Beach Day

Oh boy, today was our relax day and yet the exhaustion is on par with the past two days. We had an early start so we could head back to the coast to pick up the rental car by the airport. Once we picked up the car, we headed south to Sabaudia for the beach.

Visualizzazione ingrandita della mappa




This was one of the coolest beaches..the water was clear, the temperature was refreshing and there were beautiful people everywhere! In addition to the beauty of the sea, we were able to see some countryside and many acres of grapes. Aside from one near run-off-the-road incident, the driving is not nearly as wild as we expected. As with most "warnings" we have received or read in travel books and forums, there are drivers who are a bit wild, weaving in and out of traffic....not unlike it is in the states. However, there is something quite smart about how the rules of the road go, and we are not sure how official or unofficial they are. On a two way street with one lane in each direction, the person behind you may choose to pass you regardless of whether there is oncoming traffic...it's expected that as you see the person passing, that you veer to the right and straddle the break down lane until they are done. A bit odd, but honestly quite handy. Have a slow annoying person in front of you? Pass 'em and they'll have the courtesy to help you get around them.

Now, by popular demand...the food!! Today was a fun food day. We stopped in two grocery stores in our travels to get food that we could bring to the beach and eat on the road. We had some italiano snacks and some yummy meat and cheese in a roll up. We made two of these, had two iced teas, and a nutella snack all for 7EUR...one of our cheapest meals yet.


Since we ate on the cheap for the day and it was our last night in Rome, we decided to hunt down a nice place for dinner. Most restaurants around here are closed for the summer holiday season, but we found a winner! It was family style, and we really had no idea what we were in for. The food came the second we sat down and we knew it was serious as we were greeted by a huge leg of prosciutto which they shaved in our first antipasto. They served us all this food in this order...

Bread, Salami, Prosciutto, Buffalo Mozzarella
Mini Pizza
Zucchini blossom fritters, Bruschetta
Spinach
Fresh Ricotta
Risotto with cream sauce
Fettuccine with red sauce
Roasted pork
Potatoes (which we told her to take away and give to someone else...no sense in wasting)
Dessert.... some sort of fruit tart



We also turned away the wine and aperitif... and the damage was only 35 EUR each....people who drank got the same deal! One of the fun things was having the chef come out and show us the courses as they were finished so we could "approve" the meal. There were 4 tables or so all eating in the same rotation so he went to all the tables with the pan and then brought it to the back for the server to dish it out for each of us. Then the chef would come back and pick one guest to eat straight from the pan where all the yummy crispy food was. A must do if you are ever in Rome. It happened to be in walking distance from the hotel and is off the main drag, but well worth it and exactly what we could have hoped for in an Italian family style meal.


We ended the night with a night drive around the city. Normally, the driving is restricted in the city center to alleviate congestion. During the month of August, they suspend the restriction so we had full access to the city and hit all the major destinations so we could see them all lit up. We happened to find some fireworks going on at the Spanish Steps, but because of a closed road got lost in the maze and never found our way back. Since the city is a ghost town today, we even found a parking spot steps from the hotel! I love driving in the city at night!!

Tomorrow we pack up and head to France with a couple stops along the way. Not sure if we will have such good internet access there as we did here. We'll post as we can. Thanks for watching and we love the comments!

Miles covered: 300 km