Yes, I was in Italy for nearly 10 days by this point and I only visited one winery. What was wrong? Time to rectify that. Back in November at a Prague foodie event Klara and I met a lovely chap from Cilento, a gentlemen who owns a winery. We liked his wines and he suggested … Continue reading Where are all the Wineries?
If you’re any kind of foodie at all you know about the different kinds of mozzarella and that most of the stuff in supermarkets is mass-produced and tasteless. Campania (of which Cilento is a part) has a Protected Geographical Origin status for its Mozzarella di Bufala di Campania – you can’t make something and call … Continue reading Monstering the Mozzarella
If you didn’t know I was writing about Italy, you’d think these ruins were in Greece. You might have assumed they’re Roman. But the Greeks were here before the Romans amounted to much at all and they built plenty of temples and in fact a whole town. The town dates from the 6th century BC, … Continue reading Pondering Paestum
“The Cinque Terre of Southern Italy” So, Amalfi coast – lemons, mountains, twisting winding road, 5 towns/villages some of which from a distance bear a passing resemblance to Cinque Terre (5T for short) in Liguria, Northern Italy. The two areas share various other characteristics – overpriced food in the center, crowds of tourists in the … Continue reading Ambulating Amalfi
We’ve all heard dread stories of Napoli, that den of iniquity, the streets are full of trash, it’s dirty. And to some extent, they’re right. The city does have an edge to it, it’s certainly not clean, there’s grafitti everywhere (not the good kind) and the people are somewhat more abrupt than in other parts … Continue reading Nipping into Napoli
We so wanted to climb up Vesuvius. Our hotel, right at the edge of the National Park, looked like it was perfectly placed for an ascent on foot. We asked at reception about it and they said ‘no, not any more, now you must take a bus up’. This did not appeal to our sense … Continue reading Vaulting Vesuvius and Volcanic Vino
Everyone has heard of Pompeii, in fact it gets millions of visitors a year. There’s another site that’s part of the same UNESCO listing, closer to Naples in fact. Oddly Pompeii gets the crowds while Herculaneum, or Ercolano in Italian, is delightfully crush-free. Both towns suffered the same fate in the 79 AD eruption of … Continue reading ‘Ello Ercolano
Arriving at Rome Ciampino airport with a couple of hours to kill before Klara, my travel companion, would get there to pick up her car and swap out travel buddies around the midpoint of her 4 week Italian odyssey, I did what any sane person arriving in Italy would, I got some food. A caprese … Continue reading Avoiding Rome and Roaming in Abruzzo
First night fiasco averted Vilnius almost feels like home turf to me after a few trips there last year, so it was natural that I’d feel a lot more at ease here. To add a little local colour and continue the theme of starting out with ‘local food as eaten by locals’ my girlfriend had arranged … Continue reading (re)Visiting Vilnius
A 4:30am alarm broke through my slumber and I somehow managed to get up and ready for our 5am pickup. Hot air ballooning is best done at dawn or dusk and we’d already had to delay it by a day, so no messing around this time. Our driver was waiting outside our hotel and although … Continue reading Transported over Trakai