I haven’t started listening to Christmas carols or baking sugar cookies yet.

But we have bought a mini Christmas tree and a bright red poinsettia to brighten up our dining room.

And while everything is still a little sleepy in the South of France, I know that the Christmas markets are being set up in and that the lights are being strung all over Paris.

In two weeks I’ll be heading up to the gorgeous city to eat croissants, sip espressos, visit museums and walk around the city wearing warm scarves with one of my best friends who is visiting from home.

A couple days away from Christmas she’ll fly back to Alberta to be with her family and I’ll come back down South to be with mine.

I want to show her the best of Paris and for us to enjoy all the seasonal festivities so I did a little research to see what was going on.

I’ve been in Paris during the holidays before and I love admiring the festive cakes in the patisseries windows, visiting the Christmas markets smelling of hot spiced wine and roasted chestnuts, and watching Parisians let go and strap on skates at the public rinks.

The stores are too busy for me, especially Galeries Lafayette and the other major department stores, and I find more pleasure in strolling, admiring decorations and popping into cafes for warm drinks.

Over the past few years Christmas has become less about gifts and more about embracing winter, those I love, and celebrating a year well lived.  I can’t think of anywhere better to do this than the city that has brought me alive so many times throughout my life.

If anyone is thinking of visiting Paris this December, here are a few fun things to do while exploring the city:

CHRISTMAS MARKETS

• La Defense - is in the city region and perhaps one of the most impressive markets.

• Les Halles - this is another famous traditional market in the city centre. There is a wonderful array of gifts from chocolates to more unusual art and craft items.

• De la Cour de Rome - It is located in front of the Saint Lazare train station. Dates to be confimed, please check before travelling.

• Saint-Germains-des-Pres

• Montparnasse - this market is situated near the shopping centre in Maine Montparnasse. Dates to be confimed, please check before travelling.

• Place Saint-Sulpice - the market here has a merry-go-round inviting you to take a twirl on a colourful manèges de Noël of wooden horses.

HOLIDAY LIGHTS AND DECORATIONS

• Champs Elysées
  The Champs-Elysées are decorated with light-drenched trees stretching all the way from the Place de l’Etoile and the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde.

• Paris Department Stores
Generally starting at the end of November and throughout the January sale season.
Galeries Lafayette, Printemps and surrounding stores on Boulevard Haussmann, 9th arrondissement.
Metro: Havre-Caumartin
RER: Auber

• Notre Dame Cathedral
  Each Christmas season the gothic cathedral hosts an enormous, lavishly decorated tree on its main plaza.

OUTDOOR SKATING

• Hôtel de Ville

This is the bigger of the two with another smaller space for kids and beginners. There’s also a large play area with activities for children and a giant teepee!

• Montparnasse

• Le Salon Saveurs

A twice-yearly food show, held at the Espace Champerret in the 17th. There are stalls upon stalls of delicious products, meet food artisans from all over France, and fill up on food gifts for your friends and yourself. You’ll find Christmas delicacies like foie gras, oysters, truffles, glazed chesnuts, chocolate, champagne.

I love being in a country where food is treated with so much respect.

The French love to eat, whether it’s foie gras at dinner time or buttery croissants in the morning, each bite is relished.

During the holidays there is pain d’épices (a thick gingerbread loaf), hot spiced wine, roasted chestnuts and sweet and savory crepes at the Christmas markets.

Like the rest of the year, the French enjoy the season’s sweet delicacies without worrying about a new diet they’ll start as a part of a New Year’s resolution.

This may be a bit of a generalization, because yes, French women do get fat, gain weight and diet on occasion.  But for the most part their healthy attitude towards food and exercise is what keeps them looking and feeling great all year round.

I love spending Christmas in the South of France where good food is savored just as much as long walks down country roads and visits to the market.

There seems to be more of everything in moderation here.  Rather than trays of cocktails and an excess of sweets there is a glass of champagne and a taste of pate on fresh baguette.  Instead of running to the gym for an early intense workout there are cold winter walks with the family and games of boules played bundled in scarves and gloves.

Here are a few wonderful ways to enjoy the holiday like the French with plenty of good food and no remorse:

BUY FOOD FROM THE MARKET

In France many women will do all of their shopping at specialty shops and markets.  The meat comes from the butcher, the potatoes from a fruit and vegetable stand, the cheese from the fromagier and the dessert from the patisserie.  Not only is shopping on foot great exercise, it also means buying real ingredients and steering away from pre-packaged goods.  Processed foods bought at the grocery store like chips, soda and bottled salad dressings have very little nutritional value.  In turn our bodies are starving for more, and won’t be satisfied in the same way they will be after eating real whole foods.  Some great ideas for appetizers include a simple bruschetta, or a  homemade aioli to go with some freshly cut vegetables before dinner starts.

HAVE A DRINK

Many celebratory meals in France start with a glass of champagne.  Let the bubbles tease your tongue and compliment a salty hors-d’oeuvre at the start of a meal.  Skip the double vodka crantini or even a second glass.  I’ve drank too much at holiday parties before and always live to regret it.  Beyond consuming too many calories, it simply isn’t fun being hungover.  In France, I have never seen a woman drunk.  They drink all of the time, but it is a glass of champagne, not the bottle, and rarely the heavily alcoholic drinks we have at home.  Having a few glasses of wine throughout the night, with food, is usually a good way to go.

DRINK WATER

Most French women always have a bottle of still and/or sparkling water on the table.  Take breaks from wine or eggnog and hydrate with some water.  This is a nice distraction from drinking too much and makes for a more pleasant morning after. Water helps carry nutrients to every cell in the body, flushes out nasty toxins and improves circulation and blood flow. Sparkling water is also great for digestion, but avoid club soda because it’s very high in sodium.

ENJOY EACH DISH ON ITS OWN

For holiday meals buffets are usually the easiest way to go.  The problem is we tend to pile our plates so high that we lose appreciation for each dish.  The taste of a perfectly made sweet potato casserole can be lost if mixed with your mom’s famous stuffing.  While the French seem to eat a lot because they eat several courses, they are simply stretching out the enjoyment of each dish.  Four courses enjoyed over time can easily add up to less than is piled onto one plate.  Eating slower is better for digestion and lets the body know when it’s full.  Many cultures, like the Japanese, stop eating before they are full as a simple rule.  This also helps the body become less lethargic after dinner, and a nice walk might be more tempting then sitting in front of the TV.

STUFF THE TURKEY, NOT YOURSELF

The French never go for seconds.  There is a French saying that there are only two bites that matter: the first and the last.  Enjoy each dish while eating it but save room for dessert afterwards.  French women understand how to taste everything without being too stuffed, and make sure there is always room for a bite of beautiful tart or a bûche de Noël, a rich chocolate cake with thick buttery ice cream, at Christmas.  The French take pleasure in their food.  They eat with their knife and fork and savour every bite.  Mireille Guiliano, author of the best-selling book French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure says that Americans have a different relationship with food that too often excludes pleasure and makes them eat more.  And that, she says, is the difference between the way the French and Americans view food. It may also explain why Americans are often overweight.

HAVE YOUR CAKE

How do pastry popping Parisians stay so slim?  They have their cake without fearing it.  In Michael Pollan’s in defense of food he describes a survey that clearly showed the different attitudes towards food:

“Asked what comes to mind upon hearing the phrase ”chocolate cake,” Americans were more apt to say ”guilt,” while the French said ”celebration”; ”heavy cream” elicited ”unhealthy” from Americans, ”whipped” from the French. The researchers found that Americans worry more about food and derive less pleasure from eating than people in any other nation they surveyed.”

Saving room for dessert not only helps you control portions before hand, but lets the body know you’re not depriving it.  A French woman will never binge on dessert because she knows she will probably have some tomorrow, and would hate to be too full for her morning croissant either way.

GO FOR A WALK

The French love to walk.  It is rare to catch a French woman in sneakers and a sweatshirt, especially in Paris.  But you can always find them strolling in some stylish flats or daunting heels.  Walking all day around a city and taking the stairs as much as possible is an amazing workout.  It is also a great way to enjoy a crisp winter day and feel good.

Mireille Guiliano wrote a French Manifesto that goes as follows:

FRENCH WOMAN’S MANIFESTO:

Enjoying pastries in Paris

My parents shopping at the market last winter

Winter walk with my dad

Family portrait last Christmas

There’s something fun about grocery shopping in France.

Most grocery stores at home in Canada make me nauseous.  Poor produce, bad lighting and frozen dinners are mood killers for me.

I usually end up spending my paychecks at gourmet grocery stores and Whole Foods where apples sit in buckets, bushy heads of lettuce lie colorfully beside each other, and samples of chocolate are at my disposal, because I think it’s better for my mental health.

In Paris I usually avoid the grocery stores altogether and do all of my shopping in specialty shops.  But this ain’t Paris.  Down in the South of France we buy plenty from the markets, but we also stock up on necessities weekly at the mother of all grocery stores: E.LEclerc.

L’Eclerc is like a grocery store on steroids.  Whenever my mom or dad say “I’m going to L’Eclerc, want to come?”  I can’t resist.  So when my dad said he needed to pick up a few things today, I threw on my jacket and joined him.

The store is giant, and even if I don’t need anything I like to go to admire the vast selection of the good, the amusing, the bad and the ugly.

The good includes a chocolate and yoghurt section that go further than the eye can see:

As well as a few things you don’t usually see at home, like an excellent selection of pre-maid pie doughs, a wine selection that would please any connoisseur, and milk that doesn’t need to be refrigerated…

And since the French are known for their gourmet attitude towards food, event their frozen food has a certain je ne sais pas quoi…

Even if they might make their local patissier cry with purchases like this…

And believe they can stay forever young with Vichy’s new anti-ageing water…

After trying to figure out what Drainocoach water would  do to my body, we packed up and headed to my true idea of paradise.

While I get my kicks at the supermarket- there’s not a lot to do around here- my favorite place to buy groceries is just down the road.  Behold Vegetarn, the best fruit and vegetable store in town…

I love them because of their fresh fruit and vegetable selection…

And because they actually encouraged me to take photos of their Christmas displays…

After grocery shopping my dad unleashed his own inner French gourmet and whipped up a quiche using pre-made dough, pungent cheese, saucisson and zucchini…

Bon appetit!

The two weeks I spent in Italy with my boyfriend were magical.

While I may not be writing a guide book for Italy (yet), I enjoyed my trip so much that I wanted to put together a mini guide for anyone visiting.

During our two weeks in Italy we travelled across a huge portion of the country by car, visited three cities, two towns, learnt basic Italian and stayed within our budget.

We learnt how to order a double espresso, that the bread basket often costed two euros and that saying “Grazie” and “Prego” with a smile could get us anything we wanted.

How to Budget:

• Flights: Check flights through expedia and easy jet if you are in Europe.  If you are flying from France, Air France offers discounts if you’re under 25.
• Hotels: Most of the hotels we booked were double the price in the summer.  Visit during an off season and you can save a lot of money.  We booked a couple of hotels through Hotwire, but we lost faith in Rome when they gave us a three star hotel when we had booked a four.  Wanting something special for our first few nights, we were less than impressed.  We ended up finding some great deals scouring reviews on Tripadvisor and other travel sites.
• Food: Italian portions are big.  We found most of the time we were happy sharing a starter and a main dish along with a cheap, simple house wine.  Unfortunately the house wine in Italy isn’t great, so we also resorted to buying our own wine and requesting glasses in our hotel rooms at night.  We had many picnic dinners (bread, cheese, nuts, salads ect.)  and found that buying big cases of water at the grocery store saved a ton of money.
• Shopping: Keep your priorities straight and splurge on some nice oils and vinegar to take home with you.  I kept my eye out for the perfect leather jacket, but was happy just taking home some nice food gifts.

Getting Around:

• Subway: We used the subway a few times in Rome and found it incredibly cheap and easy to maneuver.
• Hotel shuttle: Always check if your hotel has a shuttle from the airport as the taxis will often charge you triple.
• Rent a car: You can rent cars quite reasonably through Expedia, the only drawback is paying for gas and insurance.
• Taxi: Always ask how much a taxi is going to cost before you get in.  Sometimes it’s not worth it or you’ll get ripped off for being a tourist.

What to Bring Back:

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Modena Balsamic Vinegar
• Truffle Oil
• Truffle spread
• Biscotti
• Panforte (A delicious cake made of dried fruits and nuts)

Where to Visit:

ROME

• The Vatican- Worth visiting to see the expansive grounds and artwork inside.
• Trastevere- Charming neighborhood of small streets and quaint restaurants.
• Tiber Island- This small island in the Tiber River is the perfect place to stop for gelato.
• Freni e Frizioni- A trendy bar with a happy hour from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. that includes a wonderful buffet of salads, pasta, vegetables and homemade dips and sauces. (Located between Piazza Trilussa andLungotevere Rafaello in Trastevere, Rome, right next to Ponte Sisto).
• Campo dei Fiori Market- Colorful food market every morning with fruit, nuts, pasta, oils and souvenirs.
• Cafe Grecco- Steps away from the Spanish Steps as well as all the luxury brand stores like Chanel and Prada.  Cafe Grecco is elegant and the espressos are perfect.
• Hotel Pulitzer- A very modern, stylish hotel outside of the city centre.  This hotel was very posh for the price tag and only a short subway ride into the city.

SIENNA

• Nannini- Gorgeous bar/bakery where you can choose from a vast selection of pastries before sipping a great espresso at the bar. (Piazza Del Paglio)
• Chianti- If you have a car you can venture off into the wine region and stop in small wineries are walk through the vineyards.
• La Taverna di San Giuseppe- This restaurant is warm and has a a magnificent wine cave.  The food is delicious and the truffles are unforgettable. (Via G.Duprè, 132)
• Osteria Castelvecchio- An intimate restaurant where the owner is happy to serve you a bottle of house wine and serve you up some dishes that taste like mama’s cooking.  We loved the bruschetta and roasted chicken, and the pine nut cookies with sweet liqueur finished the meal perfectly.  (Via Castelvecchio, 65)
• Villa Elda- One of the best rated hotels in Siena, this boutique hotel has few rooms and is very elegant.  We loved our room and the fact that we were allowed to admire the view from the rooftop upstairs.

VENICE

• Concerts- Try to catch some live music in Venice.  The violin concert we heard in the church was one of the most moving concerts I’ve ever been to.
• Piazza San Marco- A central landmark in Venice that is stunning to see.  It also leads to Chanel and all the high end boutique stores.
• Rialto Market- A daily market with the most beautiful artichokes and radicchio I have ever seen.
• Vino Vino- Elegant wine bar specializing in Venetian cuisine.  Enjoyed some great Chianti, fish and roasted chicken.
• Hotel Molino Stucky- It may be a Hilton but it is worth stopping by this hotel that used to be an old flour factory.  The large brick building is stunning, and I’m sure the rooftop pool and bar are buzzing in the summer.  The prices are steep, so maybe stop for a glance and move on.

IMPRUNETA (just outside of Florence)

• Castello di Caffagio- This magnificent building overlooking a lush landscape of olive trees, vineyards and a forest sells some of the best olive oil I’ve ever tasted.
• Hotel Bellavista- The cheapest and most charming place we stayed in Italy.  The owners are incredible and very accomodating.  We loved the large outside terrace on the top floor and the restaurant downstairs was delicious.

FIUMICINO

• Hotel Seccy- If you have an early flight to catch don’t miss the harbor town of Fiumicino.  It is a great place to spend the night and the Hotel Seccy is a perfect hotel to rest your head.

I wanted nothing more than to get on the plane with him.

The Eiffel tower, the pastries of Paris and the French countryside seemed like nothing in comparison to being able to walk home from the airport with him under a rainy sky and my hand in his.

My mom says it must be love.

We spent our last night in Italy in Fiumicino, a small harbor town near the airport.  We were pleasantly surprised to find a charming slew of seafood restaurants and small shops along a boat lined river.

As we strolled along the main boulevard, I saw a small gourmet food store and gasped out loud.  We had a few more Italian delicacies we wanted to pick up before leaving and my heart told me this was the place.

Inside the gorgeous shop were shelves lined with food, a wine cave, and a little bar stocked with pastries where you could stop for an espresso or one of the many fine liqueurs available.

We also found balsamic vinegar from Modena.  After researching the best balsamic in Italy we read that this is the traditional balsamic vinegar revered by chefs and food lovers.

Apparently you can only get true balsamic vinegar from Modena and Reggio Emilia.  It is made from a reduction of syrup from sweet wine grapes which are aged for a minimum of 12 years in seven barrels of successively smaller sizes in different types of wood.

While we both wanted nothing more than to buy the small vial of 75-year-old aged balsamic, the 100 euro price tag pointed us to the 12 and 4-year-old bottles instead.  I bought the 4-year-old vinegar for my parents, and my beau bought me the 12-year-old bottle to get me through the next few months.  He makes my life sweeter in so many ways.

For dinner we passed up on the fancy seafood restaurants and numerous pizzerias for a hotel room picnic.  We hit up the local grocery store and bought a bottle of Chardonnay, rosemary foccacia bread, pesto, a mixed salad, marinated eggplant and ham.

I was tempted to buy more marinated vegetables, olives, tuna, anchovies and other delicacies, but knew that my suitcase was already doubling over with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

As we dipped big chunks of bread into pesto and dribbled on some balsamic reduction, we realized we were just getting used to each other again.  Two weeks was not enough.

In the morning we drank our body weight in double espressos at the breakfast buffet and packed our bags with shaking hands.

At the airport we sat outside in the sun and let it sink in that it would be a while before we could be together again. I reminded him that we’re both very good at getting what we want so it shouldn’t be too long.

I saw him off with watery eyes (no tear drops fell, I think I wrung myself dry in Venice), and made my way to my gate.

I’m now back in the South of France with piles of notes and books to sort through.  I am as determined as ever to get the last of my research done as soon as possible.  As I said to my parents “I have to get this done before I break the bank and break my heart.”

Italy was sweeter than my syrupy 12-year-old balsamic and now it’s time to get serious.  I am going to be filling my days with research, writing, and of course plenty of baking, cooking and long walks.

I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me but the right motivation to get through it.

The Italian bounty

Last night’s appetizer: homemade aioli, bread, crudites, truffle pate and olive oil and balsamic vinegar


Salad with endives, waiting to be dressed

Getting back to the book



Baking granola for gifts to send home

I left my tears in Venice and we came back for another taste of Tuscany.

We’d had enough of big cities and hotels beyond or budget and decided to settle in Impruneta, a small town outside of Florence.

We followed the winding streets past fields of olive trees into the main square.  Here we found Hotel Bellavista, which translates to beautiful view.

In the hotel the owner smiled at my bottle of Chianti and said it was a good choice.  He provided us with two wine glasses for our room and we felt at home immediately.

When I asked about the restaurant inside the hotel he said, “We are closed tonight. I guess you will have to stay another night!”

We laughed, but after seeing our room with a view of the main square and the terrace overlooking the town and the surrounding hills, I said “Let’s stay another night.”

We did. We spent the first night in bed watching Life is Beautiful and Schindler’s List while drinking two bottles of Chianti.

In the morning I asked the owner’s wife, who spoke French, about any olive oil farms nearby. She gave us rough directions and wrote down the name of a chateau nearby. The sun was shining so we decided we might as well walk.

We stopped into a patisserie on the way for a sandwich and a selection of chocolates before attempting to figure out the directions.

When I realized I had no idea where we were going I called out to an older woman on a balcony: “Scuzi, uh…Castello di Cafaggio? Olio?”

The woman looked confused, then smiled, and pointed in the other direction. We set off on the small road before coming to a dead end. Luckily, we saw a woman and two older men talking outside. “Bonjiourno! Scuzi, uh…Castello di Cafaggio? Olio?”

One man pointed to his green stained jeans, “Si, olio!” From what I understand of Italian he had been working on the farm all morning. They yelled back and forth in Italian before waving their hands and pointing up at a hill.

“Grazie!” We said, and kept walking.

We followed more winding streets before not knowing where to turn. We approached a sturdy older woman closing her gate and asked for directions. She spoke in rapid Italian, before motioning for our stunned faces to follow her to a small dirt road. She pointed to a chateau in the distance. “Oh wow! Grazie!”

We followed the road which revealed a deep valley of olive trees and vineyards and our town in the distance to a stunning castle. A small sign on the stone wall outside read Castello di Cafaggio, and I pressed the buzzer beside the gate.

A voice answered “Bonjiourno?” and I answered, “Uh…bonjiourno! You speak English? Olive oil? Can we buy some olive oil?”

A smiling man with grey hair came out and lead us inside. “Have you come to see how it is made? To buy some?” I told him I would love to do both, but since the work wouldn’t start until the afternoon we settled on buying some instead.

He spoke of flying to Montreal to sell his olive oil and took us inside his office where awards for the best olive oil were hung all over his wall.  We bought two large bottles of deep green olive oil and knew we had found the right place.

Rather than venture into Florence and try and see too much we decided to enjoy our surroundings. We strolled around the small town, bought some groceries, and took advantage of the large empty terrace at our hotel.

The kind owners provided us with plates, glasses and silverware and we set up our table outside. In the summer the terrace is used for the restaurant, but being November it was all ours.

Under the sun we ate salad drizzled in balsamic reduction, bread cheese and ham while looking over the town. We sat for hours, brought some music up, and I used the space to stretch my tired body as the sun went down.

In the evening we celebrated our belated one-year anniversary and popped a bottle of champagne in our bedroom before heading to the restaurant downstairs.

In the dining room the owners welcomed us and recommended the evening specials. We ordered some wine, an artichoke salad, roasted potatoes and a stewed spicy beef dish.

The artichoke salad was made of raw chopped artichokes tossed in olive oil, pine nuts and Parmigiano. I have never eaten raw artichokes but I was pleasantly surprised by the light crunch and bittersweet taste.

At the end of the night the owner bought us Limencello and we raised glasses with him and his wife and the friends he had sat down to talk with.

When we were the last people in the restaurant I told him, “I never want to leave,” and he smiled his kind smile and said “You can always come back.”

We left the next morning, but something tells me I will be.

Stay tuned for the sweetest goodbye and a suitcase full of oil and vinegar…

If Venice floods you can blame my tears.

This city is unreal, and something about being a city surrounded by water unleashed all of the tears I’d been holding onto for too long.

We drove into the city not knowing what to expect, and left the car at a giant car park before boarding a water bus to our hotel.

The smell of sea water and the misty air made me feel at home, but the islands on the Venetian lagoon covered in old churches and yellow and pink buildings were unlike anything I’d ever seen before.  Our hotel stood out with grandeur on one island, a restored 19th-century Molino Stucky flour mill and granary built out of brick.

After settling into the hotel we headed out in the early evening to the next island over.  We walked through the tiny streets over small bridges that turned us in every direction.  We shared pizza and simple house wine along a canal by candlelight before heading back by boat to rest up for the next day.

That night I filled the bed with tears.  Every doubt, worry and fear poured out of my body as water.  Eventually I settled into the darkness of the room and fell asleep.

I woke up exhausted, but a little lighter, and we took off to find a market.  We wound our way through the maze-like streets and let the canal guide us.  My whole body lifted at the sight of endless gondolas and boats, restaurants along the water and elegant bridges.

At the market I found the freshest looking artichokes and radicchio lettuce I have ever seen.  I filled a bag with fruit and we ate at a small cafe nearby, feasting on simple food while locals stopped in for a post-market glass of wine or coffee.

Afterwards we forced ourselves to get lost, which is very easy to do in a city where every street is like a hidden passageway leading to an unknown destination.  I found pleasure in bakery windows and quiet spots filled with locals.  We stopped into a grocery store and couldn’t help but laugh at the man buying five types of pasta in front of us.

In the evening we dined at a wine bar, Vino vino, where I finally got my seafood fix with seabass cooked in a rich peppercorn sauce.  As we finished our bottle of Chianti, my tears started again, so strong that I was unaware of the poor waiters around me.  All of my fears and insecurities let themselves loose, and my boyfriend held me close as we walked to our boat and sat wrapped up in each other until it arrived, his cheeks stained with my mascara.  My emotions felt complicated but my needs were simple.  I needed to be held.

This whole trip has been an emotional whirlwind.  It has been beautiful, sensual, passionate and filled with many smiles and bursts of laughter, but there has been a build up of feelings over the past few months that had to come out in some form.  Love is hard, and love from across an ocean can feel heartbreaking at times.

Tonight I chose to replace my tears with laughter as much as I could.  When we missed our boat back to the hotel, we had a restaurant open our grocery store wine and drank in paper cups by the water.  We dined on salty corn chips, reminisced on our pasts, and were thankful for the moment just to sit and talk.

Later we attended a small violin concert in a church nearby.  In the birth place of Vivaldi, a group of young men and one women swept across the strings of their violin with passion.  I closed my eyes and felt as if the music said everything that my heart couldn’t.  

Life is not unlike a song played by the violin.  It has moments of joy, of melancholy and moments so intense you don’t know where the song will go next.  But it is the changing notes that make it beautiful.

Coming up next, the last days of the Italian love affair…

I can die happy after eating truffles in Tuscany.

From Rome we drove North through the golden countryside to Sienna.  

Our hotel was small and elegant and we were allowed to climb up to the roof where we could see the grandeur of the tiny city with its impressive bell tower from afar.

While the city looked quiet and deserted from a distance, we found just the opposite once we entered the city walls.  Down the winding streets we found tons of people, tourists and Italians shopping and eating and gourmet food shops around every corner.

We shared some Chianti wine and bruschetta in the main piazza before heading off to a restaurant nearby where ordered more wine, a plate of mixed grilled vegetables and the steak served with shaved truffles.

The steak arrived gracefully covered in truffles, but just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, the waiter arrived and shaved an entire truffle over the plate.

While I have known the occasional drizzle of truffle oil,  I have never eaten an entire truffle to myself in one evening.  

Knowing how much I love them my boyfriend pushed them over my way, and I wrapped each bite of my meal with thinly sliced truffles. 

With every bite my mouth was filled with the bouquet of flavor.  It was more than food, it was a luxury, a memory and a moment.  It took me somewhere else, somewhere I’d never been before but never wanted to leave.  This meal was only the beginning of my love for the food in Tuscany.

In the morning we  stopped into Nannini, an elegant bar and pastry shop with rows of croissants, cookies and cakes under a glass counter.  I dipped a crunchy cookie with a caramelized crust and soft almond custard inside into my double espresso with rigor.

I continued to tease my taste buds as we explored the rows of food stands at the market in the piazza.  It was the most decadent market I have ever been to, and even though it was early in the morning I couldn’t help but sample the bread soaked in pungent olive oil, crackers spread with heavenly truffle pate, flavorful fatty pieces of salami on baguette, crumbly biscotti and the local panforte, a rich fruit and nut cake I’d been eyeing at every store and bakery we passed.

We walked around the city before deciding to explore the surrounding land and took off in the car to find some wineries and olive oil factories.  While we were in the right region, the towns were asleep and the wineries were closed.  So we did the next best thing and took off down a country road into the vineyards under the warm November sun.  

That evening we enjoyed our final dinner in Sienna in a restaurant off of the main road.  Here we found a handwritten menu, an owner who opened our house wine with a smile and hummed as he worked, and with the most comforting food we have had yet.

We started our meal with a mixed bruschetta of tapenade, pesto, pureed garlic and vegetables and a rich tomato sauce.  For our main we had roasted chicken and potatoes cooked in a savory broth.  We grinned with every bite, washed it down with a simple house wine, and finished off with some crumbly pine nut cookies and a sweet liqueur brought over by the owner.

My memory of Sienna is warm and rich.  For a small city it held so much life and flavor, not unlike the small truffle that was shaved over my plate the first night.

In the morning the concierge printed out directions to Venice before insisting we sit down and have breakfast before hitting the road.

From there, we took off to Venice, not knowing what to expect from a city surrounded by water…

Stay tuned for Venice, a city straight out of a fairy tale...

For a city full of history and high fashion, Rome has been welcoming in every way.

And even though I hate it admit it, I probably stared at the leather three-inch heels in Prada longer than I did at the Colosseum. I love that Rome is strewn with pieces of history, but I also love a well designed shoe.

Prada has always been one of my favorite designers for it’s sleek simplicity. It began as a leather goods shop in Milan owned by Mario Prada.  He did not believe in women working in his business, but after his death his daughter-in-law. Miuccia Prada, took the helm of Prada and made it the luxury brand it is today.

Beyond the fashion I have also been won over by Italian food and drink. The dark roast espresso and soft pastries laced with almond and lemon appeal to me more than the bitter coffee and plain butter croissants of Paris.

Our hotel had a decadent breakfast buffet and I found myself filling my plate with mini chocolate and raisin pastries, croissants doused in icing sugar and sweet apricot tart.

In the evenings I allowed myself to be seduced by sweet Amaretto over ice with a slice of orange.  One night we found ourselves in a crowded bar with a rich buffet filled with all of my favorite foods: chickpeas and tomatoes, couscous, vegetables and dip and colorful cauliflower and mushroom salads.

The bar was young and hip and I was amazed with the ease of the people around us.  Everyone was fashionable in an easy way, dressed in sneakers and jeans and tightly bound scarves. As good as they looked, they all seemed more interested in having good conversation and a plate of good food than anything else.

I thought Italy would be intimidating and pretentious.  I thought the men would be aggressive and the women over the top.  But the overall feeling so far is friendly and easy going.  People seem to wear what they feel good in with a bit of glitz and glamour here and there.  And while the men don’t hide their stares, they never say anything or come too close for comfort.

The devil may wear Prada, but the Italians seem to wear whatever they want and are closer to being Saints.

“Always the problem with wanting to do structure is to do them in a way that still moves and is still comfortable, not really stiff,”

Miuccia Prada

Stay tuned for a taste of Tuscany…

Question of the day: Where do your favorite fashion designers come from?

Rome isn’t at all what I expected.

I imagined a city that was crowded with people, busy shopping streets, grand hotels, boulevards and tourist traps on every corner.

Instead the city is seducing me with its age defying beauty.  The buildings are old with stained walls and soft colored paint.  The streets are small with sporadic shops, pizzerias and small bars selling pastries behind glass counters.

Unlike Paris which is constantly being touched up and groomed to perfection, Rome is like an old movie star who refuses to get botox.

The other night I stood nervously in the airport waiting for my love to arrive.  I paced back and forth until the doors slid open and he walked out.  The second I saw him I felt relieved.  When he wrapped his arms around me, love and a sense of comfort ran through my body.

Since then, we have been walking through the city hand in hand.  Our first day we explored the Vatican, took off down the small streets of Travestere, ate pasta and salad in a small restaurant full of old Italian families, visited food shops packed with pasta and cured meats, got caught in the rain and walked for hours anyways.

Yesterday we bought a bag of mixed pastries from an incredible bakery and dug into soft amaretto, almond, hazelnut and limoncello cookies, along with moist biscotti dipped into our espressos in the Campo di Fiori square.  I bought handfuls of dried dates, melon and figs from the market and we took off to the Colosseum.

The monuments and ruins here are grand and unexpected.  This city has been through a lot, and pieces of torn history lie around everywhere.  But it feels calm and comfortable and most of the streets feel more like a small town than a city at all.

Today we ventured out to our next destination just outside of the centre.  We are staying in a quiet modern hotel near the subway and are enjoying the change of scenery.

I am pleasantly surprised by Rome.  Rather than being loud and overwhelming, I find the city peaceful, and the people charming and polite.  It is nice to be here in during off season, walking the streets wrapped in scarves while there are fewer tourists.

Not only that, but I’ve got a gorgeous young man on my arm who knows how to make me laugh.  La vita è bella.