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Chocolate Festival

In the gardens of Villa Borghese a chocolate festival, the richness of which you could smell from a mile away.  Dangerous time and place to ‘find’ yourself in – just before dinner!                                               […]

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Montisi

It appears that after Castelmunzio, Montisi is our next favourite place to over eat at dinner.  Montisi is a tiny and serene village, steeped in tradition but largely unspoiled by tourism.   It’s also a quiet retreat for a good number of celebrities who come here to hide from the crowds.    

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Pizza Class

There are a few things that are easier to make than pizza.  Apparently, things which appear simple are quite complex if you break them down.  Long story short – I have been doing every aspect of the pizza making, right down to holding the dough all wrong, absolutely every single part, all wrong.  This was […]

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Montalcino for Lunch

There appears to be about a thousand wine shops in this village.  There are places where you can sample over 100 wines in a single wine store.  It’s bonkers!  However, our search is for some food, because it has been at least 3 hours since our last meal, and to find another gelato place, because […]

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Paggio Dell’Aquila

Promptly after breakfast today we drove out to a small family run winery nestled just below the quaint town of Montalcino.  This place produces only 18,000 bottles of wine one Rosso and one Brunello, (read no cheap and pricey)  The local oenologist, Maria, who is Spanish, gave us a great tour and a great wine […]

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San Gimignano and Gelato

San Gimignano is synonymous with the very finest of gelato, some great artisan shops and phenomenal galleries.  There is no shortage of the run of the mill tourists traps like the Museum of Torture and other junk stores but for a refined gelato junkie this place is a paradise.  True to form, we parked the […]

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Hasliberg

This is the last stop in Switzerland.  Apparently I can’t count to 5 so I booked us in for 4 nights. Needless to say a day before check out we needed to find a room for one more night.  Booking.com to the rescue and this is how we ended up in this village.  Dating back […]

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Thun

Thun is a small city of about 45,000 residents.  The area of what is now Thun was inhabited since the Neolithic age mid 300 BC. Like most Europe and Switzerland it was conquered by Rome in 58BC.  In 1819 a Military School was founded in the city, which later developed into the main military school in […]

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Revisiting Rome

After the morning museum trip and an extensive siesta from the unyielding and relentless heat, we set out for a lap around Rome.  Last time we were here the Trevi Fountain was being renovated and cleaned, which apparently is done once every 50 years or so. There are over 2000 fountains in Rome but this one […]

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Monaco

The Principality of Monaco is a sovereign city-state, located on the French Riviera. France borders the country on three sides while the other side borders the Mediterranean Sea. Monaco has an area of 2.02 km2  and a population of about 37,800; it is the second smallest and the most densely populated country in the world. […]

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Lourmarin

After the city folk found their way of the forest, we immediately stopped in the first available town to have some well earned gelato.  Lourmarin is a small village of 1000 people which has been settled for at least a thousand years, and was probably a Neolithic campsite before that.  A dominating fortress was first […]

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Sant’Anna in Camprena

Sant’Anna in Camprena is in the heart of Tuscany – about 6km from Pienza.  It is a monastery from the 15th century perched on the top of hill with spectacular views of the rolling Tuscan hills.  The buildings are beautiful, the garden is huge and the food is simply amazing.  Having said that this place would be nothing if it […]

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Monte San Savino

Monte San Savino is a small town of about 8000 people and it is famous for two things.  First, it was one of the first urban settlements in Tuscany, Italy, which  originated around 1100.  Second Giulio Salvadori a poet and a literary critic was born there.  An interesting thing about Salvadori is that he covered to Christianity  in 1885. […]

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Back to Arezzo

Really we are back in Arezzo for views, wine, food and of course gelato.  We found an amazing wine bar with an even more amazing food. Luckily we got the second last table and had a phenomenal lunch.  There must have been no less than 25 to 30 people that were simply turned away because the […]

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Castellina in Chianti

Castellini is a small village in Tuscany located between Florence and Sienna.  The first settlement in the area dates back to 800BC and the current village dates back to 1100s. Perched on the top of a hill and surrounded by olive trees and vineyards this is a quaint little town with great wine, cheese and olive oils which […]

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3 Hour Cake

We are expecting some company tomorrow, so Monika offered to make a cake for tomorrow.  She did not realize that this cake recipe takes 3 hours to get ready.  Nonetheless this one turned out awesome and it was well worth the wait.  

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Liege Waffle

Today for breakfast we are trying the Liege Cakes once more time.  This time a bit different recipe which has a bit less butter but instead of yeast we are using live culture.  We essentially used the same recipe as last week but scaled down a bit on butter.  This should have been an entire […]

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The Great Pillage

Today is Halloween – it is great many things to many different people.  For ghosts and goblins and witches and monsters it is time to freely roam the streets. For little Vikings at heart it is time to get out and liberate the neighbourhood of some candies and for the dentists it is time to pick up […]

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14 Pizza Dinner

You will have to take my word for it, even though the pictures don’t show it, there really were 14 pizza on the dinner menu tonight – each different than the last.  Twelve of them were consumed on site and two went home with us.  There was also bread pudding.  There was a lot of […]

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Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is great.  Three days off, three days of eating and relaxing.  It is great to be home for this one.  While Christmas has its own charm, Thanksgiving is special.  It is time to take pause and reflect, time to be thankful and appreciative.  Time to spend with family, time to relax and appreciate everyone […]

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Hello Hugo

To make a long story short – this is what our weekend is shaping up to be. We are going to be sampling four more bottles of Prosecco to see which one will be perfect to make just the right tasting Hugo. We are looking for volunteers to help us empty these four lovely bottles. […]

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Main Square

The Markt (“Market Square”) of Bruges is located in the heart of the city and covers an area of about 1 hectare. Some historical highlights around the square include the 12th-century belfry and the Provincial Court (originally the Waterhall, which in 1787 was demolished and replaced by a classicist building that from 1850 served as […]

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Around Amiens

The first known settlement is Samarobriva (“Somme bridge”), the central settlement of the Ambiani, one of the principal tribes of Gaul. The town was given the name Ambianum by the Romans, meaning settlement of the Ambiani people. The town has been much fought over, being attacked by barbarian tribes, and later by the Normans. In […]

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Benedictine Monastery

This  Benedictine Nun Monastery was established in 1677 by a nun from Paris. In 1802 the nuns moved to the former convent of the Minimes, which was built in the 17th century.  They have been praying every since and now they also bake and sell delicious cookies to support the monastery and themselves.  

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Dear God

I have no idea what this is called – but triple bombastic custard, liqueur and caramel bomb would be a very good approximation.  There are eight pieces of sponge like pasty each the size of a cream puff.  Each is filled with custard and soaked in liqueur, then immediately covered with some caramel to keep […]

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Dieppe

Today we set off for Dieppe.  A small costal city of 32,000 people about 20km from where we are staying.  First recorded as a small fishing settlement in 1030, Dieppe was an important prize fought over during the Hundred Years’ War. Dieppe housed the most advanced French school of cartography in the 16th century. Two of […]

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