech construction 😒 We made our way to Vienna on a bright, sunny Saturday. We arrived with limited issues and checked into our Airbnb. It’s a home in a residential area, a nice change from the high rise apartments we’ve been staying at. Easy check in so off we go to explore our new neighborhood! Underground station 10 minutes away with easy City Centre access✔️

We take the owners advice and walk to what he calls the Old Danube. It’s a short walk, great recreation area, swimming, boating, beach activity’s, it’s a happening place and it’s 82 and sunny 😎 We walk about and see what else there is? A beer garden 😜 It’s sunny and we are in Austria. What’s a couple supposed to do?

Fun night😜🍺 Sunday morning bright and early we walk to the U bahn ( subway) buy our tickets, quick and easy, wonderful U bahn and Tram system here, excellent. Tour director Cindy has a walking tour planed for us in the historic city center. Vienna is a very popular tourist city, 14 million tourists a year, so we get moving!

Vienna is a very, very beautiful city, rich in history and very wealthy, even today. It’s been a center of Culture for hundreds of years and the architecture and buildings represent the wealth of the city. Museums, Opera Halls and concert halls are major sights. Along with unbelievable Catholic Church’s, staggering!

Vienna is a very famous city in the coffee and bakery world. It’s coffee shops are world renowned for stuffy waiters and the Patisseries shops (fine cakes and pastry’s) are world famous here. Dumel, world famous for cake, excellent goods👍

Lots of walking, over 12 miles from tour director Cindy, that’s got to mean beer and schnitzel. We are in Austria 😎👍🍺

Ok,

Ok let’s take a trip up the lovely Melk Valley. It’s a 1 1/2 drive from Vienna, and it’s famous for white wines and beautiful scenery. You might recognize it from a Viking cruise.

One more day in Vienna, using the U Bahn and trams, which are wonderful in Vienna, we visited Schönbrunn Palace and Gardens.

Belvedere Palace and Gardens. Unbelievable gardens and views.

Then walked and rode the day away. It’s a huge city with sights everywhere, definitely a winner!

Ok, walking/tram tours over, time for the world famous Schweizerhaus, beer garden and restaurant 🍺😎

Great places, very historic, lots to do and see and it’s big enough to hold the crowds, which are huge! Driving to Budapest today with a stop in Bratislava, Slovakia 😳

Ciao Ciao😎🍺👍