Category Archives: Family

The best restaurant in the world! Mum and Dad’s place

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Mum’s cooking is always the best. Just about every son or daughter will say the same thing. But my Mum’s cooking is really something else. She has the ability to toss a few things together and make an absolutely stunning dish that any restaurant would be proud to include on its menu. I’m not boasting, it’s the plain truth!  This skill can be slightly annoying because mum, aka Gina, cooks with instinct and as such, doesn’t always remember exactly how she made a certain dish!

I had a hankering for ‘pasta e fagioli’ when I last saw my parents and asked mum (nicely) if she could cook it for me. There were some slight protests because she didn’t have the time to soak the beans overnight. That meant she would have to use canned beans, which are not quite as good. I didn’t care about that. I just really felt like it.

So like a good Italian mamma, she made do with what she had and cooked a nourishing, heart-warming, absolutely delicious meal of ‘pasta e fagioli’ – which means pasta and beans. Italian peasant food at its best.

It is not quite the traditional Italian recipe, but when it tasted as good as it did, it hardly mattered.  The pancetta gave it a smokey rich meatiness. The four can bean mix was not traditional, but the chick peas added a different texture and the kidney beans were thick and creamy.  It wasn’t quite a soup consistency, more of a stew.

Pasta e fagioli

Pasta e fagioli

This is how Gina made it:
Fry chopped onion, garlic, fresh chilli, rosemary & chopped pancetta. Add a couple of ripe chopped tomatoes. Cook these down and add beans (bertlotti usually) and mash some of them, a little stock and chopped parsley and basil. Cook all until flavours are well blended. Lastly add almost cooked pasta and season. Cook further few mins and adjusted seasoning.

Good on you mum! Thank you xx

p.s. Dad knows his way around the kitchen too and cooks the world’s best chilli crab and can shuck oysters like pro. That’s another post, for another time. x

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InContro, South Perth – review

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Could InContro be a candidate for my new favourite restaurant in Perth?

This beautiful South Perth restaurant offers not only superb food, but uninterrupted sublime  city views across the Swan River.  The views are hard to beat.

Inside the restaurant at the view of the city beyond

The setting has an air of sophistication, the waiters are well versed, some donning French accents, and the napery, glassware and cutlery are what one would expect in a fine dining restaurants.  It’s all lovely.

It not just about the views though is it? It’s about the food.  InContro, which means “meeting” in Italian, offers first class Mediterranean style cuisine.  You can dine on the ‘piccolo’ menu – much like tasting plates or Italian tapas, the regular menu, or mix it up like we did and choose from both.

As one comes to expect when dining at a fantastic restaurant in Perth, it ain’t cheap.  No sir.  But for a special occasion, it is seriously worth splashing out for a food experience at InContro.

Leo, Katie, Matthew and John

Our family was celebrating a special occasion, Zorba‘s mother’s 70th birthday.  She is as fit as a fiddle and enjoys nothing more than sharing a meal with her family. Dining with us was Zorba’s sister Marnie and her triplet boys, Leo, John and Matthew, who are seven years old.  There is never any hesitation taking the boys out for dinner with us because they are nearly always well behaved in restaurants and thanks to their Greek and Italian heritage, they love food and eat everything!

Pizza Margherita

As most seven year olds are starving by 5pm, you can imagine how famished the boys were at 6.30pm. We ordered a couple of fresh pizzas for them straight away.  It was enjoyed by Masters Seven with gusto!

Entree was a selection from the piccolo menu; zucchini flowers stuffed with salmon mousse, Rottnest scallops and king fish carpaccio.  It was presented beautifully on a tiered  tray. I could not fault anything, simply beautifully cooked, delicious flavours, and the perfect way to start dinner. The zucchini flowers were my favourite – crispy on the outside, smooth mousse on the inside. YUM! I could have eaten a whole plate of those!

Zucchini flowers

How good do these dishes look?!  Are you hungry yet?

Rottnest Scallops

For main course, we decided to choose our own.  I couldn’t go past the Turkish Sticky Black Angus Short Rib ($45).  Marnie had Linley Valley Pork Belly Vanilla Pear Pomegranate ($36), Zorba and Katie both had Duck Confit Cauliflower Puree Quince Salad ($38).

Turkish Sticky Black Angus Short Rib

My beef rib was nothing short of sensational. Slightly sweet, oh-so sticky, rich with smoky undertones, and the meat was so tender, sliding away from the bone with just the gentlest nudge from my fork.  I have never had a beef rib as good as this one – and that’s a big call.   Whilst expensive, it was a decent sized serve which is just as well or I would not have shared any of it!  The boys all agreed that it was the dish of the night.

Marnie loved her pork and really enjoyed the pomegranate salad.  Katie and Zorba seemed to thoroughly enjoy their mains as well.  To accompanying mains, we had Albany asparagus and shaved fennel pear with candied walnut salad.

Finalmente!  Dessert time.  The seven year old nephews were chomping at the bit waiting for dessert, especially once they heard that fairy floss was a feature.

We all had the Eaton Mess with Fairy Floss and ordered some desserts from the piccolo menu to share. A two-course dessert – now that’s my style of eating!

Eaton mess with floss

The wine list was fairly extensive, but on the high end of pricey.  We shared a bottle of bubbles, a prosecco, to start ($70) and then went for one of the cheapest shiraz blends on the menu on advice from the waitress. I love my red wine but didn’t want to spend upwards of $90 for a decent drop. The waitress’ recommendation was perfect.  The 2010 Sons of Eden shiraz blend ($65) was a beautiful smooth easy drinking red.

The only other time I have been to InContro was for a friend’s wedding late last year.  For a function, it was the best food I’ve ever had. I was excited to finally be going back there again.  And it didn’t disappoint.

It would be hard to imagine anyone being disappointed dining at InContro. It is first class in every sense and really worth splashing out for for a special occasion.  Impressive and highly recommended.

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FACT FILE

InContro
79 South Perth Esplanade, South Perth WA 6151
Tel. 08 9474 5566

Open Lunch and Dinner, Tuesday to Saturday

InContro on Urbanspoon

Food Wine Sleep

Tiramisu for Susie’s Birthday

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Sister Susie preferred to go out on Thursday night, the night before her actual birthday for a celebration dinner.

Zorba and I had tried to book into L’Arco Del Cappuccini – allegedly one of the best restaurants in Taormina – without success.  So we booked into the restaurant next door, Tiramisui, where we had enjoyed a beautiful meal a couple of days before.

The whole family came out to dinner – Master Sam 3, Miss Indi 5, Susie, my bro in law Ben, Mum Gina, Dad Walter, and husband Zorba.

A grumpy niece with her pasta and tomato sauce

Dad with his hot mussels

We did what we always do when having dinner with the kids in Italy, order for them first.  Sam wanted pizza and Indi wanted her standard, pasta with tomato sauce.  Both kids did well and had very simply yet tasty dinners.

To be fair, the kids were really good going out to dinner most of the time and they were good this night for the first 90 minutes.  Then they got bored and fidgety.  That’s when the kid-rescuer gets fired up, the portable DVD player featuring this week’s favourite animated feature, Robin Hood.  Man, those kids must have watched Robin Hood 17 times in two weeks!

Zorba and I had talked up our lovely dinner at Tiramisu somewhat, so everyone’s expectations were high.  Nonetheless, we all had lovely antipasti and mains.  I opted for marinated scampi followed by fresh pasta with porcini mushrooms.  Both were beautiful, but the scampi was particularly light, fresh and delicate.  I didn’t want to share it because it was so good…but I did!

Marinated scampi

Zorba loved his starter of octopus cooked in balsamic.  His main of linguine with sea urchin was not to my liking – sea urchin has a very fishy seaweedy almost flavour to me, but Zorba loved it.

Ben opted for the traditional Sicilian pasta dish of tagliatelle norma – with eggplant and breadcrumbs, followed by a mixed seafood grill.

Mum’s bruschetta with eggplant was really delicious. For mains, she just had a plate of grilled vegetables and shared Dad’s pizza of grilled vegetables and balsamic (no cheese!).  Dad has hot mussels to start and he loved those!

Bruschetta with melanzane – eggplant

We were all feeling pretty full, however, it was Susie’s birthday dinner so when she slipped away to the ladies room, I asked the waiter if he had a piece of cake that he could bring out for her and passed him a packed of birthday candles.  The waiter recommended some tiramisu – I concurred. That sounded good!

When Susie returned to the table and started talking about finding a gelato for dessert, along came her birthday cake tiramisu – and wow – it was HUGE!  It fed all eight of us!

Happy Birthday Susie!

The tiramisu was so gorgeously light and unbelievably tasty. The tiramisu I make is also delicious, but it is a lot heavier than this one.  I could have kept eating that until I burst. It was gorgeous!

Nephew Sam even liked it!  I spoon fed it to him while he was on automatic pilot watching Robin Hood on the portable DVD player.  Watching Sam go through a caffeine high on the way home from the restaurant was something else. It was the kid was charged with super duper everready batteries. He kept running and jumping and running and jumping. This did not calm down when we got home either.  Running in the villa, jumping on couches, up and down stairs!  Not surprising really.  It took him about an hour to wind down and get to sleep.

It was a lovely family dinner out.  Happy Birthday Susie!

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FACT FILE

Tiramisu Restaurant
Via Cappuccini 1, Taormina
Tel: +39 (0)942 24803

 

 

Umbrian antics

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As we prepare to leave our Umbrian palace, Laguscello, we will all be doing so with fond, fond memories.  My top memories are:

  • Getting ridiculously lost trying to find the villa, despite having written instructions, verbal instructions from a local 2km away, and two GPS’s between the two cars.
  • Forgetting where we parked our car in Orvieto and the ordeal of trudging up and down the steaming hot cobbles streets trying to find it. If only we had walked up hill an extra 3 minutes, we would have found it and saved ourselves about two hours.

    Walter frustrated at not being able to find our parked car in Orvieto

  • Trying to find where to buy wood for the pizza oven.  Four different attempts to find the place with written directions proved fruitless.  We accidentally drove past it on our way to Assisi and we not able to find it again until it was our last day. I know, we’re hopeless!
  • The amazingly delicious simple dinners cooked on the coal BBQ at the villa and sitting around the big table in the garden sharing a meal together.
  • The stunning villa itself and the gorgeous views from every room.  It’s secluded, beautiful, so spacious.

    Laguscello

  • Zorba and I getting locked in our room – oh, I haven’t told you about this one.  We locked the door on our bedroom on our second night to prevent the niece and nephew waking us up at 5am, only to find the lock had jammed and we were trapped inside. Nothing could free us.  We were rescued the handyman neighbour in the next house who broke in with a crow bar.
  • Seeing fields and fields of bright yellow sunflowers in Umbria amongst rolling hills of wheat borders by pencil pines, and how they looked blurry when Zorba was driving at warp 9 speed along the A1.
  • The impressive and imposing vista of driving past Orvieto perched on top of the hill with its Duomo creating a striking skyline.

    Orvieto

  • Shopping for food with mum and dad and watching them be excited and amazed at the produce and the prices.
  • Tartufo or truffles and Cinghale! Wild boar salami is amazing.
  • Obviously, hanging out with my family and spending lots and lots and lots and lots of quality time together in the villa, in the car, in Orvieto, in Assisi… ;)

Ciao ciao Umbria.  Next stop Taormina in Sicilia. Bring on the seaside chic x

Spello, pretty little Spello, Umbria

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To quote my favourite guidebook in the universe, Lonely Planet, “Just when you think Umbrian towns can’t get any prettier, along comes Spello“.  And they were right.

This gorgeous little hilltop medieval town has cute lane ways filled with potted flowers, cobbled streets, ancient brick and stone houses, archways and endless vistas of rolling hills.  

The most impressive church we saw was St Andrea, dating back to the 12th Century it is just gorgeous inside with frescoes, great artwork and ornate statues.

In Spello there were many artists showing off their works in small galleries through out the little town.  Also in abundance were shops selling colourful traditional Italian ceramics and much to my delight, delis.  Mmm, how I love a good deli.

Exciting too, we saw a saint’s relic!  Yep, those creepy Catholics strike again. On display in a little ornante glass case was a bone from San Felice.  Yes, a bone. I’m not sure what sort of bone, maybe an arm?  Either way, it was creepy!  Praying to a bone must give certain Catholics a sense that someone is there? Or that their prayers will be answered because the bone of San Felice is listening? I’m not exactly sure, even though I’m a Catholic myself.

Saint’s relic: The bone of San Felice on display

In Australia, we have never had saints relics in our modern churches and it’s something that I find hard to understand. Nonetheless, I get excited every time I come across a relic because it is just sooo creepy!

After a very pleasant albeit uphill walk through the town centre to other side and back again, we ordered a panini and sat in the main square for a quick lunch.

Mum and Dad in Spello

The 1.5 hour drive to Spello, following the GPS was mostly without incident if you don’t count Walter saying to Zorba the driver every 10 minutes, “It’s 90 here,”  or, “There’s a speed camera coming up, I saw a sign.”

We did actually get pulled over by the carabiniere – the Italian police.  They asked for Zorba’s licence and once sighted said thank you and Arrivederci and waved us on.  It was probably too much paperwork to book an international driver.  More to the point, there was nothing Zorba was doing wrong to get booked in the first place!

On the way back, we made it home in an hour.  Not once did we get lost. Not once did we forget where we parked our car. The only thing that did happen was that a huge truck nearly crashed into us when coming around a corner.  I crapped myself – as did Mum and Dad, but Zorba kept his cool and drove on.  He drove well and did a good job.  A good move my him too to take the current speed off the GPS and also remove the voice prompts that say, “You are over the speed limit” when going 1km over.

Spello is very cute and it is easy to whittle way a couple of hours there, more if you have time for a leisurely lunch in one of the many trattorias or entotecas.  Highly recommend.

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FACT FILE

Spello is close to Assisi and Perugia in Umbria.
It took us about 1.5 hours to drive from our Umbrian palace, Laguscello (near Castel Giorgio and Orvieto).
There was plenty of parking just outside the city walls the day we visited.

Numero Uno restaurant in Orvieto, Umbria

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I think everyone should experiencing eating in Italy in their life, even if just once. The Italians understand pleasure and they understand food – and more over, there is awesome produce readily available in which to create delectable delights.

Me with my favourite aperitivo, spritz con aperol

Last night, Zorba and I took Mum and Dad out to dinner. Susie and Ben just arrived back from their little romantic mini-break to Roma for one night and it was time to get the parentals out of the Umbrian palace and out to enjoy some of Italy’s gastronomic delights. A passagiata though Orvieto for about an hour, followed by an apertivo of my favourite Spritz con Aperol, was a wonderful way to start the evening. Orvieto is such a pretty, pretty  town.

We chose to dine at the number one restaurant on Trip Advisor for the area, aptly named Numero Uno.

The indoor restaurant looks like it could be in a cavern and Mum poetically described it as reminding her of Cooper Peedy in outback Australia. “We are in the middle of Italy, in a town that boasts a history of thousands of years, and this reminds you of Cooper Peedy?” I  ask.  ”It’s the domed roof – they use a massive truck with a roller with teeth to dig out dirt to build underground houses…blah blah blah,” Dad chimed. I kind of stopped listening…

Back to restaurant Numero Uno.  The inside was like a cavern and could have once been horse stables.  There was some antique looking items on display and a big blackboard listing the day’s menu.  Note the prices.

We chose to try something different, mille foglie di melanzane, or eggplant sliced thinly and baked with a gratin top. Since this is usually made with cheese, we ordered two, one with cheese and one without for cheese-hating Walter.  We also had five different crostini – like a bruschetta – topped with mash broad beans, tomato, tomato and basil, truffle, and a vedura and lard.  Yes, lard. The lard in Italy is the tasty smokey lard usually found edging proscuito, and whilst it was once cheap, it is somewhat of a delicacy.  Our starters were ok but we all agreed is was average fare, no more than a 6 out of 10.

For mains, Dad and I both had the pork with peaches.  It had a gorgeous sauce and was really delicious, thick and peachy sweet.  It was really, really good. Mum and Zorba both went for the fish, bacala with gratin.  It was a big chunk of cod, beautifully moist and flakey.  It was delicious.  Both main meals get a 8 out of 10.

Us!

Dessert was heavenly. I’m not exactly sure of the name of what I ordered – it was tiramisu like in the there was a layer of soaked sponge in a glass between beautifully creamy sweet ricotta and white chocolate cream, topped with roasted slivered almonds.  OMG. I was in dessert heaven.

Zorba ordered the tiramisu, something we never usually do because the tiramisu I make is so good that ordering it out more often than not leads to bitter disappointment. But not at Numero Uno. Their tiramisui was amazing. Truly delicious. Ten of ten for desserts!

Our gorgeous waitress Diana (great name!), served us efficiently and in a friendly welcoming manner.  Chef Angelo came out and chatted to us at the end of the night which was a lovely touch. Chefs don’t do that enough these days.

The house red at 12 Euro per bottle was from Umbria and perfectly quaffable with dinner. We went through 1.5 bottles and took the rest home with us.

It was a great night.  And we remembered where we parked in Orvieto this time and had no dramas getting home.  A big shout out to Zorba for doing all the driving x

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FACT FILE

Osteria Numero Uno
Via Ripa Corsica, 2/a, 05018 Orvieto, Italy
Tel: +39 0763 341845
Email:  info@osterianumerouno.eu
Closed on Monday

 

Italian supermarkets

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Oh how I LOVE Italian supermarkets!  Most of them (not all mind you), have the most fantastic produce, delis, and butchers.

Fresh produce in the Umbrian supermarket

Supermarket shopping when I travel is something I love to do. It gives a real insight into the sorts of foods people eat, what is cheap, what is expensive, and what is readily available. For example, when we shopped for our stay at our Umbrian Palace, Laguscello (near Orvieto), two-minute noodles where nowhere to be found.  And I think this is a good thing.

The variety of tomatoes available in the supermarket is enough to make me want to live here, and the price of them is enough to get Walter excited about being here!  I’ve seen tomatoes from Euro 0.99 cents per kilo and the most expensive I’ve seen have been Euro 2.60 per kilo.

A 1.5 litre bottle of natural mineral water at Eurospar, one of the bigger supermarkets in the area costs Euro 0.15.  That’s about A$0.18!!  18 cents!  We pay ten times that in Australian supermarkets!  We are getting totally ripped off!

My contribution to dinner, Caprese salad with buffalo mozzarella bought from the supermarket – OMG yum!

Proscuito crudo (parma ham) cost Euro 7.00 per kilo.  In Australia, we pay a minimum of A$40.00 per kilo for the locally produced proscuito. Imported proscuito costs A$65 per kilo and more.  It’s hard to believe.  And people think Europe is expensive….

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Two cappuccini and a plain croissant cost Euro 2.60 or A$3.12.  And to think in Australia we pay more than that just for one cappuccino!

Eating out is also so much cheaper than Perth.  Last night for example, Zorba and I had an amazing three-course meal with house red wine for Euro 50, or A$60.  In Perth, it would have cost twice that without a doubt.

It may be expensive to travel to Italy, but once you are here, it’s cheap.

The only thing that isn’t cheap is firewood.  Two sacks of firewood cost Euro 25!  That is heaps!  Still, to be able to make our own pizza dough and cook them in our own wood-fired oven is going to be fantastic.  Can’t wait til we do that tomorrow night!

 

 

Assisi, Umbria

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A reluctant brother-in-law Ben conceded to a majority ruling of visiting Assisi, the Umbrian town made famous by it’s patron saint, St Francis of Assisi.  Ben was reluctant because Assist is a 1.5 hour drive from our Umbrian palace Lagoscello and he is the father of our two youngest travellers Miss 5, Indi, and Master 3, Sam.

Nonetheless, we packed ourselves into our two C-class Mercedes, programmed the GPS, and set off for an exciting day out discovering a new city.

It was supposed to be a 1.5 hour drive and it probably was if you went directly there. However, as I have described in recent posts, we have inadvertently turned into the Griswalds and kept missing roads, having to do u-turns.  Sigh.

On our way though, we did zoom past the place that sells firewood, Baldini – a place we have been looking for since we arrived so we could use the old fashioned wood-fired pizza oven at our Umbrian palace.  But alas, traffic was heavy, Zorba was driving too fast and it was just impossible to stop. Everyone chimed let’s stop there on the way home. I was skeptical – we haven’t had the best track record of finding places (despite a GPS and directions)…

On we travel, onto Assisi.  It took us under two hours, not bad going for Bortoletto / Kings /  Griswalds really.  All six adults took photos and made mental notes of where we parked the car, not wanting to repeat the fiasco of Orvieto. Once again, today was shaping up to be another hot one and it was already starting to heat up even though we were in Assisi by 10.30am.

Assisi seemed lovely, albeit pretty busy. Tourists everywhere! Cars were edging their way up crowded streets, forcing us to duck into shop doors, between parked cars and the like.  It was distracting and I have to admit, especially with two young ones with us. I much preferred walking around Orvieto and Bolsena with their calm pedestrianised streets.

We decided to walk directly to the main attraction, the cathedral of St Francis of Assisi, a world heritage site, while the children were coping ok. We were nearly there when the kids were starting to fade.  A closed restaurant had its tables and chairs out the front and Ben opted to stay with the kids whilst they had a snack from their lunch box while the rest of us went into the Cathedral to check it out.

St Francis of Assisi was completed in 1253, and a really beautiful cathedral inside. From the outside it was a large impressive structure, but doesn’t have nearly as much of the ornate decorations that the Duomo in Orvieto has.  We went down stairs to see the tomb of St Francesco.  The whole cathedral was impressive and three levels. I don’t think I’ve ever been into a multi-level church before, besides crypts below the main church.

There were loads of monks and nuns in Assisi – no surprise really, after all, it attracts pilgrims from all over the world.

Conscious of Ben with the kids up the hill, we ventured back.  We decided to find a place to sit and have lunch.  Susie chose the first place we came across that had tables outside. An ordinary looking bar that had a gelati and very sad looking panini in the window.  No way was I going to eat any of those. Susie had one and said it was disgusting. I wasn’t surprised!

Gelati were bought for the kids, and that’s right about when Sam cracked it.  His major hissy fit over I don’t know what, made Susie invent a naughty corner in the cafe and Sam was sent promptly there.

Zorba was already checking out other places to buy some lunch, so I tip toed out of the Sam war zone to see what he had found.  Right across the road was an organic cafe that only sold gluten free piadini – a flat bread.  They looked nice enough and the man behind the counter was happy to deviate from his menu to make us our favourite combination; proscuito crudo, fresh mozzarella, and tomato.  They were delicious! Mum and Dad followed us in and had a different yet just as yummy combo.  Zorba said it was the best piadini he has ever had.

By that stage, Sam’s hissy fit has dropped a couple of notches and Susie and Ben decided to start the trek home and said their good-byes.  But, they didn’t go straight to the car. Instead, they stopped at a shoe shop. When I followed them in, Indi was already trying on a pretty pair of pink sandals.  In her own words,  ”These sandals are excellent and very comfy!”  Susie bought Indi’s first pair of Birkenstocks.

After that, they went straight to the car.  Mum, Dad, Zorba and I wandered around a little more, had a gelato, and found the car on our second attempt (hurrah!) and went back to our villa.   Of course, we had to stop at the supermarket and butcher to buy some supplies for dinner.  It was 4.20pm and nothing was open.  I bet they opened at 5pm, so we didn’t have to try hard to convince Walter to have a beer and wait til they opened.

We had the afternoon to relax by the pool, cool off from the heat.  Our dinner of local delicious salami sausages – yes, they were a mix of salami and sausages and absolutely beautiful, especially cooked on the coal BBQ.  We again had veal scallopine steaks cooked some sage from the herb garden, some buffalo mozzarella with tomato and basil, a delicious garden salad and yummy crusty bread.  Man, it was a meal for champions!

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Another great day, thank you Umbria.

Bolsena, Lazio (near Umbria)

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Bolsena is an ancient hill top medieval town that dates back hundreds of years.  According to Wikipedia, records for Bolsena Lake – which is a huge crater filled with water – date back to 105 AD.

From our Umbrian palace near Castel Giorgio, we decided to drive to the near by medieval town of Bolsena.  Bolsena is actually in the province of Lazio of which Rome is the capital, close to the Umbrian border.

Bolsena is oh-so pretty. The lake is massive and almost looks like the sea. The Lake’s edge is dotted with pretty colourful hydrangeas, manicured gardens, and shady trees.

The short drive to reach Bolsena was enough time for Sam and Indi to fall asleep in the car.  As you can imagine, they were pretty cranky at being woken up.  Not even the bribe of a gelato could quietened them.  Indi was particularly grumpy and I have to secretly admit, I found it quite funny! The horesy ride thing that was available for kids to ride still couldn’t put a smile on Indi’s face.

The actual town of Bolsena is so so so cute!  Stone houses made out of black volcanic handmade bricks, narrow cobbled streets, flower boxes with gorgeous coloured flowers spilling over the sides, big wooden doors and cute small doors that look like they were designed for dwarfs, and a castle with a commanding tower that dates back to the 13th Century.

We did a little walk through the town and little 3 year old Sam was very excited to be seeing a castle where the brave knights once were.  Similarly, 5 year old Indi (once over her grump of having to walk up stupid stairs) was excited to see where the princess used to live.   We paid the two euros per person to be able to climb up the castle tower where the view of the Bolsena lake was stunning.

As you may imagine, at 4pm in the middle of an Italian summer, it was baking hot and we were keen to get back to our Umbrian palace and cool off in the beautiful pool.

Bolsena is well worth a look. It’s teeny tiny and absolutely cute.

Back at the Umbrian palace, our dinner was sensational.  We marinated some chicken in rosemary, garlic and lemon and cooked them over the coal BBQ.  Accompanied with barbecued eggplant and zucchini, it was healthy and heavenly.  The buffalo mozzarella we had bought was amazing and sitting in the beautiful garden of our villa, Lagoscello, it was a lovely evening.

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FACT FILE

Bolsena is in the province of Lazio and is 21km from Orvieto.

Getting ready for another dream trip! This time with mia famiglia

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Hello readers!

It’s been a while – oh yes indeed. Sorry about that.  But you know me, my blogs are about my travels and there’s another trip coming up.  In one month’s time today, Zorba (aka Husband Andrew) and I leave for bella Italia.  We are stopping overnight in Dubai staying in a relatively fancy hotel, before flying into Milan. From Milan we will catch the train directly to Monterosso SP on the Cinque Terre.  From there we will train it to Roma and have four wonderful days in my favourite Italian city before meeting the family.

Mum, Dad (both 65 years old), my sister Susie (almost 38), my brother in law Ben (36), and my gorgeous niece Indianna (5) and nephew Sam (3) will be meeting in Rome.   After picking up two hire cars, we will be driving to Umbria where we are staying in a gorgeous looking stone farmhouse villa. Check out our Umbrian farmhouse villa www.lagoscello.co.uk - yup, it looks amazing!  I just hope it is as nice in real life as it is online — please, please, please be true!

After a week in Umbria, we will be driving back to Rome and flying to Catania in Sicily.  From there Mum is still figuring out the logistics of how we are all going to travel onto Taormina.  Taormina is one of the most beautiful Sicilian towns – built high up on the rocky cliff, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea…oh it is just simply gorgeous!  We have another villa just outside Taormina, near the cable car that can take us up the hill to the town centre. The Taormina villa is in a complex – so we have to share the pool and ‘private beach’.  It’s more like a private few rocks that look a little precarious, but we’ll see.  I wonder how we will go there without space for the kids to run themselves tired.  Time will tell!  Check out our villa here

This holiday is going to be different to the holidays I’m used to – having the family altogether will be fabulous.  But having to cater to the needs of a Miss 5 and Master 3 will be an adjustment.  But one that Aunty Di (me!) is looking forward to.  All of us together in the mother country, it is going to be awesome!

Indi and Sam practising their cappuccino drinking skills before our family holiday to Italia

After Taormina, Mum, Dad, Zorba and I say bye-bye to Susie, Ben and the kids as they head straight back to Melbourne.  We fly to Rome and have one last night in Rome.  From there, Mum and Dad fly home.  Zorba and I will then go to Barcelona for four days, then onto London for five days before heading back to Perth.

Living the Dream – again x 2!  The countdown is on, T -30 days.

p.s. I’m going to play around with the format of this blog – so don’t be alarmed if it looks different. Ciao! Di x