In the gardens of Villa Borghese a chocolate festival, the richness of which you could smell from a mile away. Dangerous time and place to ‘find’ yourself in – just before dinner! […]
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Exploring San Gimignano
We are really going our of our way to explore all the side streets in San Gimignano. Not only that, we also managed to have a great afternoon drink, do some laundry, a bit of shopping, have gelato too many times and sit down for a great dinner. A day full of nothing really – […]
Montisi
It appears that after Castelmunzio, Montisi is our next favourite place to over eat at dinner. Montisi is a tiny and serene village, steeped in tradition but largely unspoiled by tourism. It’s also a quiet retreat for a good number of celebrities who come here to hide from the crowds.
Podere il Casale – Pizza Making Class
Pizza making class is always a blast, especially at Podere il Casale. Making great food together is a great way to spent time with friends and family. A bit of good wine helps too. We love coming here, we love the stories and the experiences Sandra shares and are always in awe on how rewarding […]
Pizza Class
There are a few things that are easier to make than pizza. Apparently, things which appear simple are quite complex if you break them down. Long story short – I have been doing every aspect of the pizza making, right down to holding the dough all wrong, absolutely every single part, all wrong. This was […]
Montalcino for Lunch
There appears to be about a thousand wine shops in this village. There are places where you can sample over 100 wines in a single wine store. It’s bonkers! However, our search is for some food, because it has been at least 3 hours since our last meal, and to find another gelato place, because […]
Paggio Dell’Aquila
Promptly after breakfast today we drove out to a small family run winery nestled just below the quaint town of Montalcino. This place produces only 18,000 bottles of wine one Rosso and one Brunello, (read no cheap and pricey) The local oenologist, Maria, who is Spanish, gave us a great tour and a great wine […]
San Gimignano and Gelato
San Gimignano is synonymous with the very finest of gelato, some great artisan shops and phenomenal galleries. There is no shortage of the run of the mill tourists traps like the Museum of Torture and other junk stores but for a refined gelato junkie this place is a paradise. True to form, we parked the […]
Hasliberg
This is the last stop in Switzerland. Apparently I can’t count to 5 so I booked us in for 4 nights. Needless to say a day before check out we needed to find a room for one more night. Booking.com to the rescue and this is how we ended up in this village. Dating back […]
Thun
Thun is a small city of about 45,000 residents. The area of what is now Thun was inhabited since the Neolithic age mid 300 BC. Like most Europe and Switzerland it was conquered by Rome in 58BC. In 1819 a Military School was founded in the city, which later developed into the main military school in […]
Revisiting Rome
After the morning museum trip and an extensive siesta from the unyielding and relentless heat, we set out for a lap around Rome. Last time we were here the Trevi Fountain was being renovated and cleaned, which apparently is done once every 50 years or so. There are over 2000 fountains in Rome but this one […]
Monaco
The Principality of Monaco is a sovereign city-state, located on the French Riviera. France borders the country on three sides while the other side borders the Mediterranean Sea. Monaco has an area of 2.02 km2 and a population of about 37,800; it is the second smallest and the most densely populated country in the world. […]
Lourmarin
After the city folk found their way of the forest, we immediately stopped in the first available town to have some well earned gelato. Lourmarin is a small village of 1000 people which has been settled for at least a thousand years, and was probably a Neolithic campsite before that. A dominating fortress was first […]
Paris – Shopping
Today is an easy and relaxing day. First, we sleep in, so we were off to a great start. Once we got organized and managed to get to the centre we decided to go shopping. First stop at the Louvre then to one of favourite stores BHV then a stroll through Marais for some sweets […]
Sant’Anna in Camprena
Sant’Anna in Camprena is in the heart of Tuscany – about 6km from Pienza. It is a monastery from the 15th century perched on the top of hill with spectacular views of the rolling Tuscan hills. The buildings are beautiful, the garden is huge and the food is simply amazing. Having said that this place would be nothing if it […]
Monte San Savino
Monte San Savino is a small town of about 8000 people and it is famous for two things. First, it was one of the first urban settlements in Tuscany, Italy, which originated around 1100. Second Giulio Salvadori a poet and a literary critic was born there. An interesting thing about Salvadori is that he covered to Christianity in 1885. […]
Back to Arezzo
Really we are back in Arezzo for views, wine, food and of course gelato. We found an amazing wine bar with an even more amazing food. Luckily we got the second last table and had a phenomenal lunch. There must have been no less than 25 to 30 people that were simply turned away because the […]
Castellina in Chianti
Castellini is a small village in Tuscany located between Florence and Sienna. The first settlement in the area dates back to 800BC and the current village dates back to 1100s. Perched on the top of a hill and surrounded by olive trees and vineyards this is a quaint little town with great wine, cheese and olive oils which […]
Making Bread
Today we are trying a different bread recipe made with a fresh yeast starter. Evelina is helping with the baking today and getting her hands really dirty.
3 Hour Cake
We are expecting some company tomorrow, so Monika offered to make a cake for tomorrow. She did not realize that this cake recipe takes 3 hours to get ready. Nonetheless this one turned out awesome and it was well worth the wait.
Coffee Break
Today the girls came over for a coffee and dessert. Allie and Eveliana had a cappuccino whereas Gemma decided to go straight for dessert a home made Crème brûlée. Delicious.
Liege Waffle
Today for breakfast we are trying the Liege Cakes once more time. This time a bit different recipe which has a bit less butter but instead of yeast we are using live culture. We essentially used the same recipe as last week but scaled down a bit on butter. This should have been an entire […]
The Spoils
A quick trip around the neighbourhood with a shield and a sword and a smile yielded some great returns. Tomorrow we are going to buy a shed for the back yard to put it all in.
The Great Pillage
Today is Halloween – it is great many things to many different people. For ghosts and goblins and witches and monsters it is time to freely roam the streets. For little Vikings at heart it is time to get out and liberate the neighbourhood of some candies and for the dentists it is time to pick up […]
Hooked On Food
Let’s call this for what it really is – it is a blog mostly about food. We are always talking about, eating too much, over eating or seeing some church. Of the last 8 posts 6 of them are about food. We had a little brunch today with Dobrescu’s. Simple brunch with little to no work. […]
Going on Three
What better way to spent the weekend than doing little to nothing at all. Today is one of those days, we were all waiting with anticipation for 4:30p.m. to have dinner at Thanh Thanh. This is one of two restaurants that we really missed when we were in Europe. On the agenda today is a […]
14 Pizza Dinner
You will have to take my word for it, even though the pictures don’t show it, there really were 14 pizza on the dinner menu tonight – each different than the last. Twelve of them were consumed on site and two went home with us. There was also bread pudding. There was a lot of […]
Pizza Like No Other
Today we finally got a chance to get together with our good old neighbours we first met in our first house in Pleasantview some 15 years ago. We have been friends ever since. In his yard, Jeff built an amazing pizza oven, a project like no other! The pizza is all home made with love, […]
Always Be Eating
If we are not eating, we are actively thinking about what to make and eat next. Seriously, that is what we do. Today is another lazy Thanksgiving weekend morning. On the go for breakfast are fresh, homemade Belgian waffles! Life is good.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is great. Three days off, three days of eating and relaxing. It is great to be home for this one. While Christmas has its own charm, Thanksgiving is special. It is time to take pause and reflect, time to be thankful and appreciative. Time to spend with family, time to relax and appreciate everyone […]
Hello Hugo
To make a long story short – this is what our weekend is shaping up to be. We are going to be sampling four more bottles of Prosecco to see which one will be perfect to make just the right tasting Hugo. We are looking for volunteers to help us empty these four lovely bottles. […]
Moving Forward
Yesterday we received the last 20 kg parcel I sent out from Germany. Today we are starting our day off with some fine Java grown in Brazil, roasted in Warsaw, delivered to Nuremberg and brought back to Canada. Posh-Nosh!
Finally In Frankfurt
The train came a bit late which always causes unnecessary stress. But I did manage to push my belongings across the terminals and even squeezed in a quick espresso too. All my language is checked in: 22.9 kg, 23.1kg and 12.5kg for the carry on – one less thing to deal with. It is almost […]
Qualifying
After some noisy Porsches trashing around the track it was time for F1 qualifying. The crowd cheers, for Ferrari of course, and to improve the odds and feel better, for any previous Ferrari driver, in which case Masa got a lot of cheers. On the way back to the car Red Bull is giving away […]
Breakfast
I am officially on the threshold of packing vs clean up. This mining the last bit of shopping with a s quick stop for breakfast at our favourite cafe La Violetta.
11th Hour
We are at T – 15 hours before we pack the car and the family takes the train for the trip to Frankfurt. Family from Poland stops by for a quick visit to say hello! We send the kids off to town in the early afternoon to visit at least one museum, and to have as much […]
Insanity Continues
This again will be filled under “Christ what were we thinking” category which is the predominant theme of ours when we go out to eat. After a wonderful dinner at the Golden Horn we rolled out of the restaurant, and rolled down the hill from the castle side, across the main square and to 4D our favourite […]
Farewell Dinner
Tonight we are seeing Volker and Kasia for the last time on this trip. It is largely because of them that we are here, it is because of them that this trip has been such an amazing journey and it if was not for their help with everything we would most likely speak a bit […]
La Violetta
This is our favourite go to coffee shop. Always busy always good and always relaxing.
Main Square
The Markt (“Market Square”) of Bruges is located in the heart of the city and covers an area of about 1 hectare. Some historical highlights around the square include the 12th-century belfry and the Provincial Court (originally the Waterhall, which in 1787 was demolished and replaced by a classicist building that from 1850 served as […]
Around Amiens
The first known settlement is Samarobriva (“Somme bridge”), the central settlement of the Ambiani, one of the principal tribes of Gaul. The town was given the name Ambianum by the Romans, meaning settlement of the Ambiani people. The town has been much fought over, being attacked by barbarian tribes, and later by the Normans. In […]
Heaven in a Jar
This habit we picked up in Paris 3 years ago. I can’t put my tiger on it but this is the best yogurt we found and it is only sold in France and it comes in a glass jar. Absolutely delightful – so we gorged ourselves on it.
Crêpes
For a treat, after climbing some trees and stopping to smell the hydrangeas we drove back to Dieppe to have crepes, exactly at the same spot where we had them on the first day. A couple stops at a chocolate shop and a bakery too were on the agenda. Crepes are great but nothing beats […]
La Rebelle
In the middle of Normandy, in the middle of farmland with cows and sheep everywhere a rather displaced act of civil disobedience and protest. If , like us, you support PETA ( People Eating Tasty Animals) then this is just a bit of whimsical fun!
Made in Normandy
First thing this morning we made online dinner reservations at a very nice little bistro in Rouen. Made in Normandy Bistro is in the old town and we were quite happy to be able to get a table there. In a typical French style we are celebrating our 17th Wedding Anniversary today with foie gras […]
Benedictine Monastery
This Benedictine Nun Monastery was established in 1677 by a nun from Paris. In 1802 the nuns moved to the former convent of the Minimes, which was built in the 17th century. They have been praying every since and now they also bake and sell delicious cookies to support the monastery and themselves.
Dear God
I have no idea what this is called – but triple bombastic custard, liqueur and caramel bomb would be a very good approximation. There are eight pieces of sponge like pasty each the size of a cream puff. Each is filled with custard and soaked in liqueur, then immediately covered with some caramel to keep […]
Chateau de Miromesnil
Our last visit for the day is Chateau de Miromensil. The only way to see the chateau inside is either by booking a night or by booking a guided tour. We booked a guided tour of the chateau, the gardens and the chapel. The tour was in French but we were given information in […]
Dieppe
Today we set off for Dieppe. A small costal city of 32,000 people about 20km from where we are staying. First recorded as a small fishing settlement in 1030, Dieppe was an important prize fought over during the Hundred Years’ War. Dieppe housed the most advanced French school of cartography in the 16th century. Two of […]
Amsterdam Morning
There are a lot of interesting things to see in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is perhaps not the city best know for its landmarks like Paris or London but Amsterdam has its own jewels and charm. Amsterdam is the capital city of the most populous city within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the Dutch capital […]
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