Sunday, October 25, 2009

Things I learned this weekend


Pizza in Italy looks nothing like pizza in other countries. This can be both good and bad.

A hot chocolate and small diet coke at St Mark's Square in Venice will set you back 30 euros, service not included (that's 27 GBP or 45 USD).

Italian ice-cream is THE BEST.

Milan is one huge shopping centre - even people with no intention to shop (and no money) will be tempted.

Greetings from Italy xxx

15 comments:

Margarita said...

First of all, welcome back.

Second, your pizza comment is not the first I've heard from people after visiting Italy. I've heard both good and bad things about it, the bad flirting with "ridiculously thin crust with a sauce not different than ketchup".

As for St. Marks Square, they had to make some money after banning The DaVinci Code from filming there!

Tinsie said...

I didn't mind the pizza so much, because we get the authentic kind in London too, so I was already familiar with it. However, I must say, some of the pizzas on sale looked quite pathetic. Like they think tourists will eat anything at all, just because they're abroad.

Is it St Mark's Square or the Vatican that didn't allow filming? In any case, they probably make so much money from coffees and soft drinks that the revenue from filming is peanuts to them!

Margarita said...

Haha, it could be the Vatican, but still, you get the point!

Roy Cherian Cherukarayil said...

Welcome back Tinsie...I too heard the same from my friends who visited Italy...they liked it...it was the sauce that they found difficult to handle though...

Please drop into my blog sometime...mine is on writing and art.

Gattina said...

All very true, lol ! Couldn't say the contrary, my husband is Italian !

BTW I answer questions by email. If there is no email I come here to read what you write c omment and then answer your question. Otherwise my blog would become a forum ! and herewith this is done, lol !

Tinsie said...

@ Marg: I do indeed.

@ Cherry: Funnily enough I didn't notice anything amiss about the sauce. It's the base and toppings that struck me as strange. I guess it depends on what you're used to - it appears that those of us not living in Italy aren't used to Italian pizza!

@ Gattina: Hey, that's something I didn't know. About your husband being Italian I mean :-)

Puss-in-Boots said...

Oh, Oh, Oh, I'm so envious of you being in Italy! Hopefully, it's my turn next year. Then I can try all that yummy Italian cuisine. Enjoy your trip...

palmtreefanatic said...

wow! fascinating!
looks neat none the less!

Karen said...

I'm so happy for you, Tinsie! What lovely places to visit. I love Italian pizza, although we somehow ended up with a sardine pizza in Venice that the waiter (who had previously graced us with his English) couldn't be made to understand that it was NOT what we ordered. The Hub, being who he is, ate the whole thing but will never, ever let me forget it.

Aaaaahhh, memories. :-)

We spent a week in Milan once, too. I should dig out the pictures of the Monkey on the top of the Duomo. I think he was four or five..

Tinsie said...

@ Puss-in-Boots: I hope you manage to visit - quite apart from the food (which is a bit hit and miss), it's a beautiful country!

@ Palmtreefanatic: It was a perfectly decent snack, great weather, lovely ambience. It just cost 4x what it would have cost someplace else :-o

@ Karen: Haha that's a brave Hub you've got there - but what did the rest of you eat?!

I wish we could have had a week to roam around Milan and the lakes. Three days just weren't long enough!

lemon said...

30 euros? aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa thieves............

Mo said...

You get better food and drinks if you stay away from the main squares. Same in London. Have you tried to get any thing great to eat in Trafalgar Square.

Tinsie said...

@ Lemon: To be honest, they were very upfront about the costs - we knew exactly what we'd be paying before we ordered. Fair's fair and all that.

@ Mo: I have no complaints re: the quality of the food we had - everything was delicious. But some of the food we saw (and decided not to eat) was very mediocre-looking. Maybe it tasted good and maybe not, we'll never know as we decided not to take the chance!

Undoubtedly tourist areas have more than their fair share of bad restaurants, probably because it's not always easy for tourists to search elsewhere.

As regards Trafalgar Square, there are several good eateries in the area, and you don't even have to look in the back streets to find them. But I don't know if they're that obvious to the average tourist. Probably not. In any case, no tourist comes to England with the expectation of finding fantastic food, so culinary mediocrity shouldn't catch anyone by surprise ;-)

Karen said...

Tinsie--we were a party of 13, so there was plenty of edible pizza to go around. :-)

Tinsie said...

Ahhh always a good idea to go out in a large group!