Arrivederci Italia! Olá Portugal

Between Capri, Mt. Vesuvius, and Pompeii, our last days in Italy were awesome. It's a beautiful country with friendly people, incredible history, lots of sunshine, and - of course - gelato on every corner. (It's not just anywhere in the world you can get, for instance, ricotta pear or balsamic ice cream flavors...)

On the morning of May 31st, though, it was time to depart. But we didn't head back to Delft just yet. A presentation I had been accepted to give at an engineering conference took us next to Lisbon, Portugal for a week. Olá Portugal!

From Rome to Sorrento

After leaving Rome, we headed for a ridiculously cool hostel, 7 Hostel, in Sant'Agnello and used it as home base for branching out to the beaches of Amalfi, the streets of Sorrento, and the grottos of Capri. The view from the rooftop terrace was spectacular...


Nearby Sorrento was a very pretty city with lots of nice shops and probably the best gelato we encountered on our trip - and we would know, b/c not a day went by that we didn't try a new gelato flavor.


Here's Laura in Sorrento's Lemon Grove Garden, where tourists can walk and admire the hulking lemons hanging from the trees before gladly accepting free samples of limoncello. (Good stuff, trust me.)

City Irritants

I didn't grow up in the big city (or anywhere near one). It is because of this that I am still easily amused and/or irritated (but not duped) by all the begging, hustling, and trickery that goes on in the streets. Rome, like Paris or London or New York or Chicago or thousands of other cities, is full of these things.

In every city there are the classic beggars who flop down on the sidewalk. Rome has plenty of these, though it's better business for them to loiter outside a church and pretend to be entry-fee collectors. This evening, an even more clever guy busily extracted the most valuable coins from Trevi Fountain with a nifty homemade tool.

There are also plenty of goods sold on the streets of cities, and here in Rome it's mostly the usual stuff. There are fake handbags and sunglasses on every corner. Roses or tripods are seemingly shoved in our faces ("Want to buy?") a dozen times a day. Other sellers demonstrate the crappiest battery-powered toys ever made by man. We would never purchase any of these things - lest we encourage them to continue the selling - but I can at least understand why a particularly dopey tourist (or their particularly dopey children) might be interested.

But then there's the guy that approached us today at Trevi Fountain, who has seen an entirely new market opportunity. As we sat eating our gelato and quietly admiring Trevi Fountain around dusk tonight, the product shoved in my face was a ... stress-relief squeeze ball?

Yes, this particularly brilliant street entrepreneur is prepared to serve the many tourists so stressed out, they can't live another moment without their very own squeeze ball, complete with stupid painted-on face. Surely no tourist can resist the demonstration squeeze, after which they will eagerly part with their money. Not wanting to be frugal, they'll even buy one for each hand! Why, the stress is gone already! What would they have done without this buying opportunity?

Oops, got lost in the seller's fantasy land there for a second. What I meant to say is that this particularly street entrepreneur should pack his bags and head home, because I don't think things are going to work out for him.

The Dinner We Did NOT Have

I know that just because the gelato stand is open from 8am to well after 10pm, that does NOT make it a breakfast, lunch, and dinner food.

I know that just because gelato comes in fruit flavors, with nuts, is made with milk, and sometimes has a few pieces of vegetables in it, that does NOT mean you can make a well-balanced meal out of it.

I know that just because my mom lives on the other side of the ocean, that does NOT mean I can eat as much as want.

I know this, so I would NEVER suggest a progressive gelato dinner.

We absolutely did NOT use our 24 hour metro card to travel all over Milan to get to the best gelatorias. We absolutely did NOT make up rules for the event (1 cone per gelatoria, 2 flavors per cone, no repeating flavors).

We did NOT start out at Chocolate Gelatoria Artigianale. I would NEVER order and have enjoyed a cone of pink grapefruit and manderan orange, because pink grapefruit is NOT my favorite flavor of gelato. Matt did NOT start with a kiwi and pear cone. And we would NEVER, having full cones in our hands, look so longingly at the banana that the owner would give us each a generous free taste.

We definitely did NOT hop back on the metro and rush to get to stop two. We were NOT disappointed to find out that our second stop did not have the sour cherry gelato, shaped into flower blooms. No NOT us, we had had our fill of gelato.

We did NOT continue our party to stop three: Chocolat, a sleek gelato boutique with a generous seating area and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Matt definitely did NOT pick a nutellone (nutella and marshmellow cream) and dark chocolate cone. And I most certainly did NOT end up with half my hot pepper chocolate and giandula chocolate cone all over my face, hands, and cast - because I was NOT eating gelato for dinner. We do NOT like chocolate, or gelato for that matter. No, NOT us!

Having already had two cones and chocolate, we did NOT continue on to our fourth stop. Our last stop was NOT Riverino, a modern gelateria with brighly colored plastic furniture and marble print like art on the walls. I did NOT finish my dinner off with a Moreno and Loenardo cone, while Matt did NOT try the Contessa and San Lucca flavors.

And we absolutely, positively did NOT have more gelato the next day. NEVER would we try a coconut and chocolate cone with people watching on the Piazza del Duomo.

And no, I do NOT have a sweet tooth...