No visit to Italy can be complete without real Italian gelati. That's why my friend and I went to Giolitti, an ice cream parlour near the Pantheon, which is recommended by most of the guidebooks. It was a very touristy place but the taste of the ice cream was worth the wait in a long, chaotic queue consisting of tourists from around the world. The vendors majestically served big scoops of gelati, trying to pay as little attention to the frenetic crowds as possible. My chocolate and pistachio ice cream were absolutely brilliant! The only disappointment was the champagne flavour ice cream – it did taste of champagne but, to be honest, it was barely edible.
Among the more interesting things I ate in Rome was mozzarella di bufala – cheese made from buffallo milk. Not bull's milk – as my friend jokingly suggested. ;) I also tried a mysterious fruit called nespola (loquat), which tasted like a cross between an apricot and pear. I wonder if it's available somewhere in Poland?
On our way back home, we stopped in a Tuscan town to make supplies of genuine Italian food. I bought loads of pasta, pesto, olive oil and cantucci – delicious almond biscuits from Tuscany. Because cantucci are really dry, you need to soak them in coffee, tea, or preferably in Tuscan fortified wine called vin santo. Below you can see a photo of cantucci and vin santo taken by my friend Jasmine during her trip to Pisa. It was delicious! :)
Rome enraptured me with its art, cuisine and friendly atmosphere. I especially loved the quiet neighbourhood of Trastevere, where carefree kids were playing football in front of an ancient church, Italian mammas were hanging out the washing, and the life was going by very lazily.
Even though a lot of the monuments in Rome are impressively huge and lavish, I didn't feel any pompousness that can be found, for example, in Paris. In the narrow, winding streets, happy dogs walk with their elegant owners, cats live in the ancient ruins and the Forum Romanum smells of freshly mown grass. The city is full of greenery, fountains and crystal-clear water reportedly transported through aqueducts from the mountains.
But not everything in Rome was so perfect. Apart from the crowds teeming around the most popular sites, my visit was constantly interrupted by street pedlars who tried to sell either sunglasses or umbrellas (depending on the weather, which was very changeable). After a while I was afraid that when I open the fridge in my hotel, a pedlar will jump out of it screaming “Ombrello!” and shoving an umbrella into my face. :P
Finally, I discovered that in Italy not all that looks delicious is real. For example, the yummy cupcakes you can see in the photo below are... bath bombs. Fortunately, their soapy smell warned before I had a chance to take a bite. ;)
PS. If you'd like to read more stories about my travel, you can check the tab “My culinary trips” at the top of the page. :)
