Eat, Rain, Love!

Remember last week when I was commenting on our sunburnt bodies - well, somebody in charge of the Italian weather must have thought I was complaining. I wasn't - honest! We have gone from blistering hot weather to rather wet conditions here in Desenzano del Garda. All of Italy is experiencing "temperature instabili". 

It is not dampening our spirits (as you can tell from that bad pun) but the funny thing is our appetites seem to be increasing! Hard to believe, but it is true.

  

This was some kind of roulade with arugula and prosciutto and it was incredible!

For some reason it is rather difficult to find cooked vegetables on all of the menus - so this was a feast of grilled radicchio, eggplant and zucchini.

Fresh gnocchi with veal, porcini and truffles...

Veal cutlets with fresh white asparagus and lemon.

We also had to break down and buy some high quality umbrellas that are guaranteed to last for at least a week if we are lucky!

All that personal stuff aside, we spent a really fun day in another one of those smaller must see cities that I have been talking about - Padua or as the Italians call it, Padova. My only regret is that the pictures don't do justice to all the beautiful buildings and sites that we saw. Padua is better known as the city of St. Anthony and is also one of the most important art cities in Italy. It was just an hours train ride east from where we are staying and it was well worth it. 

Given that we had a rather tasty lunch, we needed to do a lot of walking and these were some of the sights that we saw.

This is cheese from Puglia - the gentleman cutting samples thought it hilarious that I would take his picture!

And finally, a plug from the south (at a large street market):

the black gold of Calabria. 

And we cannot forget our Sicilian cousins (as if that would ever be possible):

The beautiful torrone...

And so for now, we say "ciao with love" from underneath our most enduring umbrellas!! Thinking of you all.