Italy Notes and Recap

<Major blog update in progress here.... we'll catch up, don't worry>

So, here are our notes on Italy.  As with all of these, take all of this with a huge grain of salt, but, c'mon, if we only said good things, it wouldn't be legit.

-History and Art:  We learned a lot while we were here about art and history and this was really pretty neat.  I (Scott) was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed the history, it helps to be able to see the stuff in front of you.

So you're saying the naked little person painting is history?  Go on...

-Food (Overall):  We had a lot of really good dining in Italy.  We had awesome steak, boar, gnocchi, pizza, etc.  We learned to eat with a pasta as a first course and then a meat as a second course and really enjoyed this approach.

-Pizza:  We expected the pizza to be dramatically different than what we have in the US because we thought our pizza was unauthentic.  While authentic pizza isn't Pizza Hut, places like Tutta Bella and Via Tribunali (those are Seattle restaurants) are really pretty close.

-Romance: It was surprising how basically every restaurant in Italy could qualify as "romantic" in the US.  Even little cheap pizza places had nice plaza seating with with table linens and a candle.  This was good times.

-Gelato:  While technically this should go under food, it deserves it's own category.  We crushed gelato like it was our job.  At first, gelato was just gelato to us, but by the end of our stay, we were surprisingly discerning.  Our favorite gelato place was in Vernazza.  Miss you bud. Florence also gets a nod for good gelato.

-Small Towns:  We had great stays in Orvieto and Vernazza (both small towns) and were really happy we balanced this with the big cities.  In general, we're not "big city" people and would definitely go back and go "small town" hopping in Italy.  The big cities in Italy are....chaotic.

... and briefly, the bad:

-Ci Arrangiamo:  We learned the phrase "ci arrangiamo" which is an Italian phrase that means "we're doing the best we can" and saw this in action countless times throughout our stay.  We got stranded in a train strike (that was scheduled?), paid (yes, paid) to use some disgusting bathrooms, and saw a lot of situations where things were just sort of... falling apart. We may have been more aware of things having just come from Switzerland, which is precise and clean in almost every way.  

Having fun while enduring another train delay.  I'm sure they're doing the best they can.