Hello from Delta flight 67 Rome to Atlanta!

Now that our time in Italy has wrapped up, I thought I’d try to compile some thoughts on our overall experience in Italy. This was my first time traveling in Italy. I’ve been wanting to visit for some time since I love Italian food and I have some heritage in Italy via my mother’s side of the family (according to my DNA report, I’m just under 25% genetically Italian heritage). And, for various reasons, the Italian culture is the one that has prevailed in my family’s traditions. So, the trip was more meaningful to me than most.

In short, our time in Italy was fantastic! The food and scenery both exceeded my expectations. The food especially just seems so much better than what we have access to in the US. Even simple, raw ingredients, like a tomato, tasted much better than anything I’ve had before. And for more complex ingredients like olive oil and cheese, well, Italy is just producing stuff on another level compared to America. I’m definitely returning home feeling inspired to do what I can to find local, fresh ingredients for meals at home.

One experience that is really sticking with me is making pasta in our airbnb. The host provided the ingredients and suggested a simple preparation of just olive oil and cheese crumbled on top, which is what we did. We simply cooked the orecchiette in salted water, topped it with olive oil, salt, and crumbled cheese. We added fresh tomatoes as garnish. This dish was fantastic! And it took all of 15 minutes to prepare. I’ve cooked a lot of pasta at home in the US and I’ve never had something be so easy and incredibly delicious. There was no skill on our part, so the only explanation is really great ingredients.

Looking back to the places we visited, in order: Rome, Florence, Tuscany, Puglia. I don’t think I can pick a favorite. In fact, I think a highlight was visiting multiple regions and seeing the differences in food and culture. We learned about Italian history and how most cities (and the regions around them) were distinct with their own cultures and dialects until Italian unification in 1861. Even to this day, these regional differences carry on. We learned of a few different dialects and how different they are from one another. So, if you visit Italy, I’d definitely suggest visiting a few regions to experience these differences.

In Rome, we loved seeing the ancient Roman history in the Colosseum and Imperial Forum. It’s amazing to have a view onto this ancient civilization and see the city they built. It’s also incredible to think that Rome has been inhabited continuously since antiquity. We also enjoyed modern Rome, meaning it’s a vibrant city beyond the touristy parts. This means you can find authentic, local food without too much trouble. Some of our favorite dishes were in Rome.

Florence was amazing to see the art and the beautiful Renaissance era buildings and streets. If you stay in the central part of the city, it’s very walkable. Florence is also very touristy, every street is filled with tourists. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but is the reality of visiting the historic parts of Florence. The food can be great here too, we had one of the best meals of our trip here. So, it’s certainly possible to avoid tourist traps and find great places.

Tuscany was beautiful. Just driving through the countryside, or even better, biking through it, gives you so many scenic views. I enjoyed that we got to stay at a farmhouse and enjoy some agritourism while we were there. Visiting all the small Tuscany towns was very fun too, each one has its own unique history and feel to it. Of course, the food is great in Tuscany. We loved the handmade pici pasta, and had one of the best cacio e pepe dishes of our trip in Tuscany. The wine is great here too, and it was fun to visit a few vineyards and see exactly where the grapes came from.

Finally, our time in Puglia was great as well. While both Puglia and Tuscany are heavily into agriculture, I think Puglia exceeds Tuscany in this regard, giving you access to fresh, local foods almost everywhere you go. In fact, many of the foods we had in Puglia were the best on our trip. We loved the bread (especially the focaccia), cheese, meats, and seafood here. Puglia is also a lot less touristy than Tuscany, especially if you get away from the coast and head inland. Our e-bike tour through Puglia was one of the best rides of my life. The Pugliese countryside is beautiful in its own, unique way. I also loved the cities rendered in white, from the cobblestone streets to the buildings. Puglia definitely felt as if it could have been a different country from Tuscany and the cities of Rome and Florence.

So, overall the trip was great! I’m already thinking about when we might be able to return to Italy. I’m definitely going to miss the great food (and lack of humidity) after returning home!

Housekeeping and thoughts on blogging

Just a quick housekeeping note: I’ve gone back and added categories to all these Travel Report posts to make it easier to find them and read any that were missed:

• Italy 2024 category for just the reports on Italy.
• Europe Train Journey 2024 category for the posts on my earlier Europe Train Adventure
• Travel Report for every travel report posts

You can find these categories and all my prior posts on the Archive page.

This trip was the first time that I’ve tried blogging about travel and I’m very happy that I decided to do this. Not only has it been a nice way to share with family and friends what I’ve been up to, but I’m happy to have it for myself as a detailed log of what I did. It’s also been fun to reflect on every step of the trip and think of what I wan to write about and which photos I want to share. It’s been a fun creative outlet.

So, thank you for following along! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these as much as I did writing them. I don’t currently have any big trips planned in the future, but whenever I travel next, I think I’ll keep up with the travel reports. So, if you prefer to follow via email, you can subscribe here and receive posts shortly after I publish them. My About page also describes other ways to follow, such as RSS or ActivityPub/Mastodon.

Ciao!

Hello from Puglia, aboard the train headed to Rome. Puglia was the last leg of our trip in Italy, aside from tonight in Rome before we catch our flight back to Atlanta tomorrow.

So, let’s cover what we got into in Puglia!

We stayed in a house just outside the city of Noci. It was a great property with beautiful gardens. It really felt like we were deep in the countryside even though we were a kilometer or two from town.

Here’s where we stayed.

On our first full day, the main event was an e-bike tour around the Pugliese countryside. We started in Alberobello which is known for buildings with conical stacked stone roofs known as trulli. In fact, you can find these buildings all over Puglia, but they are concentrated in Alberobello, and some have been converted into shops and hotels.

We spent some time here, seeing the trulli up close and we even were able to enter one. These buildings are often 100s of years old and very rustic. Living in them can be a hard life, since you don’t have many modern comforts. We learned that for this reason, maybe 20-30 years ago, most people were trying to get out of Alberobello to live somewhere more modern. It wasn’t until relatively recently that it became more of a tourist attraction and owning a trulli became more desirable.

Us on our tour bikes in Alberobello.

Us with our guide, Adriano, who was fantastic!

Our next stop was Martina Franca, where we stopped for a coffee break in this plaza. We drank caffè Lecce, which is espresso over ice with sweet almond syrup (more on this later). I’m glad we were introduced to this drink, because it’s great! Especially on a hot day.

Us riding down a bike trail that was built along the path of a historic aqueduct.

Locorotondo was the next stop.

Here we had a “light” lunch featuring some typical Pugliese foods, such as cappicola, focaccia, bruschetta, burrata, and orecchiette. Everything was extremely delicious! I especially loved the focaccia we had in Puglia. Often it was made with a darker grain that gave it more flavor. I think the focaccia here is the best I’ve ever had.

Our ride completed by circling back to Alberobello. I recorded our route on Strava if you are curious for more detail. At 50 kilometers, it was a long ride, but very fun! One of the best rides of my life!

That night for dinner, we headed into Noci.

The next day, we drove south to head to tour a dairy farm that specializes in cheese.

One of the pens where cows are kept. We learned how the different pens are used to group cows that are different stages of their milk production cycle.

Some of their cows resting in the shade.

Then, we got to tour the cheese laboratory, as they called it.

Hoping I got “accidentally” locked in the cheese aging room.

Then, the highlight of the tour, watching one of the cheesemakers demonstrate how to make fresh mozzarella. He explained that you only need 3 things for cheese: milk, salt, and enzymes.

For this demonstration, he started with fresh cheese curds and added salt and hot water then began to mix and stretch it with a wooden pallet.

Here the curds are being stirred with the added salt and water.

Now the curds are starting to come together and are being stretched further.

And the stretching is finished when he was able to stretch it above his head.

After all the stretching, he started to shape it by hand, demonstrating 4 different shapes: knots, braids, ball, and burrata.

But the highlight was being able to shape the cheese ourselves! Here’s Beth making burrata, which is stretchy mozzarella filled with stracciatella (strips of mozzarella and cream). We got to eat what we made and it was the best! So fresh and flavorful. I’ve never had burrata this good before.

Later, we headed to a beach club, or lido as they are called in Italy, to relax and sleep off our cheese comas.

Dinner was in Capitolo which is right up the coast from the lido.

A sample of the fresh seafood they had that night. We ended up eating the lobster and scorpion fish.

Sunset at Capitolo was very pretty!

The next day we visited the seaside town of Monopoli.

A cool portal onto the harbor.

The harbor was very beautiful.

Monopoli is still an active port, yet remains very scenic.

The streets of Monopoli are beautiful as well. I love the white render buildings and the white stone streets.

Someone taking a selfie in this square.

Ok, a quick break to show the Italian way to make caffè Lecce, as we learned from our guide on the bike tour. The drink is named after the city of Lecce and is served as espresso with a side of almond syrup and ice.

You pour the espresso into the glass, letting the cup rest upside down to make sure every drop of espresso makes it in.

Then you stir it together and enjoy. I love this drink. I’ll have to try and find the right kind of almond syrup in the US so I can make this at home.

After Monopoli we headed to a Polignano a Mare, which is another seaside town famous for its beach and cliffs with sea caves. Here we had a boat tour, which was a great way to see the coast.

Beth gets the photo credit for all the pics from the boat.

Here, the very famous beach.

Our guide even took the boat into a few of the larger caves, to our surprise! The water inside was beautiful

Inside this cave, you can see the pathway up above, which is actually a very high end restaurant built into the upper part of the cave with views out onto the sea.

The streets of Polignano a Mare at night, showing some lights celebrating the song “Nel blu, dipinto di blu” by Domenico Modugno who was born in Polignano. There’s even a statue of him that we saw from the boat. However, our guide told us that the statue and celebration of Domenico is just for the tourists and the people from Polignano don’t like the signer because he claimed to be from Sicily rather than his true birthplace of Polignano a Mare.

More night views of Polignano.

Our next day we headed for a cheese tasting at Baby Dicecca, which is located inside a forest preserve. We were lucky enough to meet the cheese maker himself, Vito Dicecca, who was very nice. He stopped by our table a few times to chat with us and see what we thought of his cheese. We tasted a lot of cheese, and they were all great, but his signature blue cheese served as a cake topped with cherry was the star!

Later in the afternoon, we fought off our cheese comas and headed to Matera for a tour of the city.

We learned the history of Matera, which is vast. The civilization originally started as cave dwellings carved into the rock cliffs along the stream. Over time, people built on top of the caves, adding stonework to create buildings. However, every building is at least partially carved into the rock. Many buildings have vast caves below them. At least, if you were well off you could afford to have a building above ground. Many of the poorer residents lived entirely in caves with no access to fresh air.

What was shocking was to learn how by the 1950s the city was in very rough shape. There was no running water or electricity. All of the residents were living life as if it was still the 1800s. Malaria and other diseases ran rampant as it was impossible to maintain modern hygiene.

The government eventually stepped in and evicted everyone from the historic part of the city, into new public houses that was constructed adjacent to the historic buildings. So, from the 1950s until about 1990, the historic buildings sat vacant. Our tour guide told us that at one point, the government considered just demolishing the historic city, but abandoned the idea when they determined the amount of dynamite needed would be too costly

So, the city sat vacant until the 1990s. At this point, the government decided to try and create a tourist destination. Modern utilities were installed and buildings were rented out to businesses. But, things didn’t really catch on until about 10 years ago.

Now, the city is in full tourist mode, with Michelin star restaurants and 5 star hotels.

However, it can be a surprising mix, as you’ll pass buildings and areas of the city that still look completely abandoned and right next door is a swanky hotel.

Another view of the historic city. I found Matera to be so fascinating and intriguing. It’s hard to fathom that people have been living here for so long and how hard that life must have been.

Matera at night is beautiful!

And that brings us to the end of our highlights from Puglia. I really loved this region of Italy. The countryside is beautiful, and we had some of the best food of our trip here. If you visit Italy, I’d highly recommend Puglia. It can be a lot less touristy compared to Tuscany and gives you an opportunity for more authentic experience.

So, we have tonight in Rome, then we’ve reached the end of our time in Italy. It’s been fantastic! I’m happy that we were able to see the big attractions in Rome and Florence and then spend substantial time in the countrysides of Tuscany and Puglia. It’ll be hard to leave Italy!

Ciao!

Ciao from Noci in the Puglia region of Italy!

Get ready for a giant, image heavy post about our time in Tuscany! There’s so much beautiful scenery, I absolutely failed to edit this down.

To start, and a big highlight of this part of our trip, was the Tuscan villa and farm where we stayed. This was outside Montefollonico with views of Montepulciano in the distance.

It was like a fairytale!

I mean, they even had this rabbit that lives in the yard behind our room.

Here’s the view of Montepulciano.

On our first full day, we set out to explore the countryside around Montepulciano by e-bike. This region is famous for its wine production and beautiful medieval and Renaissance era town.

Admiring the view shortly after we set off on the e-bikes. At first, I was skeptical that we’d need a mountain bike. By the end, I realized why. Some of our route was on essentially farm roads that could be gravel and fairly rough. Even with an e-bike, the hills here are a challenge!

But the views were worth it!

This is a very typical Tuscan scene with the cypress tree and gravel road.

The route the bike shop provided included some stops for wine tasting. I loved how informal it was here at Boscarelli. These vineyards really are small operations.

Of course, Montepulciano has a beautiful church.

More views from Montepulciano.

Next few days we did some driving itineraries to see more of the countryside and the small Tuscan towns.

First up was Trequanda.

Also great views from Trequanda. We are beginning to see the pattern that Tuscan towns are built on the hilltops, creating great views of the landscapes.

We visited another winery and agriturismo. This one, called Fattoria del Colle is run by women. Again, it’s a small operation.

More great views.

We visited a small olive oil producer, met the owner and got the full tour. It was really fun to learn about the process, seeing the older machinery (big granite wheels) alongside the newer (centrifuges that reduce contact with air).

This small, family run operation puts out some great olive oil!

They make several D.O.P. oils and this cloth details the Siena D.O.P. region.

Next up was Chiusure, which is adjacent to this valley of rugged, eroded landscape.

Just outside town was this monastery with this monk statue turned up to 11.

Lucignano was the next town we saw. I thought the streets here were very photogenic.

It’s so cool to see the town walls and entryways. Some (most?) date back to the Etruscan civilization. However, the walls have been reinforced and rebuilt over the centuries.

Dinner in a castle? Why not?

The dining area had some unexpected modern touches. Food was great.

Next was Monticchiello, which also had great views.

And the town itself was very picturesque.

This small town had quite the history full of combat and attempts to breach the town walls. We learned about the documentary called Spettacolo that’s about the theatrical event put on in the town square every year. We definitely will have to give this a watch!

Here’s what looks like a regular cup of espresso, but it has a bit of grappa added to it. It tasted great. In Italian it’s usually called caffè corretto which translates as “corrected coffee”.

The next town we visited was Pienza, which is famous for being a Renaissance era planned city in the style of Humanism. It was the home of Pope Pius II who oversaw the construction and eventually returned to live here.

A view of the piazza.

During the equinoxes, the shadow of this cathedral fills the square, mirroring the image of its facade.

This building was the home of Pius II and his family.

Forget the history, the view was the best part. Must have been good to be the Pope.

Oh and you’ve gotta taste the pecorino cheese that is made here and is world famous.

After the cheese, we walked just out of town past this old church…

To this view. If it looks familiar, it’s because it was used for a scene in the movie Gladiator.

The next place we visited was Castiglione del Lago, which, as its name suggests, is next to Lago (Lake) Trasimeno.

We bought a ticket to walk the fortress battlements and it was totally worth it.

Next stop, the town of Cortona, which was built on terraces cut into the hillside. It has these amazing, ancient walls.

A cool celestial globe I spotted.

I really liked the streets of Cortona. It had taller buildings than we were used to seeing.

Just outside of town is another monastery. This one is beautifully set into the stream’s valley.

And that was it for our time in Tuscany! Thanks for reading through the post. We absolutely loved our time there and would go back in a heartbeat.

But Puglia was calling. So we headed back to Florence to take the train to Bari via Rome.

Ciao! I’ll have another report on Puglia. Sadly, this is our last stop before we head home!

Buonasera from Tuscany! Tonight’s post has the highlights from our time in Florence. We’ve been in Tuscany for a few days now and it’s taken me a while to get this post together because there’s so much I wanted to cover even though we only had 2 nights in Florence. And the WiFi and cell isn’t great in Tuscany, so it’s taken a bit to get all these photos uploaded.

Back to the start of this leg of the trip, we took the train from Roma Termini to Florence. Roma Termini was surprisingly good. It was clean and had a nice design. We got coffee before our train was ready to board and it was a nice experience.

Our high speed Frecciarossa to Florence.

The first highlight from Florence was Palazzo Vecchio, which was the home of the Medici family during the Renaissance. And if you know anything about the Medicis, you know how humble and plain they were. Their home reflected that.

One of my favorite rooms here was the map room, which had detailed maps of all the world that was known to them during the Renaissance.

A view of the Duomo.

A duplicate of the statue of David displayed outside the Palazzo.

All of central Florence is a beautiful Renaissance city.

The next highlight is the Uffizi Gallery, which is right next to Palazzo Vecchio on Piazza della Signoria. The Uffizi was originally built by the Medicis as an administrative building. Now it houses mainly Renaissance era works of art. Some pieces are older and were acquired by the Medicis and other collectors.

This building also has a map room. Check out this stone artwork.

Huge map frescos.

A view of the Uffizi’s courtyard.

Vecchio as seen from Uffizi.

Medusa’s head painted on a shield.

A bridge covered with buildings that are now mostly high end shops.

Just happened to walk past this print shop while they were at work. You could smell the ink as we walked past.

Ok, let’s talk about the food. It has been consistently good the entire time we’ve been in Italy. But the pasta at Cibrèo Caffe was amazing.

Spinach and ricotta tortelloni.

Cacio e burro.

Had to have pizza at least once during this trip, and this was our first. I had this quattro formagi and enjoyed it. I’m learning that I like almost anything with Gorgonzola on it.

Next highlight is the Duomo. The facade is most intricate I’ve ever seen.

The interior is austere by comparison, but still beautiful. Check out the clock that was describe as working on “Italian time.”

And that’s the recap of Florence! We saw so many incredible things, it’s impossible to capture it all.

Next, we picked up a rental car and headed into the Tuscan countryside. I’ll recap our time in Tuscany in the next post!

Buonanotte!

Ciao from on board the Frecciarossa high speed train to Florence!

Rome was incredible! It’s hard to capture everything in one post, just like it’s hard to capture like 2,500 years of history in a few days in Rome! Still, here’s the highlights!

I successfully linked up with my beautiful wife, Beth, in the late afternoon on June 2. We had some drinks and a bit at the hotel, before we went out later for more drinks and dinner.

The next day was all about the Colosseum and Roman Forum. It’s hard to describe how amazing it is to see this ancient structures and to try to imagine the city during the Roman Empire.

Later, we headed up to see Trevi Fountain.

Dinner at an enoteca where I loved this paccheri with sausage and asparagus. It was simple, but great! I’m now in love with the paccheri pasta shape.

The next day, we started in the morning with a food tour with Sophie, which was great. We walked around Rome, mostly the Trastevere neighborhood, having small bites as we went. Roman food is great, it’s a lot of meat (Mortadella is a local favorite), cheese, and bread, which is just perfect in my book. Even something as simple as tomatoes, cheese, and olive oil was amazing. The tomatoes were probably the best I’ve ever had. Don’t forget the baked goods, like the cookies from this bakery, which is the oldest in Rome.

One of the things about Rome is how you will see ancient ruins and stunning buildings everywhere you go in the city center.

Here the legendary Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome.

A picturesque street.

I loved this weird fountain.

Dinner last night was at Trattoria da Enzo in Trastevere. I had no idea how popular this restaurant was, until we showed up and saw the giant line! They serve traditional Roman food. We loved the carbonara, amatriciana, and meatballs.

Now, we’ll be arriving in Florence shortly. We’ll have 2 nights here before we pick up a car and head out to Tuscany.

Ciao!

Ciao from Rome! With my arrival in Rome, this marks the end of my solo journey that started in London, England. I’ve managed to make it all this way with nothing but train travel and my own two feet!

Milano centrale.

But before reflecting further, here’s my ride from Milan. This is Trenitalia’s Frecciarossa high speed train model ETR 1000, which I believe is the newer engine and cars.

The cabin on this car is a little bit nicer than my equivalent TGV from Paris to Lyon. This is also where I wrote the majority of this post.

Arriving into Roma Termini.

Overall the trip went smoothly. One thing that surprised me was how many tunnels, long completely dark tunnels, this trip entailed. Looking at the map, it makes sense, as we have to traverse multiple mountain ranges. I don’t think it’d be feasible to travel at high speed over the mountains.

My hotel was close enough that I decided to walk.

It’s amazing to me that we are staying right next to the Roman Forum. These ruins are steps away from the hotel’s front door. It’s hard for me to believe that ruins from 2,000 years ago are just right here!

So, I think now is a good time to reflect on the overall trip. There’s so much novel for me in this trip: new countries, new modes of transportation. Despite how unfamiliar I was with all of this, I think things went extremely smoothly. My trains all ran on schedule and I was able to complete each leg of the journey without a hitch.

Knowing what I know now, would I recommend trains, especially high speed trains, as a mode of travel between European cities? Absolutely. For me, traveling like this is just so much more relaxed than flying. If it’s realistic to take a train, that’s how I’d go in the future.

I really wish high speed rail would come to America. I think it enables a type of travel that isn’t really possible without it.

Ok, now for some highlights.

Favorite train: Glacier Express. How could I not choose this? It was just over the top in every way.

Favorite non-scenic train: Eurostar from London to Paris. This train had the nicest cabin and best service. Oh and not that this train isn’t scenic, the French countryside was beautiful, once you get through the darkness of the Chunnel. The only negative of the Eurostar is having to go through airport like security and passport control. But that’s all about Britain and the EU and not the train’s fault. But it’s notable that this is the only time I’ve had to go through security and passport checks like this.

Favorite stop: Zermatt, Switzerland. Seeing the Matterhorn both just from the streets of Zermatt where it seems to loom over the town as well as from mountain top via the gondola was absolutely incredible. From my experience, Switzerland is just an incredible country. So beautiful in many regards. I’m looking forward to returning someday.

Favorite city: Lyon, France. Historic and beautiful Vieux Lyon, good food, bike friendly. I’d like to return and spend more time here!

Favorite train station: This is harder as I didn’t spend too much time in the stations…but I think it goes to St. Pancras in London. I loved all the glass ceilings and how it seems to mix modern and classic architecture.

So, what next? Here in Rome, I’ll be linking up with my wife and we will travel around Italy. I arrived first due to her flight being delayed. (Hahah, train wins!)

I think this will conclude the daily travel reports. But I will try to post some highlights from each part of Italy. We will be staying a few days in Rome, Florence, the Tuscany countryside, then all the way down in Puglia outside Bari, finally back to Rome for our flight home. We will be taking trains to travel from Rome -> Florence and then Florence -> Bari. We looked into flights for the Florence -> Bari leg, but we really couldn’t find anything that made more sense than the train.

So, thank you very much for reading and following along with my trip! It’s been really incredible. I feel so lucky to have seen so many countries, cities, and sights along the way. I’m glad I could share some of it with you all here.

Ciao!

Buona sera da Milano! I spent the day wondering around Milan, here’s what I got into.

The first stop for me today was Castello Sforzesco, a castle from the Renaissance era.

It was fun to see the huge courtyards with their impressive architecture.

Don’t forget to look up every now and then!

Here they have a room that displays the Rondanini Pietà which is Michelangelo’s last sculpture.

My next stop is the Duomo di Milano. I’m here mostly for the architecture and it’s a shame that the tickets to go up on the terraces and roof are all sold out! I did not anticipate that tickets to go up stairs or an elevator would sell out. Wait hours in line, sure. But, I would guess that due to the age of the building they might limit how many people are allowed up.

Still, the building is impressive enough from the plaza.

And on the inside.

This is some of the most detailed stained glass I’ve ever seen. This one almost looked 3d to me.

Check out this statue of Saint Bartholomew with no skin!

A square right around the corner from the Duomo.

The sightseeing today was classic Milan, but I think the best part of my day might have been dinner. I was lucky and found a place that seemed less touristy. At least, they did not have an English menu and my waiter did not speak English. Still, it was some of the friendliest service that I’ve had since entering Italy. And the food was exactly what I was looking for, really good without being overly fancy or pretentious. I think I did alright ordering in a mix of bad Italian, English, and pointing. One thing I’m learning, ChatGPT is pretty helpful with other languages (at least Italian and French). It provides a little more context and guidance than something like Google translate. It certainly helped me navigate this menu for some of the terms I did not recognize.

Here’s one of the dishes I had, it’s tagliatelle with pulipo (octopus) and Gorgonzola. When I ordered, I was wondering if the Gorgonzola would be overpowering, but it wasn’t! The dish was great and very well balanced.

This brings me to the end of my night. Tomorrow, I take the high speed Trenitalia line to Rome!

Buonanotte!

There’s some interest in how I packed for this trip, so here’s a post about that. (Hi, Su!)

I knew I needed to develop a packing strategy ahead of the trip so I could be away for about a month. I also had a few other goals:

• Have a carry-on sized bag so I wouldn’t need to check it and it’d more easily be stowed on trains
• Ideally a backpack so I’m not lugging a roller down cobblestone streets or something like that. Plus it would be nice to have both hands free
• Enough organization to keep clean and dirty clothes separated. Plus have my bag not turn into a sloppy nightmare after living out of it for a month. Since for a good portion of the trip I’d be in the same spot for only 2 nights, repacking and staying organized should be easy.

So, in anticipation for this trip, I got a Cotopaxi Allpa 42L travel pack.

What appealed to me about this is that it opens suitcase style and has some organization but not too much. So more pockets than a duffle bag, but not excessively compartmentalized.

It’s also a backpack first and includes a hip belt, which has been great and I’d highly recommend a hip belt for a bag this size.

Here’s how I’m organizing the bag:

• Main compartment
  • jackets and nicer shirts in the bottom of the main compartment folded simply to not be too thick
  • packing cubes on top of those
    • small packing cube (top): underwear and socks
    • large packing cube (bottom): pants, shorts, t-shirts
• Top left small compartment
  • packable day bag
  • travel towel
• Bottom left mid-size compartment
  • Beach stuff (bathing suits, beach shirts)
  • Extra shoes and sandals
• small compartment on the face of the bag (which is face down on the bed)
  • My dopp kit
  • Some small items like power adapters and battery

Here’s everything stowed.

And here’s the bag all zipped up.

Packed like this it weighs 24.6 lbs.

While I got this bag in anticipation of this trip, I’ve used it for some shorter trips earlier in the year as a trial run. So far, I’m very happy with this bag. I’ll probably continue to use it when I need something that doesn’t need to be checked.

As far as clothing strategy, I wanted to go for a capsule wardrobe where any top can be worn with any bottom. I also chose merino wool t-shirts since I’ve read they are good for travel, stay relatively clean (even after wearing for multiple days, but so far I haven’t had to test this theory), and dry quickly (in the event you need to wash them in your hotel room).

My goal was to be able to go 7 days without doing laundry, so I have enough socks, underwear, and shirts to accomplish that. Ideally I’d be able use hotel laundry service before I hit 7 days and I could avoid doing laundry in my room. So far, so good on this front. I’ve used a coin-op laundry once and have my hotel doing laundry today.

So one challenge for my trip in particular, aside from the length, is the different climates I’d be traveling through. From moderate, damp climates like London, cold mountain climates of Switzerland, and warm beach climates of Italy.

Here’s a tally of what I packed in more detail:

• 2x button up long sleeve shirts
• 1x button up short sleeve shirt
• 2x cotton t-shirts
• 5x merino short sleeve t-shirts
• 1x merino long sleeve shirt
• 1x exercise/hike shirt
• 1x lounge shorts
• 2x synthetic shorts
• 1x synthetic pants (wore the second pair on the plane)
• 7x pairs of socks (5x merino, 2x cotton)
• 7x underware
• Rain jacket
• Arcterix packable down jacket
• 2x hats
• 2x swim suits
• 2x beach shirts
• Sandals
• Extra sneakers (Lems)
• packable backpack (Matador)
• packable travel towel

Reading this list out, I think I fit a lot in the bag without it feeling extremely over packed. (It does require some effort to close, though.)

One thing I didn’t want to put in the Allpa was any electronics or things (like medicine) I’d want with me in the event my backpack was checked.

For this, I opted for this sling bag from Aer. In here I packed:

• iPad 10" Air
• Kobo ebook reader
• Medicine
• International power adapters
• Phone/iPad charger and cords
• Passport
• Print out of train tickets
• Glasses and sunglasses

This bag is just big enough to fit all the above!

So, about a week and a half in to the trip and so far I’m pretty satisfied with this setup! I think this has convinced me that carry-on backpack travel is the way to go!

Have you ever packed for a trip like this? How did you pack and how did it go? Let me know in the comments!

Update: I forgot to mention some clothing I purchased during my trip:

• A lightweight zip up fleece from North Face. I wanted another layer in Zermatt before going up to 12,000 feet and something that was more mid-weight than my down jacket.
• A crushable Mont Bell hat. I’ve been wanting more hats like this and found it in Zermatt.

These two items easily fit in the backpack!