10/22/18: Naples

Last night, the restaurant we went to, Pizzeria Dal Presidente, was good but not amazing. Again, I think all the pieces I've tried could come together into an amazing pizza pie, but it didn't happen the first pizza we ate. A minor limitation, as you don't need meat on a pizza, is that a lot of pizzas are laced with one pork product or another. After all the eating we've already piled on, I think I wouldn't mind downgrading to a margherita myself. We're trying to get more vegetables, which isn't impossible, just tricky when did recommendations for Naples are dominated by pizza. 

The Presidente the restaurant is named for, by the way, is Bill Clinton. 

This morning, we took a slow regional train the 16mi out to Pompeii. I'd stayed up a while optimizing our big walk around the site on my walking tour app's map of the site: 

3km of zigzagging through the ancient streets.

As soon as we walked into the fenced-in site, I got worried about our timetable. It really is huge. Felt as big as the Imperial Palace and Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Between the overcast and light rain, and of course the doomed end of the city, Pompeii had a somber cast over it. My route ran into issues early on, with multiple road closures ruining my carefully optimized plans. Our rented audio guide was generally informative, so we took our time at each narrated location. I think I'd recommend 4 hours in Pompeii of you're into history. Do research into the different travel options, but the regional rail worked fine for us. 

Sites that I thought were good:

- House of Geometric Mosaics (best view of surrounding landscape)

- Temple of Venus

- Stabian Baths

- House of the Faun

- The Forum

- Theater

- Amphitheater

That picture of Alexander the Great that you might have seen? Dug up from the House of the Faun:

That dog mosaic from any intro Latin textbook? House of the Tragic Poet:

I may have once known that these pieces of ancient at had come from Pompeii, but when I saw these today, they came as a complete surprise. 

Sites that were a letdown based on my app's must-see status:

- Temple of Apollo

- House of the Baker

- Macellum

- House of Venus in the Shell

- Brothel

Sites that were closed so we couldn't get the full experience:

- House of the Tragic Poet

- House of the Ship Europa

Sites that I wanted to see but we didn't have time for:

- House of the Ancient Hunt

- House of the Vettii

- The Street of Tombs

- House of the Mysteries

All of the houses are named after what's found in them. A few have evidence of the owners names and are thusly named. 

There's a pizzeria inside that I'm sure makes bank, but feels super out of place. Inside, you have flourescent lights. Outside, you have wagon ruts worn into stone from two millennia ago:

That last picture is a good segue into the human tragedy of Pompeii. A baker just going about his day ran for his life and left behind these loaves of bread. Everyone ran, but no one made it. Outside the main entrance is a collection of casts made of some human bodies found in the solidified ash. I don't think any sculptor could hope to match the terror and agony in these buried dead, their lives insignificant in the shadow of Vesuvius. One young person's last moments were sitting against a wall, knees propped up, elbows between thighs and hands over face. Whether in fear, prayer, or a desperate attempt to block out the ash, we can't say. But the resignation and utter humanity in these casts is like nothing else. The archaeological value of Pompeii is immeasurable, and we have to remember the victims whose lives were extinguished to preserve this moment in history. 

Back in Naples, we switched gears to food touring, again. The tour guide was one of the best we've had, and quantities were good.

1) Mozzarella di bufala. Mozzarella made with buffalo milk. A Campania (state Naples is in) DOP product. DOP is a certification for food that is made in is historical origin area using traditional preparation. It ought to be good if it's DOP. The mozzarella we had was fine but not amazing. Probably wasn't DOP. The prosciutto was great. 

2) Pizza fritta at Sorbillo Esterina, one of the 3 main Sorbillo family pizza shops, specializing in fried pizza.

Much much better than what we had last night. The dough was thinner. There was way less provola, which made the dish much lighter, texturally and taste-wise. There are only a handful of ingredients: dough, ricotta, provola, tomato, salami, black pepper. I thought it could use more spice from the black pepper, even though I could see a lot of it. 

The big French family had the nerve to say it was too heavy, despite French croissants needing a kilo of butter to bake, those frauds. 

3) Frittura napoletane. Neapolitan fried stuff. This was 3 items: crocche, the equivalent to an arancini, and the frittatine di pasta.


Only the last thing was new. It's spaghetti in a cheese sauce breaded and fried. The spaghetti evokes mac and cheese, though the execution is light years beyond a fried hunk of mac and cheese at some American bar. And I think instead of a 4 cheese mac and cheese sauce, if it were instead mostly fontina, which really worked for me but not Muslimah. 

4) Limoncello. Some DOP liquor. Visiting the factory and seeing a big vat of lemon peels fermenting was cool: 

5) Gelato. It was good, and I got lemon in honor of the last visit. 

One of the sites on the tour was the original central square of old (Roman) Naples. The Spanish took the Roman temple, left a few columns, and converted it to a church. Then the Italians took the stairs descending the church and turned it into a scooter shed:

Our guide also explained the origin of street theater as a response to the infection risk of big enclosed theaters. Street comedy theater tradition gave rise to a common cast of typed characters that became known across Italy and indeed helped to culturally unify its kingdoms. Naples' home character, Pulcinella, is welcomed by the city, which takes this bit of heritage much more seriously, than, say, Milan. 

As you might guess from that depiction, Pulcinella evolved into the Punch of British Punch and Judy shows.

10/21/18: Palermo day 2

We're both a little sick, with me waiting to see if my runny nose will get any worse and Muslimah saddled with a cough. Harder to go to sleep at night, so we give ourselves more time in the mornings. 

We kicked off with trying to find a place to get onto the hop-on-hop-off bus. Eventually, we found a spot and got a bus that was running late. The circuit of the city was pretty scenic, when I wasn't marveling at how close the driver was cutting it in every encounter with cars, motos, bikes, and pedestrians. The canned audio guide was a little uneven but still informative. If we had had more time, we could have hopped off at a few stops and seen things up close. 

After a loop, we got off and snaked back to the start of the food tour to get some more frittola and sfincione. The frittolero recognized me, probably since I was the Asian guy wearing the same bright shirt as yesterday.

Then we walked back over to the archaeological museum, which was supposed to be an impressive collection of Greek and Egyptian artifacts. Or so I hastily read some weeks ago. The Greek stuff was indeed impressive, mostly artifacts from a Greek city founded in Sicily in 600s BC. There was really only one significant Egyptian artifact, though the Palermo stone on its own was pretty amazing. 

https://github.com/cotalabs/scala/blob/MLL_Proto/reduct/src/main/resources/db/migration/R__01_rwe.patient.sql#L150

We didn't stay long, as we wanted to do a different hop-on loop around the Eastern part of the city. Unfortunately, I went to go get a Coke and use the bathroom and missed the bus. So we settled for an afternoon snack on a rooftop restaurant by our AirBnB. Some good views of the city:

We rushed to the hotel to pick up our bags and then blazed it on foot to the train station for the first pickup point for the airport shuttle. Muslimah's concern about not getting decent (or any) seats was well founded -- after 3 stops, the bus was full up. 

I started looking into Naples restaurants on the shuttle wifi, and boy do these articles make Naples seem like heaven on Earth for pizza. We'll see. 

One short flight later, we landed in Naples. Took the shuttle into the train station and then walked to our current AirBnB, a modern affair in a cavernous hulk of a building, with the flimsiest elevator I've seen.

Update: first pizza place in Naples was disappointing. It was good, just not blowing my mind.

Neapolitan specialty -- fried pizza. Like a very thin calzone but fried instead of baked. Very cheesy.

Some unwieldily cheesy pizza with tomates, basil, and prosciutto. Just very heavy.

A very wet and cheesy margherita.

I think there's plenty of time to do better. Also the security guard for the back open area said they take card, but they didn't by the time we wanted to pay. I got one hell of a scooter ride from one of the waiters to bring me to the ATM. I'm pretty sure he was trying to mess with me by going really fast. But it wasn't enough to rattle me. 

10/20/18: Palermo

This AirBnB spot is fabulous. I've been to one better, but this place has so much character. I'll just link you to the IG pics: https://instagram.com/p/BpJbc-Kjfz5/

The interior courtyard open to the any is a very unusual layout for the US. The interior stairs that are technically still outside remind me of the Bradley building, somehow. 

We strolled over to the start of today's street food tour. The guide took us to various Palermo-specific (and not even just Sicily specific) food traditions and dosed out history and context along the way. 

1. Frittola

Boiled and then fried beef offal. As usual with tripe, the first taste is extremely pungent. But once you get going, the aroma stabilizes and you can enjoy the beefy umami flavors. It was a hit for me much more so than the rest of the group. Apparently, there's few vendors left who sell frittola, and it's mostly family traditional business supporting people who work at the open markets. 

2. Sfincione

A dish similar to pizza, but again very Palermo specific. The street vendors make a version without anchovies, and just a dusting of cheese over the tomato paste, which itself isn't that thick. 

3. Panelle and arancine

The arancini you might be familiar with is adapted from the Sicilian original, which was an Arab risotto-like creation turned into street food via rolling into a ball and frying a crust on. 

The specimen we tried was really good, with a filling of carrots, peas?, and ground beef. The couple from Milan was puzzled by arancine being a feminine noun instead of masculine. 

The panelle were adequate, but the chickpea flour is too dry and bland on its own to work taste miracles. 

The shop in the Capo market has run out of crochette, a potato croquette. We found some later to try, and it was also a bit bland. 

4. Spleen and lung sandwich

This was a huge hit for me. Far less organy than other organ meats I've tried. Unlike the frittola, this food is popular beyond the working class. The grated Parmesan really helps modulate the gaminess that can happen with organs. The texture is quite like roast beef -- not unusual at all. 

Glad these were fried in pork fat (another way to mellow the flavor?) so that I could get Muslimah's portion. 

5. Gelato

Nothing crazily different here. I think it's hard to mess gelato up, and these were easily satisfying. The shop we went to offered many fruit flavors, all of which used actual fruit in season. I had a pear and dark chocolate, and the pear grittiness was definitely there. 

Cannoli

There was no cannoli on the tour. I asked the guide for a rec, and we went to that place. The cannoli that we have in the US are the Sicilian variety, which are labeled Cannoli Siciliano in the other places we've been. The regular cannoli apparently uses some flaky dough and cream. The guide emphasized that getting the ricotta cream right was crucial to a good cannoli. The ones we tried were really good, but still a touch on the sweet side for me. 

After the tour, we went back to the AirBnB, checked on our laundry air drying on the balcony, and took a long unplanned nap. A couple hours later, we woke to early dinner time. We decided to try both a seafood place and a pizza place. 

We walked over to a seafood restaurant that the food tour guide had pointed out. They hadn't quite opened for dinner, so we went over to get some grilled lamb offal. 

This was truly delicious for me. The flavor was very deep and rich. The tough soon gave way to a mealy/grainy inside. The texture made Muslimah a non-fan. I might get some more tomorrow. 

After that snack, we walked back to the restaurant and ordered the 5 course tasting option. Or gustation, as our waiter called it. The restaurant definitely had some modern pretentious trappings about it, like a bar directly across the prep area, relatively haute menu writeup, and lengthy wine consultation. 

1. Yellowtail tartare

Delicate and at just the right temperature. There was just a dot of horseradish sauce, which worked really well with the delicate fish, but I ended up wanting a lot more of it. 

2. Grilled octopus

This came with a few drizzled sauces, but the octopus was grilled too hot, leading to a tough skin - undercooked core gradient. It was good, but I've had much better. 

3. Spaghetti with tuna and lemon sauce

The sauce was good, even if lemon still seems too strong of a note when it's a primary flavor. The pasta was too far on the al dente side, even with my expanded tolerance for that while traveling in the Gallic state. It would have been excellent if it was just ordinary al dente. 

4. Fish soup

A mix of shrimp, squid, clams, and fish. Nothing tricky here, just a generous sprinkling of saffron to bring the sauce home. It's a dish that anyone could make if they were willing to shell out for the spice. In Palermo, it's dirt cheap, according to our food guide. 

5. Brownie and almond parfait

The brownie had some ridiculous name on the menu, so I didn't know what I was getting until I saw it. It was a solid combination of sweet and soft, with a dense, fine flour baked just right. 

Muslimah's almond parfait was extremely almond tasting, but I'd consider that a success. 

When we left, we ran into the friendly Milanese couple from the food tour. I felt like I had to render judgment on the restaurant when they asked us how it was. I guess I would say it was great for the price (50 Euros for 5 decently portioned courses), but it wasn't perfect. The highlights outshined the lowlights, though. 

The pizza place was not good enough to spend time with up. The walking around a very bustling nightlife in the streets was worth it, though. 

10/19/18: Bologna day 3

We had planned to stay in Bologna the longest stretch of our Italy tour, mostly because of its strong food reputation. So this was the last day of the stay. We wanted to capitalize by maxing out the Bologna Welcome cards that we'd bought the first day. We're talking maybe 10s of Euros saved at most, but it was a good exercise the min-max our time. 

Morning: history museum, 10 Euro value

Afternoon: go to San Luca lookout the see the whole city. 5 Euros

Evening: ride hop-on-hop-off bus to the train station and take shuttle bus to airport. 15 Euros

The history museum was a bit eclectic, but armed with the casual knowledge we'd accumulated in the past couple of days, the audio guide was quite simulating. Two exhibits stand out. 

The first was a half room dedicated to i Torri, the towers of Bologna. From any given vantage point on the ground, you usually can't see many towers. Of course, far fewer still stand today. The fact that most of the time you're avoiding traffic by standing/walking under porticos means there's not good sightlines. And even when you are between buildings, they're built quite high, not skimping on ceiling height per story. But in serial shots and in various art from when the towers were in full bloom, the effect is at once astonishing and sobering.

The towers are a product of two eternal human traits: concentrating wealth and seeking glory. In a city packed with multistory houses, the only way to stand out is to go up. There is no better, more obvious gauge on your family wealth than how many stories you can put on a tower. And these things didn't spring up overnight. Workers and architects and engineers spent decades raising them. All for a chance to lord your wealth and power over the rest of the city. Bologna was once one of the most important cities in the world. And by that point, the two towers at the center of the city had already been a well known symbol of Bolognese prominence for centuries. Take these city models in close-ups from various Renaissance paintings:

The Asinelli and Garisenda towers were erected in the early 1100s. By the time Dante wrote about them, they were already over two centuries old, about the same time as between now and when the Founding Fathers declared independence. Imagine that. And the towers still stand today. I'm not sure the Asinellis who commissioned the tower could truly comprehend how well their vanity project has paid off. 

Unlike the pyramids, which were built with slave labor, these towers were paid for. On one side of the coin, you could call this the highest achievement in capitalism. To accumulate unimaginable wealth and to acquit yourself of it for your own desires. On the other side, what else could that money have done? Would we still know and marvel at those alternate universe achievements? I should point out that of course there were contemporary rich families who performed plenty of philanthropy to go along with their more selfish pursuits. So much of Bologna's development, cultural and otherwise, is owed to the Bentivoglio family, who hardly shied away from a family portrait. The title alone should illustrate what they thought of themselves:

Madonna enthroned, and the Bentivoglio family

The other standout exhibit was simply a portrait of Mussolini, used in context in a room about WWII. 

His eyes were jabbed out, with no explanation given in the art card or audio guide. The subtext I got was that everyone should understand why the painting was defaced, but I'd like to research that some more. 

So that was morning. We headed to the last restaurant on our try list -- Oltre. This place was a bit too hipster, but the food certainly delivered. 

I've been getting tagliatelle with ragu (in Bologna you don't have to say Bolognese -- bear with this running joke) at every meal to be able to comparison shop and get a sense for the range. As I understand it, ragu Bolognese shouldn't use much tomato, and that was true of every one I'd tried up till Oltre's, which had detectable tomato, and for the better, I must admit. It adds a heavy does of familiarity and childhood nostalgia to a dish that can be hard to get rich enough without being greasy. Oltre's is really good, but not better than Venissa's (though that was 'maccheroni' and not tagliatelle). Despite the tomato heresy, I give this 2nd place. Note: I didn't get a ragu at Polpette & Crescentine; I knew I'd be too full with the name dishes. It could have been a contender...

Muslimah got a... cod lasagna, and it was a great application of cod. Very aromatic and woke up the other ingredients. 

Finally, I ordered pigeon, cooked like what I'd consider a classic French roast duck breast. The sauce was good; the meat was rare without negatively affecting texture, and the blueberry and raspberry accent worked. The homemade dab of pigeon liver pate really needed some bread, which wasn't provided. A really good dish, but I have no basis for thinking of it as Italian. 

After lunch, we basically ran up a mountain. There is a covered portico path that runs from a city gate alllllll the way up to the Santuario della Beata Vergine di San Luca. 666 arches, about half of them running up at what I'd guess is an average 10% grade, what would be absolutely hellish on a touring bike. We were checked out of our BnB and had our full travel load in our backpacks, which made the climb a bit spicier. 289m of steps and maybe half an hour later, we had huffed and sweated our way to the landing of the basilica. We had to move fast because the afternoon was closing in. So we flashed our cards, ran up the spiral staircase to the top of the church, took a few pics, didn't even look for the icon that Saint Luke painted (the artifact of honor in the annual procession that goes down the path into down), and plopped into the express bus taking us back into town. 

On the way, we consulted the time tables carefully and concluded that we could still intercept the hop-on-hop-off bus and ride it to the train station. Unfortunately, we waited at the around stop for 5min without the bus showing up, so just gave up on those sweet savings and marched up Via dell'Indipendenza north to the station. Some more navigating later, we arrived at our AirBnB in Palermo. 

For more info on the Santuario:

http://www.avrvm.eu/the-sanctuary-of-the-madonna-of-san-luca/

10/18/18: Bologna day 2

Snoozed a few times this morning to try to let Muslimah try to get over her cold, which has been taking a toll on her for the past couple of days. We went to two museums before lunch: the ones for medieval artifacts and musical instruments. 

The atmosphere at the medieval museum was dampened a bit by stuff that seemed a bit attentive and maybe even suspicious. They were the only one to require checking a bag, but nothing in there was stealable. 

The craftsmanship on display was predictably amazing. The giant illuminated hymn book made me realize how some eager for knowledge might pledge a life to the church in exchange for access to knowledge and academic resources. How lucky we are to have increasingly democratized education. 

For lunch, we went to Polpette & Crescentine, a casual spot specializing in those eponymous items. Polpette are meatballs, and crescentine ended up being like savory beignets. 

My fried meatballs and potato wedges were to salty, but everything else was not so salty that it wasn't delicious. The crescentine were great. Muslimah's gnocchi were perfectly soft and the right amount of gummy vs tear apart. The cream sauce was tremendous. The chicken meatballs in carrot puree was very novel and still quite good flavor. 

After lunch, we had a lull for a window visit before the evening bike tour of the city. Unfortunately, a lot of the archeology museum was closed, so we only got to see the Egypt wing. Which to be fair had specimens of exceptional preservation. 

Heteronormativity through the ages, I guess. 

The bike tour was exceedingly mellow, revealing corners of the city that were quite different from the intensely youthful town center. The tour information was somewhat redundant and not a huge highlight. 

Dinner was at potentially the fanciest restaurant on our list to try. The ragu was the best I'd had so far in Bologna. The dish translated as boiled meat was also good, but in an even more rustic way -- get the broth right, get the meat tender, and apply a simple flare in the sauce.