Food, Wine and Art From Umbria and Tuscany, Italy

After regrouping in Rome for a couple days after our trip south to Pompeii, we rented a car to road trip through central Italy for the final week of our travels.

We were told by our hosts that doing a loop through the region of Umbria, a few hours North-East of Rome, then continuing North-West towards the cities of Florence and Pisa in Tuscany would be an ideal route to see a good representation of central Italy in the time we had left.

The trip North took us through beautiful mountains full of vineyards and olive orchards. It looked like we were driving through postcards, except in the post cards they don't show the crazy Italian drivers! This was the sketchiest place we drove on our whole trip. There was a total disregard for speed limits and basic traffic rules. People would pass on curves and sometimes drive two to a lane on single lane mountain highways. The drive to Umbria was a mix of beautiful landscapes and terrifying games of chicken.

Eventually we made it to our Airbnb in Bevagna. We stayed in a literal medieval castle tower that is part of the city walls!

It was converted from a watch tower to a vacation rental by the city to generate more tourist revenue.

Many of the old tower features were kept in tact including the creepy dungeon below! It was an amazing place to stay as it was so quaint and authentic and yet had the basic amenities to be comfortable. Definitely look it up and stay there if you visit Bevagna or Umbria.

We got so lucky finding the city we stayed in while in Umbria. The region is pretty spread out, at least by Italian standards, and we were told it didn't matter where we stayed, all the little medieval towns are beautiful to see. So we kinda randomly picked Bevagna, our choice partially based on us staying in the sweet castle room.

The city ended up being an amazing place to spend a couple days relaxing and walking around the beautiful streets.

There were so many cute little path and alleyways to explore. The townspeople we met were very kind and while the city was clearly geared towards tourism, it still felt authentic with old people out at tables drinking during the day and little kids running through the streets playing games.

We got to see what life is really like for the people who live in these rural medieval cities in the modern times.

We had only one night in this cute little town, so we dressed up for a night out with a little wine tasting then a nice dinner.

On the way to dinner we stopped at this fun little wine bar adjacent to the town square.

We tried two wines which were both produced locally and were very tasty. The wines we tried in Italy were generally pretty good, but overall very light compared to comparable wines we tried in France and Portugal. The wine bar had a great atmosphere and we enjoyed being outside in the warm summer air, people watching as evening approached.

At dinner we wanted to try a few local specialties, so in order to stay on budget we went cheap on the wine. I ordered us a €4 carafe of Chianti, figuring it would be a relatively small serving and would give us the opportunity to try this notoriously cheap wine. We should have ordered the €2 carafe, as they brought out this giant jug of wine that we could no way finish, nor particularly would want to as the Chianti lived up to it disappointing reputation.

The small family run restaurant was highly recommended to us by our Airbnb host so, I expected that the poor wine had nothing to do with the quality of food we were about to get. Luckily the food spectacularly made up for the bad wine. We had a fresh summer vegetable pasta that was second to only our beloved store-bought Gnocchi from Rome. The meat dishes we ordered were also fantastic, with huge portions and amazing fire roasted flavors. There was always a little pressure when we would go out to a relatively nice dinner to receive a food experience that felt worthy of our limited budget. Fortunately, this was one of those times when the food and experience felt totally worth the cost!

After our fun experiences in Umbria we drove north, again passing through beautiful countryside and many mountainside castle villages, finally arriving in Florence where we were staying for two nights.

Our first evening in Florence I went for a walk to a nearby grocery store to pick up some food and supplies for the rest of our trip. I walked to the back to where the meat section was located to get some chicken and sausage. The first thing I saw when I walked over was this brain! It was just sitting there like any other piece of steak or rack of ribs. I have never seen anything quite like that, especially since this was not a specialty meat store, nor was it in a rural city. This was downtown Florence, in a chain supermarket. I was half tempted to google an Italian recipe for brains just to give this find a go. But alas I used my own brain instead and continued down the line to the chicken section to grab the meat I had came for. It just makes me wonder how many brains they actual sell each week and what people make from them. Maybe next time!

One morning we hiked up the hill where Piazzale Michelangelo sits above the city. We reveled in this great view and planned our day based partially on which buildings looked the coolest from this vantage point.

To fuel our marathon of a day in Florence we stopped in at a cafe for a late morning snack: a delicious focaccia and salami sandwich with a super spicy balsamic reduction.

We washed this down with the most Italian morning drink combo I can imagine, Alena with her fancy cappuccino and me with my glass of Sangiovese.

Next up was the Basilica of Saint Mary of The Flower, or more commonly called The Duomo.

It is a gorgeous building that looked like a fairy tale gingerbread house. We ate some amazing gelato while walking around the entire building, taking in the architecture and beautifully painted facade.

Visiting Florence, we had to go to one of the famous museums. We chose to tour the Uffizi Gallery. I thought it was very well laid out and we saw some truly amazing pieces of works by many famous artists. Here is Alena with the Birth of Venus by Botticelli, which was the piece she was most looking forward to seeing.

This ended up being Alena's favorite work of the day: Pallas and the Centaur, also by Botticelli.

This was my favorite of the day. It depicts Perseus rescuing Andromeda from a sea monster.

Here are some other fun pieces we enjoyed:

The Original Demadog

This cute lizard was just skullcin' around

Naked Disco

Jesus and Mary... again

We literally saw 2 dozen Mary and Baby Jesus paintings in the Uffizi.

No words for this one.

After the museum we took a stroll across town to find two traditional Florence food experiences: the early evening bar buffet and the famous Florentine Steak. On the way we found this cool water fountain that was built into a random building facade.

A great pork ad we saw on the outside of a butcher shop.

Eventually we found a bar that was hosting the traditional evening buffet. It took us a while to find one as the main bar neighborhood was all cordoned off for the yearly Calcio Fiorentino competition. If you don't know what that is check out the link below. It is insanity. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcio_Fiorentino)

Anyway back to the buffet. It is normal in Florence to go out for drinks and pay a cover charge to get access to an appetizer like buffet before dinner, around 5-7 in the evening. Then go eat dinner at like 9-11pm. So in keeping with local traditions we gave this schedule a try. It was pretty delicious food and it was fun to try a bunch of different local snacks. The battered and deep fried olives were my favorite with lasagna bites a close second.

Cool street art on the way to our steak feast.

After the buffet pregame we made our way to the main event: Steak Florentine at Trattoria Accadi. This is a super regional dish that is basically just a huge T-Bone steak, lightly seasoned and cooked rare. These things come from a special super big breed of cow and in turn the steaks are massive. We asked for a smaller one as we had already eaten a fair amount. The owner brought out this one, raw on a platter for our inspection, and says it's the smallest he has: 1.3 kilos!! (About 42 ounces for us Americans!) So with no smaller choice we ordered it, along with the special roasted mushrooms of the day.

I read about how amazing these steaks were and how you have to try them if in Florence. I would agree, it was great! They are often compared to Argentinian steak, which I have had and would have to say seems like a decent comparison, with the Florentine steak being a bit larger.

I greatly enjoyed our meal and went to town on that bone right there in the fancy restaurant.

After Florence we decided to spend our last two days on the beach in a little town just west of Pisa. But we had to make a pit stop in Pisa to see the tower on the way.

My classic leaning tower tourist pic.

I expected Pisa to be a tourist shit show, but we found it to actually be pretty tame and really enjoyed hanging out in the huge lawn areas and taking in the beautiful views. We were there in early June so it wasn't quite the height of tourist season which I'm sure helped.

One thing to note is that we grabbed some pizza while in Pisa. We ate at Pizzeria Duomo and it was the WORST food of our trip. DO NOT GO HERE IF IN PISA! The food was not only terrible, but the service was very poor as well. I was literally warning people who walked up and trying to turn them away while we waited for our bill, it was that bad.

Bottom line, Pisa was an awesome experience and a must see if in the area, but don't eat at Pizzeria Duomo.

We ended our trip with a couple relaxing days on the beaches of Viareggio. Sadly our beach time was a bit compromised by poor weather from a storm that was blowing in the the West. This storm also blew a whole bunch of little jellyfish to the shores which greatly impacted our swimming time. We took dips in sea both days but quickly retreated when we found multiple jellys floating inches from us. We even saw one dude get stung.

Alena passed the time collecting pretty sea shells and creating little photo shoots with them. Here is my favorite from her collection.

Our last night in Tuscany we decided to drive out to the Renaissance era city of Lucca to see the sites and have one last Italian dinner.

This place was gorgeous and I wished we had set aside a little more time to explore. The best thing we saw in Lucca was the Saint Michele church pictured above. It was decorated with hundreds of small carvings of animals and mythological creatures.

For dinner we wanted to try some unique pastas that we wouldn't get back in the States. We surely succeeded in that endeavor, as we ordered an octopus pasta, thinking it would be little strips of octopus in sauce.

• Instead we were surprised to find full on tiny octopi bodies in our pasta. Alena tried one and was not impressed so she stuck with the fresh asparagus and bacon pasta we had also ordered. I thought the little octopus was interesting and it went well with the half bottle of Rosso we had ordered, while the hand made pasta was fantastic.
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• We finished our Lucca adventure with a stroll through the city at night. That was when we stumbled upon this tunnel system that seemed to go through the city's ramparts. We went in a little ways but it was getting late and we decided these tunnels were a bit too spooky for us, so we retreated back to our car and headed home to our beachside bed.
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• One last look over Rome before we flew home.
• We had a blast in Italy. We tried our best to see the important sites and eat as much different food as possible. I definitely want to return to Italy to see and eat more!