So half my post... (I need to finish it later, bear with me!)
I thought I would come back and write something down about my little trip around Italy. Well, firstly I made it but man I was bushed at the end. 3289km driven over 6 days was pushing my limits haha
Firstly, lots of lessons learned from it. We would definitely do it again, the kids would too, maybe with 2 days in each place though to give us some more time. We really loved exploring and seeing new things, which we tried to do in all places, which was great.
We started out last Tuesday morning, left about 6am from my house in Blotzheim with the aim to make our first stop in Modena.
Drive was fine, but stuck in some traffic outside Milan held us up, but we made it to the centre of Modena by lunch time.
We hit a local market and bought some stuff for the evening meal and then found a google recommendation for Pizza a short walk away. Last time we did Italy we managed to be there a whole weekend and failed at good pizza. The first was cooked by Chinese people and the second was microwaved… so this time I didn’t want to fail!
I have to say, it was one of the tastiest pizzas I’ve had, and my daughters carbonara was just amazing.
Full and with an hour and a bit still to do in the car, we headed back to the car just as a tow truck was starting to hoist the car on the back! I spoke to the police man who explained that I parked where I shouldn’t have (other cars were there when I parked and there was no sign), when I said there was no sign, he simply said “in Italy we don’t need signs…” cracked me up. He was very nice though and got my car for me, just made me pay a nice 120 euro fine, but that’s better than turning up 5 minutes later to no car!
More fun trying to find the Airbnb… I tried to get each place with a bit of character and views where possible, so booked this place first:
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/7926594
Now when you start to get a bit more remote and you call your host, who tries to explain in very quick broken English where to go, it’s probably not going to end too well. The zafira had it’s first real test; we were going up 30+% hills on chalky gravel, with a car full, and the wheels were spinning like mad trying to get up!
After thinking “it can’t be up there, no way!” it was. We got there though and this was the first of our 6 places and the view was so worth it…
I tried to book each place with a pool, and while we were really lucky with weather, every place we stayed had closed their pools for winter, which was a bit of a gutter. Oversight on my part, but would have been nice to say it on their AirBnB page. I’m a moron, so didn’t think. Wasn’t a problem though really, kids loved exploring!
The next day we got up and out early and headed to see San Marino. Such an interesting place, with views for miles. You can see why they built it on top of that hill so many years ago; Views across the land all the way to the sea and the buildings and fortified walls are seriously impressive. We ate some breakfast in San Marino and had an explore. Something I’d do more of here.
Then we headed south to Pescara and grabbed some local Abruzzo food from Taverna 58 (
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaur...a_58-Pescara_Province_of_Pescara_Abruzzo.html) it was a great lunch with a lovely house wine. We ended up chatting a mix of French, English and Italian to the group on the table next to us. They were so friendly and made the lunch really special.
The veal rib was sooooo nice. Tender and moist as anything.
We weren’t far from the next AirBnB, so I stopped quickly at a local wine shop and bought 16 bottles of red and we made our way here:
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/18731690
One thing I would say about the Abruzzo region; the contrast in scenery is by far one of the best I’ve ever seen. We’re by the sea, with rolling vineyards, and a backdrop of snowy mountain glaciers. Can’t begin to say how much I loved that view. Totally mind-blowing.
Next place was lovely!
The hosts were beyond nice. Considering we were there a night, you’d think we’d not get the full hosting, but we had a basket of local treats waiting for us. On top of this, they produced their own olive oil, organic wine and tomato pasta sauces (all very small batch! No labels or anything!) which they laid out for us to try. They even offered to cook us a lamb bbq for dinner as it is the local meat/ dish. Naturally we came away with some wine and olive oil… shame we weren’t there longer as they also did pasta making classes!
Day 3 and we were heading to our furthest point south in Italy; Bari. Puglia is a favourite of mine mainly due to the wine. I love a primitivo! The landscape got a lot more flat as we got further south, we lost the rolling hills and mountains and it was a lot flatter.
Again, I wanted to line up something traditional, so our next stay was in a Trulli. I traditional building of the area.
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/23464906
But before we got there, we went into Bari and explored the old town. Lovely place where we were, and we stopped to get some seafood which was a must for my family.
We ate here:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaur...La_Pesciera-Bari_Province_of_Bari_Puglia.html
And you nearly had to wheel me out… I don’t know how the Italians do first course, pasta course and then main meal. The main is normally a simple protein/ fish, but still… saying that my son managed that lot plus a dessert, so you know!
This was a simple pasta / prawn dish with grated cured egg yolk on the top and MY GOD it has so much flavour for something so simple. I loved it.
I then bought more wine…
Then we arrived at our trulli!
The kids LOVED this one. The place was so nice and my 13yr old now wants one. Ha
More to come when I type up the rest of the days...
