Today, B and I were comparing South Korea and Italy, two countries rarely placed in the same sentence. And the comparison isn’t fair, since we spent three months in many cities in Italy, and we have only seen Seoul, and over the course of a week. However, here is what we came up with. Caveat: very…
We were in Rome for a week and a half. Church of Jesus [Church]: This church’s most amazing element was its frescoed ceiling. The way that it was executed, it really looks like figures are climbing into and out of it. This is hands down the coolest ceiling fresco I’ve ever seen, and I think it’s…
TL:DR: we took an epic hike and lived to tell the (very long) tale. Where We Decide to Take a Little Hike The Amalfi coast is known for its hiking. Usually, people trek to the Path of the Gods, reputed to have an excellent view. However, we are marginally lazy, and I am very motion sick, so…
There is a lot of trust, even for tourists. For example, at a bodega, I picked up some tomato sauce from a shelf in the shop that was far from the owner and harder to get to. The owner asked me how much it was and trusted me to give the correct amount (and translate it…
Throughout our travels, I have been sensitive to how each locale treats women. When I traveled alone, it was actually less noticeable, because I was the only traveler to address. Someone may have thought that men wear the pants, but in the absence of one, here they were, addressing me. But as we travel together, it…
Dedicato a Mio Padre: We decided to try this place based on a rave Yelp review, and we were pretty happy with it. The service was good, and it seemed like a family-run spot that had only Italians inside (though that was true for most of Salerno overall). They gave us free croquettes as an…
Ciao Pizza: We were hungry at the vastly inconvenient hour of 3:30 pm. After trying several places and finding them either completely full or closing up shop until dinner, we found this place on Yelp. It had four stars, so we decided to go for it. Turns out that it was a take-out stand, of…
This town has a lot of shopping. There is a big shopping street – a bit like Santa Monica’s 3rd Street Promenade. It’s a lot of Forever 21 clones, Pac-Sun imitations, Sephora-type stores (plus the actual Sephora), and some versions of Claire’s. One type of store they also have a lot of is pajama stores.…
I have spent hours researching festivals and events that we could overlap with, based on our travel schedule. The Truffle Festival in Langhe? Not for a few months. The jazz fest in Copenhagen? No dice. All to no avail: even smaller festivals seemed to be just outside our travel dates. In Salerno, on the other…
As in smaller towns of the Amalfi coast, many bathrooms have no toilet seats. As in Salerno, there are many french fry stands. The drivers here – of both cars and mopeds – are particularly aggressive. They drive wherever and whenever they feel like it, from going the wrong way down a one-way street, to driving 3…