Europe Fall 2024 - Third Gastronomic Post from Italy

As mentioned in my second Italian gastronomic post, eating while we are traveling is more of a stream-of-consciousness type of activity than a true gastronomic focused adventure. The last week covers our period at Francavilla al Mare and Ostia on the opposite coast by Rome. 

 Despite which side of the coast, whether you were in the countryside or in a city environment, if you were on the water, we found the Pesce (seafood) menus to be almost identical with minor variations. This meant me focusing on the seafood pastas (which were almost uniformly excellent), and Wife searching for grilled whole fish. We also ate a lot of salads (which were just 'okay', and a lot of grilled vegetables which were mostly zucchini and eggplant and were uniformly very good.

Seafood Pastas

A note on Mantis Shrimp

Those are the long, shelled things on the pasta. They are really hard to eat. You basically cut them in sections and chew on the shell like you would a shrimp head (if you are into that kind of thing). The flavor is very sweet.

Whole Grilled Fish

Non-Grilled Fish

At one place I ordered something I had no idea of. I thought it was going to be in tomato sauce. Turns out to be a type of eel (I thought it very good) with olives, wine and a bit of tomato.

Sample of a Salad and a Grilled Vegetable

No, we did not stop eating gelato

This was from a place in Francavilla. The one on the bottom was without doubt the best version of pistachio I've ever had with a ton of nuts in it. Sadly it was closed the second time we went there.

Non-Big Meals

There were times when we simply could not find a place open. Mondays were horrible for finding a place to eat. We were in Giulianova on a Monday and could only find this one cafe/bar open. No one was in it and they had some pizza slices and calzone available to be warmed up.

They were actually very good. The tarts we tried were not so great. One was a mixed berry and the other was pastry cream.

If we can find Kebab, that is a go to, non-fancy meal for us. This was from our last day in Ostia when we were still recovering from our Roman meal experience.

Okay, but not as good as the one in Vasto

Roman Eating

We'd not had pizza hardly at all because it is only made in the evenings and most of the time we were too tired to go out in the evening. But on arriving in Ostia, there was a pizza place right on the next block, highly rated, with take out. We went there, ordered our pizza, had it in 10 minutes and brought it to the apartment. It was very good.

 

We definitely wanted something different from the seafood oriented diet. Plus I wanted to try the classic Roman pastas in Rome. We were only there two days. It was after our Ostia Antica mega-outing. It was lunch time and we were exhausted. There was a local place right across the street from our apartment. This was a 'Grandma's Cooking' place...Literally. The entire staff (pretty small) was older women. It had what we were looking for on the menu so we gave it a try.

Wine and Bread

The woman serving us was so sweet working with us on our translation. When we ordered glasses of wine, she had us each taste the wine, then gave us an enormous pour!

 I don't know if the picture does justice to the size of the glasses and the pours. And these were 5 Euros ($5.50) each!

Cacio e Pepe

One of the classic pastas. I cook it a lot. Mine is always more soupy then this

 I think partially because I'm making it for more than one person. It was VERY peppery. Wife was eating this and it took her a long time. I was making fun of her until I tried it and realized how much black pepper was in it. BUT it was very good.

Carbonara

Another classic preparation with egg, cheese, and bacon. I also make this a lot, and also have the too wetness issue for I think the same reason.

 The bacon, when you get this in other parts of Italy is frequently very softly cooked. This was like pieces of lardon - cubic rectangles - and very crispy cooked. You will not also they didn't put this on spaghetti. It was also delicious.

Arostoncinni

I was supposed to try this in Francavilla but we never got around to it. It is basically meat on skewers. This was lamb. It was a bit under seasoned 

 

 Wife had fried chicken wings...which doesn't sound very 'classic' Roman to me, but what do I know?

 

 They were fatty (which I enjoyed but Wife did not) but were way more favorable than the skewers.

And we did the mandatory grilled veg which included carrots this time!

Europe Fall 2024 - Italy Exploration Ruminations

Our Fall 2024 trip has a specific focus - getting ourselves truly bought into changing our international travel so that we are doing less physically taxing running around and staying more in one place. As such we can consider this trip to be an experiment. And following the principles of the scientific method, it is as important to disprove a hypothesis as to prove it. (Though in the real world, anyone who has been professionally in academia knows that you only get published and tenure if your hypotheses are proven!). 

In fact, we are doing two tests. 

The first was to see if we could find another locale that meets the criteria we've set up for our desired long-term stay. This has been the first three weeks of our trip where we have been looking at numerous locales along the Northern half of Italy's Adriatic coast.

Our failure to find any place that met our objectives in Italy should therefore not be considered a failure of the test. The test merely proved that there are no locales in this area for our needs. Italy bombed out because of a number of factors. 

It has (at least based on our sample which now includes the opposite coast based Rome/Lido di Ostia) the unique culture/system of renting out vast portions of its beach to private operators who turn them into turn-key sites for beach goers which include shade (umbrellas), chairs, access to food and drink, often times sporting activities (beach volleyball courts, beach soccer courts, paddle boards, etc.), music, etc. I remember when we arrived our very first stop, Caorle, where the hotel we stayed at told us if we wanted to go to the beach, we were assigned spot (I forget the number) where we would find an umbrella and chairs. I thought it odd at the time. Little did I know.

There is also a distinct separation between beach areas and the towns. We stayed at a number of nice places on the beach. But none of them had shopping and services in convenient walking range. We stayed or visited at other places that were nice towns for walking around, where you could potentially live a walking lifestyle. But none of these were close to the water.

Finally, the towns that did seem to intrigue us (I'm talking about you Vasto) were lacking in short-term rental housing suitable for us in the areas where we would want to stay. 

 We're now on our way to the second test. This is a long-term (one-month) stay at one of the locales we've previously gone to see if we would be content going back there. Personally, I am looking forward to the slowing down and being settled for a while. Whether we go nuts after two weeks remains to be discovered.

 

Europe Fall 2024 - Closing Out Italy In Ostia

 Wife and I are pretty pleased with how we've handled the physical aspects of this trip. Before we left home, we were quite concerned because both of us had a bunch of physical issues. We had serious questions as to our ability to get around, walk, climb stairs, and be as active as we've done in the past. Getting so beat-up on our trip to Asia and Ghana in the spring did not help our frame of mind.

But by taking it gradual and slowly, we've really built up our capability as was demonstrated by our climbing in Francavilla a couple of days ago, and our tromping around in Ostia Antica yesterday. We were sore but nothing 'broke'. So it was good.

Today, our last day in Italy, we wanted to go to the ocean side to see if the beach here was any different than all those we saw on the Adriatic side.

Hmmmmmmm

NOPE

Commercial Lidos with beach umbrellas as far as the eye can see. Clearly this has to be insanely popular with Italians because you look at the sheer volume of these across the county, there must be a demand for it. 

They even found the ancient Roman Deity of beach umbrellas

Parapluisius

Here shown with his tool for raising the beach umbrella.

We went inland 

There are always interesting things to see (unless you are in Pescara).

Why would a bakery have a couple of Gorillas in front?

Look at this poor girl. Holding her head. Must have a headache. I would too if I had my morning snack with two massive Gorillas, a giant toy soldier, and ceiling of disco balls around me!

It is no shock to readers that Wife and de-I love their gelato. We tend to go for places that 'say' they artisanal (artigianale in Italian). But when you see that word everywhere...

 I begin to wonder. Did Parmalat, the huge dairy company in Italy, create a subsidiary called Gelato Artigianale? Is all this coming from a few factories?

And let me close with a couple of modern travel ruminations.

 Cell phone antennas. 

How incredibly wonderful it is to have voice, text, data, email, internet at one's fingertips all around the world. Wife and I were reminiscing on traveling using travelers checks, and writing to make reservations, and using maps to navigate.

 The ATM

Seriously, I never, never stop being amazed each and every time we go to an ATM in another country and take out local currency...in a matter of minutes. It is so freaking wonderful!

Well, our Italian research portion is at a close. I have a last foodie post which I will get up this weekend. Tomorrow, we're off for our return month in El Compello, Spain. Talk to you from there.

Europe Fall 2024 - Ostia Antica - Study Of Ancient Rome #5,382

 This post is dedicated to my friend, the Celebrity Historian.

Okay that is a slight exaggeration. But long-time visitors to this blog know I have posted A LOT of Roman ruins and history posts. (Sample those with the labels on the right of this post of  Ephesus, Jerash, Rome, Pergamum, Galilee, and Aphrodisias for past examples. But, in my defense it has been quite a few trips now since I last inundated you with this so I can be forgiven. We will be discussing a number of my favorite topics related to ancient Rome as we visit this, the city of Rome's primary ocean port in the later Republic and early Imperial eras. 

Because of the historical nature of this post, I have dedicated to my friend, The Celebrity Historian (CH). He does tons of videos (I've given you a link to his YouTube channel above) that are highly entertaining, yet well researched and documented. My loyal long-term followers know that de-I Sandia Outfitters International History Tours prides itself on doing anything BUT be well researched and documented. Normally, he would vociferously call me out on the SLIGHTEST incorrect fact, wild interpretation, or fatuous historical claim. However, I am protected on this blog as he only looks at it when I put a link to a post on a couple of WhatsApp groups we share AND he only puts his comments in those groups, leaving my actual blog pristine of any fact checking nonsense. 

So with that bit of housekeeping out of the way, let's head to Ostia Antica

 This is a BIG site. Wife and I walked for hours and we never got to the end of it.

A brief reminder of Roman building philosophy and techniques

Common thinking tends to lump Roman building technique with classic Greek monumental construction meaning the use of stone. The Roman's (especially pre-Empire) built predominantly with brick. Augustus, when he created the Princeps position which evolved to become Emperor, was the first to make use of stone and famously said something like "I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble".

Roman bricks were thin and layered with different materials.

 The brick work was frequently covered and designed.

The Romans had very sophisticated road building techniques

The construction of Roman roads typically involved four main layers, known collectively as via strata:

1. Statumen: The base layer made of large stones, approximately 30 cm thick, which provided stability.
2. Ruderatio: A layer of rounded stones mixed with lime, which helped bind the structure together.
3. Nucleus: A middle layer composed of gravel compacted with heavy rollers, typically around 30 cm thick.
4. Pavimentum: The top layer made of large, flat stone slabs that created a durable surface for travel

 Clearly we only are seeing the bottom layers among these ruins

 

 

 Upper stories of Roman buildings that were not monumental were usually made of wood, a reason why they have not survived. Throughout this site there were pictures representing what the city looked like 'back in the day'. What we're seeing now is just remnants of the ground floors.

 This picture shows the Forum, the city center. Roman cities followed the same design format. You visit various ruins and this starts to strike you hard. There was not a lot of creativity. There was a great emphasis on efficiency. Where the two major roads of a city crossed, the Forum was built which housed the primary civic (non-private) buildings like the major Temple and the Basilica (which was simply a large government office building - the term was adopted by Christianity for its large, important buildings). In this picture the Basilica is the rectangular building to the left. If you go to Trier, Germany, there is a famous Basilica (later converted to a Cathedral) that was headquarters to Constantine before he marched on Rome to consolidate his control of the Empire. It exhibits the same design.

Looking at the ruins of the Temple and the surrounding important buildings, you can see that brick was the predominant building material used.

 

 One should never forget that Rome was a capitalist based society first. Romans were all about making money. The area around the Theater was where the major trading companies had their headquarters.

I could visualize this being like a Hong Kong of 50 years ago, or Singapore today with the office structures surrounding this common area, each wheeling and dealing.

Like any good corporate structure, even the entryway flooring reflected their activities like shipping and the amphorae which were used to transport liquids like wine and oil.

You have to have places to live in a city. Roman cities were filled with insulae, multi-story structures with many apartments. They typically had an open courtyard to give light and air access to all levels. The ground levels were usually reserved for commercial purposes.

 

 Baths

The public bath was a MAJOR aspect of Roman civic life. Governments and Emperors spent big money building lavish baths that were huge. In Ostia, there are ruins of three of them. The mosaics usually have themes relating to Roman mythical and religious stories.

 

IMPORTANT REFRESHER FOR FUTURE QUIZ'S  

The Doric Capital

 The Ionic Capital

 The Corinthian Capital

Espouses Fotograficus Antica Romanus

 And actual excerpt of de-I/Wife travel. We cannot find each other. She texts me on WhatsApp, "Come to the Statue of the Guy with the Cute Butt". 

 I am not making this up

Miscellaneous