Italy: Part 1

I’m finally back on some sort of normal schedule. I only slept four hours that first night back; my body didn’t care that it was 4:30am. It thought it was 12:30pm! Two more nights of relatively normal sleep, and I seem to be okay. The only thing still incredibly a little screwy is my appetite. I’m hungry ALL. THE. TIME. Eating at odd times or just eating all day for three weeks will do that. As expected, we ate and drank a lot on the trip, especially during the wine tour. It wasn’t uncommon to eat two four-course meals per day plus a bunch of other stuff in between. I was surrounded by lavish food all the time. I wasn’t complaining. I just stopped being hungry mid-way through the trip, and was just eating to eat. I’m a proud member of the ‘Clean Your Plate Club.’ Besides, I needed something to soak up the ridiculous amount of wine we were tasting every day.

We started in Milan. We had a few days to ourselves before meeting up with the wine tasting crew. We stayed at a hotel in the center of the city. It was a simple hotel, came with a breakfast buffet, and didn’t have free wi-fi [a common theme]. You don’t hear about Milan too much in the scheme of Italian tourism. It’s usually of the Rome, Venice, Pompei, Cinque Terre variety. As such, Milan isn’t that touristy unless you’re taking in the Duomo. I loved that. I don’t like being among throngs of tourists. I like seeing cities and places for what the locals see them for. It isn’t the fashion capital of the world for nothin’. Everyone is very put together. You don’t see ill-fitting clothes. You don’t see screen printed tee’s. You see thought out outfits, complete with accessories. We learned very quickly while walking around that first day [we arrived at 9am, so we had a whole day ahead of us] that Italian food is everywhere in the form of a bar or cafe, and that you better make sure you like pizza and pasta. It’s seriously everywhere [except for that obscure “American Donuts” shop we found one night]. We had this running joke going, “So do you want Italian, Italian, Italian, or Italian to eat?”

It became very obvious that mealtimes are meant to be enjoyed. That was definitely a take-away from the trip. Savor what you have in front of you. Be mindful. Take everything in. I also love their love of espresso. I could get used to drinking it all the time since it was only 1-1.50 Euros. Portland has a large number of delicious craft coffee roasters, but there was something about Italian simplicity [and hot Italian men serving you…]. We mostly got ourselves oriented the first day. We ate two pizzas that day. It had to happen. Pizza was definitely a common theme. They started looking at us funny, questioning our desire to split a 12″ pizza. Most people order one of their own and throw out what they don’t eat. Sharing and to-go boxes aren’t a thing there. Clearly.

I’m glad we got to the Duomo early in the morning. We beat the crowds and we beat the rainstorm. We inevitably made the mistake of not eating before 2:30pm. Everything, and I mean everything, closes at 2:30. It’ll stay closed until sometime between 6pm and 8pm where aperitivo becomes the star of the show. Think happy hour but with a buffet of delicious Italian snacks. You can’t even pop into a market between these hours to get something to eat. Even our hotel restaurant was closed. We spent one afternoon wandering around the empty streets of Milan in hopes of finding something. That something became a very mediocre kebab and arancini. It filled the void. The following day was spent navigating the far reaches of the city by foot to pick up tickets to the Inter Milan vs. AC Milan match. That in itself was a process. We had to buy the tickets from a horrible third party site weeks before the match. It took pulling teeth to find out where we needed to pick up the tickets. Then, since it was Sunday, we arrived at the destination only to see a sign saying it was closed. Thankfully Andrew’s Italian stepped in when we went next door for a stress-relief pizza and beer, and we found out that they do in fact open just from 3pm-7pm to hand out tickets. So crazy. It was worth the adventure, though. We witnessed 85k screaming, crazy, rabid fans. Things were lit on fire after goals. Inter Milan won. We saw players we’ve only seen on TV. It was a beautiful thing. I’ll never see soccer the same again. We got back to the city late, and went walking, and by 1am there was a full fledged party going on in the streets. Cars were stopped in a line, honking their horns and hanging out the windows, getting out and waving flags, chanting…it went on for 10 blocks I bet. It was incredible.

Lake Como is just a short train ride north of Milan. It’s stunning. It’s one thing to see an old city like Milan, but it’s quite another to see an old town on a lake. The weather was perfect, giving me round one of my sweet v-neck suntan. They have a university there, and attached to the lake was a plane hangar where they would pilot sea planes. It was really fun to watch. They have ferries that take you to the various other towns around the lake, but we never got a chance to go. The one we wanted to go to was going to take several hours just to get to, and would have killed our day. We spent the rest of the day exploring, eating panini and gelato, and sitting by the lake. Dinner? We went rogue and ended up in an expensive-by-American-standards Chinese restaurant. We were craving some vegetables, and they just aren’t as easy to come by in many standard Italian restaurants. For a little over 40 Euro, we had some chicken and peppers, pork chow mein, pork fried rice, and fried wantons. They were easily 1/3 of the size of most American portions, and next to no oil by comparison. It was, dare I say, healthy. But we were hungry afterward, so we went for more gelato. Naturally.

On our final day before we had to heat out to the hotel and meet up with the wine tour group, we went back to the San Siro Stadium where the game was and took a behind-the-scenes-tour. The place is a massive concrete jungle; it has to be to hold that many people. It’s a grass turf, and it costs 200,000 Euro to replace. They had already replaced it six times this year. They clearly have no problem throwing money around. The hotel we had to meet up at was way on the outskirts of town. We were greeted with a welcome glass of wine, prosecco, or sangria [or all of the above] and three or four appetizers before moving into the restaurant for the first of many four-course meals. This one was one of the more forgettable meals, but that’s what you get from a hotel restaurant. There was plenty more ahead of me on the tour.

[Stay tuned for part two. I have to break this up or I’m going to make your eyes bleed. Photos are from various meals throughout the tour. I let Andrew take most of the scenery stuff. I focused on the food. It’s what I do best.]