My husband and I rented a car for 2+ weeks in order to visit a few parts of Italy that we don’t know well. We’d been to Puglia before, but only briefly: a post-ferry-from-Dubrovnik night in Bari and a few days in Monopoli. This time we spent three days in Polignano a Mare and another three in Lecce, and we also drove around exploring other villages and interesting places. Continue reading
Italy
Padova, Italy
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| Padova |
On our way to Lago di Garda, we had an hour’s wait in Padova (“Padua” in English), so we grabbed a coffee and then wandered around a bit. It was market day and we were surrounded by some of the most beautiful food I’ve ever seen in Italy. We regretted not bringing our picnic kit since we had planned to eat in a lakeside restaurant. Continue reading
Lago di Garda
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| Lago di Garda |
Our trip to northeastern Italy coincided with a heat wave – it was at least 90 degrees the whole time, so we decided to take a day trip to Lago di Garda. Continue reading
Murano, Burano, Torcello
Two days is plenty of time to get to get a feel for Venice, so after we got our fill of wandering around, we did a half-day trip to the islands of Murano, Burano, and Torcello. We had thought that 3½ hours was too much time, but with only about 45 minutes on each island, it turned out to be not enough. Continue reading
Venice, Italy
The flight from Nice to Venice only took an hour, making us feel like we hadn’t gone very far at all. But once we got into town, it definitely felt like we were in a different country. My husband and I have been to many different parts of Italy, but this was our first visit to the northeast. We spent four nights in a B+B in Mestre, one of the 6 Venetian boroughs. Continue reading
Apicius Culinary Institute, Florence, Italy
I spent my third and final week in Italy taking private cooking classes at Apicius Culinary Institute. I had spent a long time looking for another group class but just couldn’t find something that appealed to me yet didn’t cost a small fortune, and then I discovered that private classes were fairly competitively priced. For €1,060 I received
- 4 private cooking classes (2-2½ hours) followed by lunch
- 1 private and 1 group wine appreciation class (1 hour each)
- Private gastronomic walking tour (2 hours)
- 1 group cooking class (2 hours) followed by meal
- Recipes before each lesson
- Apron