Rome - Day 5

Shopping & History

Rome - Day 4

Cooking Day


Yes, this is the day that most excited me.



I arranged to take a cooking class with the Roman chef Fabio Bongianni.  The day started at 9:30 with a walk through Campo Di Fiori Market where the ingredients of the day are chosen.  Then we continued with him through the streets of Rome with a tour through the Jewish Ghetto and ending up at his apartment near the Spanish Steps.  We then prepared several dishes and finished lunch around 3p.

Fabio gave us great insight to the Jewish Ghetto area and the history beneath.

 Getting our sea bass and mussels for the meal.

 Campo di Fiori market.  Fresh tomatoes, mushrooms and zucchini we picked up here.

 Slicing up the veggies.

 We made 2 different types of pasta - Cavatelli and Ravioli.  Drew is cutting up the cavatelli in these pictures.  Ella's little fingers made the perfect shape, the rest of us not so much but they still tasted great!

 Here we are rolling out the ravioli.  This is a lot of work.  You have to run the dough back through the pasta thing 6 times and it was stretched across the room before we were finished.  

 This is what the ravioli looked like before it was baked.

 This is sea bass filets in olive oil with cherry tomatoes (although they were actually a different type of tomato I can't remember the name) and a funky zucchini.  Isn't this pretty?  It also was quite tasty.

 These are the stuffed mussels.  This recipe is super easy, something I wouldn't mind trying again for sure!

 These are the cavatelli shells that we made simmering with tomatoes, mussel juice and sea bass.

 View from Fabio's apartment .. definitely NOT bad.  He lives in a great location.

 Let's eat!

 Yes she DID eat it!  I was so proud of her she tried everything and I think actually liked some of it.

 The ravioli was probably my favorite.  It was also the most challenging.  I'll probably leave this one for the real chefs.

There were 8 total in our class including the four of us.  We had fun chatting with other tourists about our travels and of course the good food and drinks.


Here are the recipes of a few of these dishes.  He promised they were on his site but NOT quite.  Guess we'll have to improvise.


Calabrian Mussels


Ravioli (with Zucchini not Asparagus)


Sea Bass Cavatelli (The recipe says taglioni but that is not the pasta we used)


 Chef's for a day.  What a great experience!  Thanks Fabio.

Rome - Day 3

Beach Day !


Drew had 2 requests for our European vacation - 1) shopping is a must and 2) beach day.


Finally, the day has arrived for a trip to the sea, sand and sun.  After much discussion and advice, we decided that the beaches closest to Rome would probably be way too crowded and not as nice.  The further you get away from Rome, the nicer the beaches (so they say).


We headed to Sperlonga.  Sperlonga is a coastal town in the province of Latina, in Italy. It lies on the Ulysses coast, about half way between Rome and Naples.  It took us about 1 hours and 30 minutes to get there by train and bus.  The town of Sperlonga sits on top of a huge rock.  It really is picturesque.


The beach is lined with many hotels and public and private entrances.  We rented an umbrella for 25 euros and camped out for about 4-5 hours.  

View from a quick climb up the small road in the middle of town

View from our tent down the beach.  Notice ALL women have on bikinis. (except for me)

The best view right here

Ella braved getting her hair braided.  This lasted only about 24 hours.

From our beach looking into the town of Sperlonga.

We took a quick stroll into town for our daily gelato

The water is cold with barely any waves.  Ella loved.

Working on her tan ..

Rome - Day 2

After a downpour of rain Tuesday morning, we decided to turn our beach day into history day.


First stop, Vatican City.  We spent several hours perusing through St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel.  Very awe-inspiring to say the least.

Vatican City or Vatican City State is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of approximately 44 hectares (110 acres), and a population of just over 800 (thanks wikipedia).

The lines going into St. Peter's Basilica were wrapped around the courtyard.  Luckily they moved fairly fast

This is one of thousands of statues we saw inside the Vatican museum, Ella liked this one because of all of the children playing.  (I thought it was a little creepy since the guy was naked but apparently clothes were not necessary back in the Roman days)

This is the famous Pieta by Michelangelo.  We listened to the Rick Steve's audio tour while in this huge church tour and it really does amaze how much level of detail and thought was put into each sculpture.  This is the most popular spot in the building.

St. Peter, one of Jesus apostles, is buried here hence the namesake.

A sweet sister picture.

Rome - Day 1

Our train left Munich Sunday night at 9p with an ETA of 9:30a in Rome.  The couchette had 3 beds on each side and lucky for us they only put 4 not 6 in this small space. Sleeping 4  was challenging enough, it would be very awkward to maneuver with 2 more.  

Sleeping on the train was not that bad although awake by 5:30, I was left staring at the walls for quite some time.  The 12 hour train ride ended up taking 15 hours and we didn't arrive in Rome until 12:30p.  Tip:  Always take snacks and drinks with you in case you are delayed AND the food service was not available.  We were not able to talk with anyone on the train so I really don't know why it was late nor why the meal service was not available.  Ella was literally jumping off of the walls (and climbing and doing pullups) for the last 4 hours of the trip.

Once in Rome, we took the bus to our bed and breakfast in Trastavere called Hip Suites.  We stayed one night at Hip Suites and 4 nights at WRH Trastavere.  Hip Suites is a very nice place, perfect location and the staff were overwhelmingly nice and accomodating.  We also found WRH to be incredibly helpful.  We owe Marie at WRH many thanks for reservations, suggestions and simply helping us find out way. As soon as we were checked in we rushed to find food and of course gelato.

Trastavere is a lovely neighborhood, local feel with small narrow roads and many Romans going about their busy days.  We walked across the river and strolled around the colosseum area and Trevi fountain.  Our first day in Rome was very relaxing as we looked forward to the days ahead. good luck to throw a coin in the fountain The money is collected daily (average 3000 euros) and given to the homeless

Nuremberg & Munich

On the way to Munich, we stopped in Nuremberg to explore the town center, grab some lunch and catch a glimpse of the imperial castle known as Kaiserburg.

The St. Lorenz church was badly damaged in WWII and later rebuilt

St Lorenz from outside

Hiking up to the Kaiserburg

View of Nuremberg from the castle

We spent one night and two days in Munich.  The first night we met Lars, Bettima (wife) and Sonja (daughter) and Julia (Sonja's friend) out for dinner at the famous Augustiner Beer Garden.  Lars is a colleague of Jason's working in Freescale Munich.  Lars and his family were so kind to speak with us in English and explain life in Germany, the city hotspots and best of all the menu.  The food and the beer garden were really a treat.  Ella loved playing with the 7-year-old girls on the playscape, coloring and learning new games.

Yes, she finished it all!

Augustiner Beer Garden with Lars and his family

Our last day in Germany was spent hitting every Munich highlight possible including the Englitsch Garden, Marienplatz and the Children's Museum.  

I liked the storefront  McDonald's in four different languages

The gang at the Marienplatz

A famous parade ground where Hitler gave speeches

Catholic church in Munich called St. Kajetan's Church

Ella and Sonja displaying their creative ideas from the Children's Museum

One highlight was seeing the river surfing on the Isar.  Here's a quick video of our favorite surfer.

Thanks so much to Lars for the world wind tour of Munich.  It definitely made all of us want to come back.

We loved Germany and everything that we saw, but most of all we loved spending time with Jason, Heidi, Elliot and Christie who traveled with us from Denmark and all through Germany making our trip a once in a lifetime experience.  They promised to come see us in Texas and I sure hope we get to return the hospitality soon.

At 9p on Sunday night, we managed to hop on the City Night Line train to Rome which is where I'm writing this blog.  Happy 4th of July to us from Italy.  Stay tuned ..