Rome, Napoli, Florence and More-nce!

Our apologies for not posting sooner. We've had issues with Internet connections, travel plans, illness and, above all, laziness.

However, we've kept taking photos and eating food, and we've even taken a few photos while eating food. So below are a few nicer (read: Emma's) photos from our time in Rome, Napoli and Florence -- as well as two new food blogs about a couple of delicious regional pizzas and some amazing gelato.

So we'll start with pizza: I've (Emma) eaten a lot of pizza in the last three and a half years -- delicious pizza, but I have discovered one thing we've been lacking: buffalo mozzarella. If I have my say, we will soon import a herd of italian water buffalo to ABQ. Luckily, we were able to try this our first night in Napoli, before I became bedridden and lost my sense of taste:

It was simple and delicious. Some crushed tomatoes, a few basil leaves, olive oil and that creamy mozzarella di bufala -- that's it. That was pizza Neapolitan style. The restaurant, Di Matteo, was famous and surprisingly cheap -- most all the pizzas under five euros -- and we thoroughly enjoyed it:

And then it was on to Rome! After a long day of filling our mind stomachs at the Vatican museum, we filled our stomach stomachs at the Pizzarium, a "slow food movement" pizza hole in the wall that generally only offers vegetarian pizzas (but not by the slice -- as with many pizza places in Rome, you purchase by the kilo). Our favorite was also the most simple:

It was just tomato sauce and parsley on a thick, crunchy crust, more like thin bread than typical pizza crust. We got the address from this blog, which is much more professional than ours. Check it out next time you're in Rome.

We ended up getting a full kilo of the tasty stuff, including these guys:

From left it's a ricotta pizza, a cauliflower and blue cheese pizza and a spinach and mozzarella pizza. Emma was slightly overpowered by the blue cheese, but I (Pat) thought they were all good. My palate isn't as sophisticated as hers. I also got to wash it all down with an artisan beer from Munich. My kind of place. 

Here are a few other pics from Rome:

The Colosseum, of course. The spires at the bottom there are, I think, Doric columns, but I'm not sure.
I just column like I see 'em.

Palazzo Venezia

Ponte Sant'Angelo over the Tiber River near the Vatican City

The Trevi Fountain. We didn't have any money to throw in, but I think we'll make it back some day anyway. 

This is a Bernini sketch sculpture in the Vatican Museum. Though the Vatican Museum didn't have any major marble works by the Italian master, we saw(and fell in love with) quite a few at the Galleria Borghese.

After that, it was on to Florence, the supposed birthplace of gelato, and let me tell you: There was gelottafit.

Since Florence has a reputation for gelato, a lot of places are trying to milk that cash cow, and then turn it into really crappy gelato. So, for all you travelers, here are a few tips to make sure you're eating the real thing (some from personal observation, some from the blog we mentioned earlier) :

• If the gelato is towering out of the cases, it's probably not good. Gelato should generally be less light and fluffy than ice cream. 
• If the pistachio and mint flavors are bright green, avoid the place, and the same goes if the banana is bright yellow. This probably indicates that the gelato was made with additives and artificial flavors.
• If it has a bubblegum flavor, burn the place to the ground. Or just don't go there.
• And, also generally, if the place keeps lids on the gelato it's a good sign. Some places put way too much effort into the display, but good, authentic gelato places know that letting it air out can weaken the flavor.
• If the place advertises "produzione propia," it means that they make their gelato on the premises so it's probably better. 
• It should have an ingredient list prominently displayed, and said list should not have a lot of ingredients starting with "E," codes for products that are generally artificial.

So we ate gelato after almost every meal, and all was merry. The pictures above were from a place right by the Ponte Vecchio, Florence's most famous bridge.

And here are some other nice shots from Florence:

A view from the Boboli Gardens

The Duomo! 

The bronze doors of the baptistry known as the Gates of Paradise.

So here's the plan now. We're spending our last night in Italy tonight in the incredibly beautiful Cinque Terre. We spent the day roaming between those villages, and will have those photos up (if you're lucky!) soon. Tomorrow we're off to France for a few days and then back to Spain.

As for my journalism stuff, I hope to have at least one video up here in the near future, and perhaps two. I'm just having some audio problems, though they're not insurmountable.