Final thoughts about the trip
Still craving: coffee with hot, foamy milk and sugar-topped croissants for breakfast; brick-oven pizza made from scratch while you watch, even in the airport; Italian arugula; the bread in Rome; the meringues in Florence; a mild cheese we bought for an informal lunch one day in Rome (I didn't get the name of it); cooked spinach in Florence and Venice; Italian table grapes.
Not pasta. Not yet. No mas, or however you say that in Italian.
Glad to be back to: dollars (did the euro have to hit an all-time high on our trip to Italy?), Honeycrisp apples from the farmers market, toast, my own cooking, free water in restaurants, SportsCenter.
High point of the trip: No, not the Great Monuments of Western Civilization. It was when the waitress who spoke no English was so dazzled by my Italian that she said to me, "Come si dice....?"
Unfortunately what she wanted to know was, "Come si dice...zucchine?"
Actually it was funny that the English version of many of the menus translated "zucchine" as "courgette" (the French word for the squash) for those of us who couldn't figure out what "zucchine" meant. To be fair, that is what the Brits call zucchini.
Putting things in perspective: In the supermarket my daughter shopped at, no bottle of wine cost more than one euro. Doing one load of laundry in a self-service laundromat in Rome cost us nine euros. (That's about $13.) Italy is a country that has its priorities set.
(Photo of the remnants of our last dinner by me, as well as photos below)
And if you're not sick of travel photos, here are a few more. I never got around to asking what the pink croc was on the Versace building in Venice, and then I saw a pile of them down by the docks.
And which of the two following would you rather have as your main means of transport? The first photo was taken outside our bedroom window. Nice hat. The second is at what seems to be a public charging station.
OK, I'm a little obsessed with Smart Cars.
Comments
Loved your pictures of the smart cars and other small varieties. My husband is 6'4" so whenever we encountered really small ones I would take pictures of him standing next to them. They are much smaller people over there for sure.
Posted by: Selina | September 26, 2007 12:32 PM
This trip sounds (and looks) like it was fabulous. Thanks for the little blog postcards. I referred my friend who is going on an Italian honeymoon in a few weeks to your postings so your recs are appreciated!
Posted by: Angela | September 26, 2007 3:58 PM
Welcome back! I really want one of those smart cars too; something that should be here in the States which reminds me every time I see a space between two cars enough to fit one as I find street parking while on my own to a downtown restaurant.
Posted by: Eric | September 27, 2007 2:17 PM