Rome & Florence
Wine, Pizza & Pasta
We ate a lot of food. We drank a lot of wine. Just to prepare you for what’s to come in this post. A lot of food and wine. We enjoyed Italy a lot, and it’s not the last time we visit.
Quick facts: Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, in Southern Europe. Known for their food and wine, and being considered one of the birthplaces of western civilization and as well as a cultural superpower.
Trip highlights: The food. And the wine.
Points: Local Wine 9.5/10 points, Food 9/10 points.
When in Rome
Our trip started in the capital – Roma! Home of the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Fontana di Trevi, the Sistine Chapel and much much more. Oh, and the Pope in the Vatican city. Oh, and did we mention pasta, pesto and pizza?
To be honest, our focus was mainly on the latter. We checked in to our very central hotel and headed out to find our first pasta experience. After walking the streets of Rome a while we found a place and decided to sit down. Tess had truffle pasta. It was the best pasta she’s ever had. Pasta, with truffles, in a sauce – did not want the meal to end. Alex tried the stake and it was good, but no truffle pasta.
Food tour
It’s become a bit of a habit of ours to do a tour of some kind – and when in Rome – we decided on a local food tour. The tour started a bit outside the city centre and took us to a more residential area with more locals, and restaurants not flooded with tourists.
It was in the morning so naturally we started with an Italian breakfast, consisting of cannolis, croissants and cafe.
While walking to the second location our guide talked the place up a lot, like a lot a lot. Did it live up to the hype?
Bonci Pizza
She called him “The Michelangelo of pizza”, and “a pizza genius”, and said that no one made pizza like this guy. We were a bit skeptical to be honest, if he’s so great why is his pizza place here and not in the centre of Rome?
As we stood outside a guy walked by with dirty clothes and tattoos all over his neck and arms, swinging a black plastic bag in his hand while talking loudly to himself. We backed away a bit because to be honest, we thought he was a crazy person. Our guide came out and said “Omg, did you see him?” That was the pizza guy.
The way they do pizza at this place is they bake it on a dough that is a bit crispy and with toppings that change depending on the day. Then they weigh the pizza and you pay for the weight.
Now to the interesting part, was it good? Yes, yes it was great pizza. We enjoyed it a lot and would definitely go back!
Also, there’s a Netflix show called “Chef’s table; Pizza”, and the second episode is about this guy and Bonci Pizza, and get this – he’s actually known as The Michelangelo of pizza. We stumbled on this show because we enjoy food shows, and was very happy we got to try food from a Chef’s table restaurant.
Family place
After Bonci, we went to our guides delicates store and tried amazing pesto and cheese. And after a tripp through an Italian market place where we tried more cheese and meats, we had our last stop at a family run restaurant that served us plenty of wine and – naturally – pasta. Dessert was a very good lemon sorbet.
Alex found a car to rent (would we fit in it though?) – a very Italian car. We rounded of the tour at a wine bar, and the girl enjoying the air conditioner was our spirit animal after walking in the Italian summer heat for a few hours.
We did try to enjoy the Fontana di Trevi but the line to get even close to the water was crazy. Too much people – we headed for less crowded streets.
Are you not entertained?
Okay yes, we did see some sights. This place might be familiar to movie fans (and probably everyone) – The Colosseum. It is very impressive and steeped in history of course. Interesting to read about all that happened here, and if we go back we might opt for a guided tour to get more out of the experience, you get tired of reading long texts on rocks after a while.
Never the less, a very cool place.
More food and wine
Now back to our main focus, more truffles for Tess, and more wine for us both.
We also took an Uber to a market that didn’t looked like much but we saw several youtube videos that mentioned this sandwich shop, and they all said it was worth the trip. And as you might be able to see on Alexs’ face, it was.
On the last day we found a wine bar that had pizza, all we needed before starting our trip home.
Florence – city of art and history
Oh wait, we also went on a train trip, to the beautiful city of Florence. And to be honest, we loved Florence, smaller than Rome, and more quaint. We stayed at a hotel right by the river and could stroll along the river between wine stops.
Did we talk about food & wine?
I realize it might be repetitive but – Italy. I also give you, Alex trying to look like an influencer.
Ice cream, cheese, charkuteri, more sandwiches and Steak Florentine. There. It was all amazing.
How to make pasta
In Florence, we took a pasta making class with a Michelin star chef. He’d been taught by his grandmothers, who perfected the craft over decades.
He was very patient and a great teacher. We made three kinds of pastas and he made different sauces for each type of pasta.
And there was cheese, much cheese. Highly recommend.
Some more wine?
Being in the Tuscany region of Italy, we saw it only fit to go to a vineyard and drink some (more) wine. So we – after running around Florence looking for the bus stop – got on a bus and set off on a wine adventure.
Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the accent. But, the guy talking about the different wines, olive oils and cheese balls that we got to try, was very hard to understand at times. It was when the Italians at the tasting laughed we caught on that something was a joke.
It was probably the wine.
The venue and surroundings were beautiful and even though we did get some rain, we enjoyed this adventure a lot. It was a lot more food than we thought, but there was also a lot of wine so, win-win.
On a terrace in Florence..
..we drank wine, ate good food and enjoyed beautiful Italy together.
Arrivederci Italia!
How do summarize this beautiful country and vacation? We don’t know, so we’ll just say that we will be back. Back for the wine, the food and the crazy Italians.
The poster from this trip is the window to Italy (below).
Do you like it?
