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I haven't posted for a while as I got busy prepping for Italy and some other things before the trip. I've only seen the Wolves opener.

My take on Italy's pizza

There are a wide variety of "pizza" there. We actually did a pizza making class and quite frankly it was one of the highlights of the trip it was so fun and the pizza was good. The last pizza I had was the Marinara which has just sauce oil garlic and oregano. It was fantastic better than the pizza my wife got that looked more like an American cheese pizza. Lol there were a couple of meh pizza's but generally speaking I liked all the pizza I had.

Other thoughts.

I went for the pizza but I'd stay for the calzones which at one point I was ordering instead of pizza. I had a couple that were so good. I'm gonna try and make some calzones now. I had made some in the past many years ago but they were not super great.

So...some processed "Italian" foods like spaghetti O's or chef boyardi or whatever They really do actually have sort of an authentic Italian flavor to them. I'm not saying they are good but I have more respect for them than I did before. I have a couple cans of spaghetti O's sitting around that I take for a lunch if I'm super lazy running late etc. lol

Italians seem to love chocolate. I'd say like 75% of the breakfast cereals have chocolate in them. I'm not saying like coco puffs most of them have like pieces of actual chocolate in the cereal or in some cases there is gooey chocolate in the cereal. I also loved the yogurt with chocolate pieces in it. Missing that right now...

I love going to grocery stores when abroad and seeing what all stuff they have there and buying various things to try. I ended up with way too many things i bought in Italy I couldn't finish and ended up with a small duffel bag of snacks to bring back. Lol Food at grocery stores was pretty affordable.

Eating in Italy can be very affordable. You can go places that cost more but there are many nice places to eat that very inexpensive. We went to one restaurant in Florence twice because it was so good and it also happened to be very affordable. Best calzone and the best Gnocchi I have ever eaten.

Rome was my favorite city. What surprised me a number of times was the sheer size of some of the buildings. Going to some coastal towns was pretty awesome too. I think I could have just sat and looked at the outside of the Pantheon for at least an hour. Not sure why it was so captivating but it was.

All in all it was a good trip. I'm glad to be back and my cat is VERY happy we are back as well.

Great to have you back, monster...we missed you!

Italy is a fascinating country. Not even in the top 20 countries in population, but it's difficult to come up with a country (other than the USA) with more recognizable cities. Rome, Florence, Naples, Venice, Bologna, Milan, Verona, Pompeii, etc etc etc. Not to mention the beautiful countryside of Tuscany and the extraordinary southern coast. Tough to fit it all into one vacation!

I was wondering where you were, Monster. Great to have you back and glad you enjoyed your trip. We've gone to Italy once four years ago and we loved it. The food everywhere in Italy is consistently great. You're absolutely right about nice places to eat that are also inexpensive. I think the best pasta we had was at a small place in Rome where we ordered pasta at a counter and ate standing up. Really inexpensive but fantastic. Rome is tremendous. The history is amazing as you walk through builders more than 2000 years old. I suspect you walked a lot. I remember we averaged over 25,000 steps a dat in Rome.

Anyway, welcome back and hope the Wolves can welcome you back with a win over the Sixers tonight.

FNG wrote:Great to have you back, monster...we missed you!

Italy is a fascinating country. Not even in the top 20 countries in population, but it's difficult to come up with a country (other than the USA) with more recognizable cities. Rome, Florence, Naples, Venice, Bologna, Milan, Verona, Pompeii, etc etc etc. Not to mention the beautiful countryside of Tuscany and the extraordinary southern coast. Tough to fit it all into one vacation!

Yeah it's quite the country and there was a lot we didn't see in 2 weeks. We flew into Milan and had a few hours we could have explored the city but we were so tired we pretty much just ate some food sat around then got on the train and headed to the Airbnb in Florence.

lipoli390 wrote:I was wondering where you were, Monster. Great to have you back and glad you enjoyed your trip. We've gone to Italy once four years ago and we loved it. The food everywhere in Italy is consistently great. You're absolutely right about nice places to eat that are also inexpensive. I think the best pasta we had was at a small place in Rome where we ordered pasta at a counter and ate standing up. Really inexpensive but fantastic. Rome is tremendous. The history is amazing as you walk through builders more than 2000 years old. I suspect you walked a lot. I remember we averaged over 25,000 steps a dat in Rome.

Anyway, welcome back and hope the Wolves can welcome you back with a win over the Sixers tonight.

Yes Lip we walked a lot we usually do on vacations. I joke that's the best way for me to get exercise these days is go to another city and walk around to see things. We had several days where we had well over 20,000 steps. I think Venice was the day I walked the most. I joked to my wife that I did a Venice half marathon. Lol I think I actually lost some weight during the trip.

Side note: A few days before the trip I decided I would try playing basketball again for exercise because I wasn't motivated to do anything by else. I went out to an outdoor court at a school near my house and shot some baskets. I was SHOCKED how not horrible I was at shooting. I hadn't shot a basketball in like 2.5 years. I came back later that day and then the next day. I need to get in better shape before I start playing any pickup games but I think I'm gonna do that. :)

Welcome back Monster!

You get any of those slices off one of those rectangle pizzas? Years ago, a coworker who studied abroad in Italy recommended a couple of joints.

You basically just show with your hands how much you want from the sheet.

1) Eating a couple slices on the curb near some piazza with the Gal Pal while completely spent after a long day/week was wonderful.
2) A few years prior... calling that same girl after many drinks and complaining about the bullshit slice of "sausage" pizza I was eating was not as good. After I got off the phone and was still complaining, my buddy reminded me it was anchovies. Did I mention I had many drinks?

Good to have you back, Monster. Jealous of your travels...

AbeVigodaLive wrote:You get any of those slices off one of those rectangle pizzas? Years ago, a coworker who studied abroad in Italy recommended a couple of joints.

You basically just show with your hands how much you want from the sheet.

1) Eating a couple slices on the curb near some piazza with the Gal Pal while completely spent after a long day/week was wonderful.
2) A few years prior... calling that same girl after many drinks and complaining about the bullshit slice of "sausage" pizza I was eating was not as good. After I got off the phone and was still complaining, my buddy reminded me it was anchovies. Did I mention I had many drinks?

Good to have you back, Monster. Jealous of your travels...

I had some rectangle pieces of pizza. None of them were amazing but the best one was from a hole in the wall place and the pizza was based on Focaccia and the texture was great. There was just something I didn't love and I was pretty hungry. Getting back to the Focaccia that's some amazing bread over there. There was a sandwich place near where we stayed that's the most reviewed restaurant on trip advisor and we got sandwiches there and they were huge and pretty much lived up to the hype and the long lines.

Once years ago we went to Cici's pizza here in town and my sister in law got some mushroom pizza from the buffet...or so she thought. It was anchovies and she was like these mushrooms are soooooo salty. lol She had not had any drinks but she was guzzling fluids afterwards.