I thought I would separate out 2 special topics from our
Italian vacation – food and beaches.
They are not related; yet, they stand out from the rest of the
trip. I can’t really explain it …
Italian food … I guess I had little expectations but
obviously we all know about the pasta, pizza, lasagna, tiramisu, etc. We ate out a lot during this trip because we
mostly stayed at hotels and because we moved around so much. Many hotels we stayed at had breakfast
included or at least offered for a very reasonable price. 90% of the time it was croissants, breads
with fruit spreads, some cheeses including mozzarella, and maybe some
meats. Not bad but a little too much of
the same after 14 days on the road, and don’t get me wrong – it’s not like we
have 25 different breakfasts at home but having the choice of cereal and eggs
was very welcome when we got home.
Lunch and dinner both seem to be fairly large meals in
Italy; but here is the thing – for us, Italian food lacked diversity. Putting it more bluntly – it was boring! The same pizzas were the same everywhere we
went and they weren’t that amazing – mostly mushroom, salami, Margarita, and
maybe a few others but I started missing my good American pizza with chicken,
artichokes, feta … Interesting side note - every single pizza we bought had
thin crust and it was more appropriate to eat it with fork and knife because
the crust kind of disintegrates as you eat it.
It’s more or less the same story
with pastas – there are maybe 10 or so pastas in most restaurant menus and they
include variations of red sauce and carbonara sauce. Honestly, the food was great for kids – they
had more pizza and pasta that I can ever imagine. Some days it was for both lunch and
dinner! Chris and I, however, got a bit
tired of the same food. Funny enough, we
got gnocchi a couple of times which were really good but they came with the
same sauces as the pasta. Risotto was good but given that it was also over 90F
every single day risotto is a bit too heavy. We had tiramisu on 3 different
occasions and it was very different every single time but overall, we realized
that the German version of it is pretty good.
Conclusion – American and German versions of Italian food are not so
bad.
Moving on to the BEACHES!
We visited 3 different beaches in Italy and each was different from the
other and very different from the American beach that we were used to in Outer
Banks. First of all, we did not bring
our own umbrella or chairs so we knew that we had to rent them. The average price for an umbrella and 2
chairs is 20 euros a day. The first
beach we went to was right outside of Venice; it had beautiful sand and
water. What we didn’t expect was the
number of people – the beach was super wide but the available chairs were so
far away that we couldn’t even see the water.
It didn’t help to have a restaurant between us and the water
either. Boys didn’t care, they had a
blast!
Our second beach was where we stayed for 3 days between
Florence and Rome. The place was not
touristy and we were the only non-Italian speaking people that we saw. This time the chairs were a bit closer but
still extremely far away, but no building in front of us. There are no waves and you can walk extremely
far and the water is still shallow. A lovely
experience but we also learned that in order to get the good chairs you have to
reserve them way in advance. Enjoyed
some pool time too
Our last beach was on Amalfi coast and it was the hardest to
get to, hardest to find parking at and definitely is very different. The beach was black and rocky; walking on it
without shoes was not even an option as it burned your feet within 30 seconds
of stepping on it. At first, Andrei was
flat out mad with the idea of having no sand; however, slowly all the boys
warmed up to the idea of collecting interesting rocks. We sat right in front of the water, and the
water was beautiful – super clear and warm. In fact, many kids had swimming goggles
on. Chris and I got drinks from the bar
and tried to enjoy our semi-peaceful afternoon.
Every single beach we went to, boys had a blast which was
the most important to us but if I were to want a beach vacation, Italy would
not be it.
P.S. Public beaches
where you bring your own chairs and stuff are very limited, and we didn’t want
to drag our stuff anyway.
P.P.S. Note for the future me - take more pictures of food and beaches
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