Eating And Traveling
It’s no surprise that Bologna cooks it up big. CIBO (Also: Culinary Institute of Bologna) is Italian for food, and this is the best eating city in Italy. I found a little place off the main street called Trattoria Del Rosso (Via Augusto Righi 30). I was learning that to make it from noon to the eight or nine o’clock dinner time for Italians, I’d need to order a primo and secondo piatto. First up: Tagliatelle con ragu.
My Lancia rental car pulls out onto the airport expressway, and the trip begins. I try the autostrada first, and yes, there are high speeds and extensive amounts of truckers, but the tailgating was insane! I could have picked the guy’s nose in the white car behind me. I felt like Ned Flanders trying to drive faster to escape the clingy Homer, but the car just can’t accelerate! “Daddy, drive faster!” “I can’t! It’s a Geo!”
First stop was Padova, (Padua) a university town and the setting for The Taming of the Shrew. It was a Monday in August, before noon and nobody was moving, not even a nun.
I found a cool feature on Google maps, where I hit a button and it recommends different places based on location and time of day. It told me to go to Ai Porteghi (Via Cesare Battisti 105), and who am I to disagree with a computer? It was a delightful place with no customers on an early Monday afternoon.
That bread is included because it was excellent. No day old stuff here. You didn’t need to tear it to bite through it, and the pasta was so al dente as to be almost crunchy, but still cooked. The meat sauce was typical Padovese–a mixture of poultry meat that was heavy with rosemary. The wine was a Cabernet from Padova.
Next stop was Vicenza, and it was after lunch, so the town was either asleep or gone away on August holidays. So my idea of a second lunch got erased. I went sightseeing instead.
It was a great afternoon of gelato and walking. I got back on the road to head to those lovestruck punks Romeo and Juliet’s hometown, Verona. It was nighttime, so I just headed for dinner.
I went to Leon D’Oro (Via Pallone 10) and had a beautifully symmetrical and delicious pizza of sausage and onion and Montepulciano Superiore vino. It was an outdoor place with the typical crumbling walls and shuttered windows.
And what better way to end the day in Verona than by catching some saucy and fashionable lady smoking on her balcony.
Then off in the morning with espresso, buttery bread and salted meats in the belly.
I joined a gym; it’s next to a pizza place…that works for me. When I say “next to” I mean they share a patio. You can be doing chest presses while seeing cheese pull away from a drooling mouth on the other side of a translucent piece of plastic curtain. The smell is wonderful, and it’s like a motivator–“work hard so you can enjoy that pizza another day.” The gym is cool, high ceilings, clean machines, naked pictures of hot chicks on the wall, Rocky Balboa posters and an open air patio with free-weights. And that open air patio is the shared space with Peperino Pizza (Via Del Coroneo 9). It’s a Neapolitan style place. Burnt sections of thick, chewy crust, large dollops of fresh bufala mozzarella, and ripe tomatoes. I’ve eaten here a few times (sure to grow into more, as I learned the pretty camariera’s name (Anita) and its proximity to my gym)), and its only disappointment is the lack of meat available on the pies. Despite the missing carne, I’ll be back.
The first picture is the classic Margherita, second is a gem of truffle sauce with San Daniele prosciutto (one of the only meat offerings), and third is the jovial chef…
Via del Coroneo, 19, 34133
An ancient church rests on the lonely hill, looking out upon the blue waters of the Adriatic. Crumbling stucco houses among the slippery streets of worn away stones. Flowerpots falling over shuttered balconies and laundry hanging to dry in the afternoon sun. It’s the classic romance of a Mediterranean coastline. We arrived via ferry from Trieste, Italy and immediately found lovely apartment accommodation with some convenient bargaining in Italian. The beaches are more pavement and rock than soft sand, but the crystal water makes up for any lack of horizontal comfort. We made a family lunch with various meats and delicious Croatian beer.
E.A.T. 