This blog is all about the products we LOVED in Italy and on the flip side how Italian fashion went WRONG.
Duff Beer which originally started as a fictional product on the T.V. series the Simpsons, but apparently has been produced (probably illegally) in real life in Italy!
Coca-Cola Zero which is a great compromise for us because Ro loves Coca-Cola, but FloJo prefers to not drink her calories in soda. Zero was all over Italy, we just regret not picking up one of the Skyfall bottles or cans to add to Ro's James Bond collection.
Nutella aka the spread of love. FloJo first discovered this hazelnut chocolate spread while she was living in Spain while Ro traveled all the way to Paris to discover this little spread of heaven. Europeans tend to eat it much like we Americans eat peanut butter.
While walking in the streets of Venice we found the biggest tub of nutella we've ever seen. Too bad it wouldn't fit in our suitcase to bring back with us. Luckily, you can order this 5kg or approximately 11 pound jar from Amazon.
Prosciutto on every menu you encounter in Italy. Prosciutto roughly translated is Parma (a city in Italy) Ham. It's a dry cured ham and you can see the legs of prosciutto in every market for sale. One of our favorite dishes was a simple one, prosciutto wrapped around ripe cantaloupe.
What if the office water cooler was stocked with white wine? The winery we visited across from our Umbrian villa made that concept a reality. It's happy hour all day long!
We passed a cute little watch shop in Venice that really caught our eyes. We went in and both couldn't resist buying these fun interchangeable, colorful watches. Okay- they are a UK product technically, but we discovered them in Italy.
Oclock watches can be ordered on the internet at Fullspot Market UK. They come in a sealed can kind of like SPAM.
Electric vehicles were well used and could be seen in every town we visited. These cute little cars are perfect for the constricted old European city streets while being a good environmental choice.
We learned to appreciate the modern convenience and invention of the GPS. Unfortunately we were without one for the entire trip, which made us appreciate it that much more!
Beautiful sun dried tomatoes in every size and variety you could imagine. These were in every food market and would have been so fun to cook with had we had a kitchen!
And who can beat Italian gelato? This delicious treat can be traced back to ancient Rome. Is there any doubt why the Italian version of soft-serve ice-cream has survived? We miss having one of these delicious treats each day. The only down side was having to make the difficult flavor decision from a case full of different colors and competing wonderfulness.
Italy is one of the most famous countries for their love of fashion. Shops are filled with clothes from the top Italian designers like Gucci, Armani, Prada, Dolce and Gabbana, Versace, Fendi and Benetton. There were fashion extremes with very well dressed locals. But, we thought it more fun to document the fashion faux-pas. To be fair, most of these were probably tourists!
Fur vest in the summer?
Matching safety vests for the boat ride to Capri.