Pano-palooza #3 – The Italian Job

We’re still working on our last few photo albums from Italy – our little medical emergency in Spain was an annoying detour that threw us off our game a bit – and we still have some final thoughts and impressions to share about the eight weeks we spent eating and drinking our way through bell’Italia. In the meantime, I thought I’d share the latest batch of panoramic photos I stitched together.

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Guest Blogger: The Steps of Positano

Editors’ Note: This guest blogger thing is starting to become a habit, one that Laura and I are quite happy to encourage! Less work for us. :) As most of you know by now, we spent a week along the Amalfi Coast of Italy with my parents, Laura’s parents, her sister, and her uncle back in September. That’s eight people from three families… sounds like the setup for a cheesy 80’s sitcom. We had an amazing time exploring the coast, and my Mom was kind enough to write a bit about our week together. Thanks, Mom! We also have more photos from Italy to share, so be sure to check out our Positano, Pompeii, Amalfi Coast, and Capri photo albums. Ciao!

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Big Night

So, we’ve been eating a lot in Italy – and not just the 32 pizzas Dustin wrote about in our last entry. Whether it’s homemade tagliatelle with a wild boar ragu… or a huge terra cotta crock containing every species of edible fish and crustacean just pulled from the sea that day… or fresh, homemade ravioli coated in butter and sage that literally melt in your mouth… or Dustin’s daily (and sometimes twice-daily) order of un gelato con cioccolato e bacio… or any of the other gustatory delights we’ve been lucky enough to sample in this country of food lovers, we have definitely made eating (and drinking) a primary focus of our time here on the boot. (If you don’t believe us, we have several pairs of pants that no longer fit that we’d be happy to show you. :)

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Pizza Slut(s)

In case you haven’t noticed, Laura and I (but mostly I) like keeping track of data. We list some arguably interesting statistics about our trip in the Fun Facts sidebar of this blog, and one of the stats that’s been there for a long time is “Feet of Subway sandwiches consumed”. During the first few months of our trip, it seemed like Subways were everywhere, and a Subway sandwich was often just the little taste of home that we craved. It was also a reasonably healthy (and cheap) option for a quick lunch or dinner in some places where salad wasn’t all that easy to find. Don’t get Laura started about the lack of mustard in the UK Subway shops, but overall, we heart Subway.

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Guest Blogger: The Navigators

Editors’ Note: We are very excited to publish our second guest blog entry! (And while we’re at it, we’d like to apologize to the esteemed authors of the *first* guest blog entry [“Israeli Sausage Toast”] for our general lameness in failing to follow it up with additional posts and pictures about our adventures in Israel. We really are working on those posts, S&I! Stay tuned!) But back to Italy… As most of you know by now, we recently spent a week in Tuscany with Laura’s mom (Mary), dad (John), sister (Teresa) and uncle (Buzz). Thanks to a lot of hard work and planning by Mary, we were able to spend the week in an old (as in, the 13th century!) villa outside of the sleepy town of Stigliano near Siena. It was a wonderful week full of amazing food and wine and beautiful countryside, but as you’ll see in Mary’s post below, it wasn’t entirely stress-free.

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Viva la Venezia!

Laura and I have been in Italy for exactly one month today, so we’re long overdue for an update. We have a legitimate excuse: we’ve spent the last three weeks on the Maestrelli/Frazier “bullet train” of family tourism – one week with Laura’s parents, sister, and uncle in Tuscany; then a week on the Amalfi coast with my parents added to the mix; then a final week with just my parents in Sicily – and we were on the go pretty much non-stop. Our Moms did an incredible job planning our time together, and I swear my Mom would make an amazing tour guide… you would get your money’s worth of site-seeing, that’s for sure! :) Laura and I found ourselves quoting National Lampoon’s European Vacation more than once during those three weeks, with an Italian flare, of course: “Look kids! Pompei! The Duomo!”. We’ll have a lot more to share about our travels with our families in a future blog post (and they may chime in with a guest blog entry or two, ahem).

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