la spezia market

I'm not going to say a lot here, only that the market in La Spezia (very close to Riomaggiore and the other Cinque Terre towns) is outstanding. Great FLP and a lot of really special elaborated foods (breads, cheeses and olives stand out, although we missed the olive boat).


artichokes



grana padano cheese


Side note about that Grana Padano: I was saving half of it to take home with me to Bilbao. Then, on my last night in Milan, I broke down and ate it ALL, by myself, in the hotel room, watching QVC in Italian.

It was so good I didn't even mind that I was watching QVC in Italian.

Focaccia: Greatest Hits

And so there I went, blabbering on about different travel styles and the Cinque Terre. Too much self-awareness, especially when I know what you people really want.

Food.

And so here are what I´m going to call my Top Three Focaccia Moments, even though really the pesto-mozzarella one I had in Genoa should be in here. But it´s not, because 1) I couldn´t delay the gratification to take photos and 2) my hands were too freezing to take photos. So my Almost Top Three, as follows:

3. Vegetarian Focaccia.

Ingredients, besides focaccia bread: Black olives, artichoke hearts, mushrooms
Where I ate it: Monterosso
Other notes: Greasy, greasy, greasy, in the best way.

2. Potato-cheese focaccia.

Ingredients, besides focaccia bread: Potato, amazing cheese (asiago?)
Where I ate it: also Monterosso
Other notes: Perfect amount of crunch (from crispy cheese) and squish (from perfectly cooked potato). Mmm.


And the #1 focaccia of my trip, my life, ever:

Ingredients, besides focaccia bread: mozzarella, green beans, focaccia
Where I ate it: Princi bakery, Via Speronari #6, Milan.
Other notes: This is the best baked goods place I´ve ever been to. I know them´s fightin´ words, but I´m sticking with it. There was just enough pesto on here to give you that tangy, salty kick but still left you wanting more rather than overwhelmed. And green beans! Amazing. I wasn´t gonna, but I went back for a cream-filled carnavale pastry afterward. Couldn´t help it. I´m ´bout to start drooling, Homer Simpson-style, just thinking about this place.

I can´t stress this enough: Milan is worth it just for Princi bakery. The place will possibly be packed when you go, so it may take you a while to get your order in. Take it as the good sign it is and use the time to build the anticipation.

the cinque terre

the picturesque Manarola by night


Ah, the Cinque Terre. Five pristine, gorgeous towns along the Northern Italian coast. If you read any Rick Steves, at some point you're going to come across several gushing passages about how very wonderful and picturesque this place is. The towns are so small, he'll tell you. It's relaxing. It's so picturesque (get ready, I'm going to be using that word a lot)!



cat lounging picturesquely


Rick Steves is telling you the truth. It is small. It is gorgeous. It is relaxing.

And it is so heavily touristed that it's hard to tell where the Disneyland tourist stuff ends and the actual "local culture" begins.

This isn't a slam of the Cinque Terre. I really did enjoy my time there, I really did appreciate how beautiful it was. What I'm saying is, if you have a high value for your travels to include something picturesque (yes!) and to be able to get by on English because most people speak at least a little, the Cinque Terre is your spot. I want you to listen carefully: I think that's totally valid. It's just that I discovered that...

...If you place a higher value on, for example, "authentic local food," such as it is, the CInque Terre should perhaps be a day or two stop only on your itinerary. With the exception of one very good focaccia (don't worry, a focaccia greatest hits post is coming), every meal we had out was - there's not really a nicer way to say this - mediocre tourist food. I'm talking the same quality frozen pizza you get in the US. And while I couldn't blame the residents of the five picturesque (that's the 4th use, if you're counting) towns for adapting in this way to accommodate tourism, I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when I arrived in the less beautiful but much less tourism-impacted La Spezia.


exploring in a picturesque cove of wildflowers, photo courtesy my friend Bryan


Let's be clear: I'm not saying here that I wasn't a tourist. By golly, I was all sorts of tourist. I gawked at sites and snapped photos and, let's face it, even the fact that I was interested in such a thing as "authentic local cuisine" is a dead giveaway. But there are different styles of tourism, and as it turns out, mine consists more of pushing myself culturally (I barely know a word of Italian, see previous post) in order to access a part of a country less impacted by hordes of people descending upon it to take pictures and eat pizza, but not pizza that's too unfamiliar, pizza like they had in America, only here in Italy.

Whew, what a long sentence. Congratulations if you made it through that one. Conclusion: the Cinque Terre really are beautiful. Jaw-droppingly, mind-numbingly gorgeous. And, no surprises here, you're not the first person to realize that. Weigh what's more important to you, a perfect-looking spot or a more authentic eating experience, and plan accordingly.


picturesque boat

genova!

Shortly before we left on this adventure, the friend I was traveling with suggested we make a pit stop in Genoa on the way to our destination in the Cinque Terre.


We should have booked at least two nights there.

The city has really everything you could want: a university vibe in some areas, gorgeous buildings, free blood oranges on the ground (ok, just the one).

And pesto. My golly, that pesto. All I can say to explain how much I loved my piece of focaccia with cheese and pesto slathered all over it is I'm seriously considering naming my first dog "pesto." "Here, pesto! Roll over! That's a good boy!"

Sorry, no pictures. I was too busy stuffing it into my gaping maw. You'll just have to imagine it.

There was also an incredibly greasy but incredibly good rabbit lunch. And a pizza that involved raw tomato, which I managed to be pretty cool about, considering.


It certainly is.

if obelix had proposed right then, i would have said yes

Asterix and Obelix: favorite costume by far


Those of you in the non-Catholic world may not have noticed, but this past week was Carnival. A celebration in wackiness, costumes and all things enjoyable before Lent starts, Carnival (or Carnaval in espaneesh) is like an extended Mardi Gras. Except instead of one day, it's a week long; instead of ladies lifting up their shirts for beads, costumed children spray each other with silly string (as far as I can tell no one lifts up their shirt for anything here); and instead of raucous drunkenness it's... well, OK, there's still a lot of raucous drunkenness.



They set up a fairground with rides in the old part of the city here in Bilbao, where every adorable child in the city dressed as a pirate, dinosaur, flamenco dancer or clown dragged their parents Saturday afternoon.


daaaaaaaaaaaaw look at the little lion!


Luckily for me I was off to Italy, land of the truly wacky-doodle Carnaval (or Carnavale, as they say - say it with me, in an obnoxious Italian accent: Car-na-VAH-lay!), the next day. My friend Bryan and I gathered up extra confetti from the stands in Viareggio, then had an all-out confetti war. I was still picking confetti out of my shoes/hair/clothing days later.

Then off to Milan I went, where I went straight to the cathedral, the Duomo, and encountered the Most Confetti Ever.



As a side note: men in Venetian masks are not to be trusted. They will Silly String you like it ain't no thing.

will i eat 600 pieces of focaccia? i think so.

This Sunday afternoon I am going to get on an airplane. This airplane will take me to a fantastical place where there is none of this:


and lots of this:



Seven days. Italy. I'll be in Genoa, the Cinque Terre and Milan. If I don't come out of this slightly greener from all the pesto, I will consider this a job half done.