Le Cinque Terre are five beautiful towns situated on the Italian Riviera, in the Ligurian region of Italy. The five villages are: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.
These fives towns are famous for their beautiful landscapes that overlook the sea, their panoramic terraces and lack of visible modern development!
Cinque Terre products:
Pesto (Sauce made from basil leaves, garlic, salt, olive oil, pine nuts and pecorino cheese)
Anchovies of Monterosso
Focaccia (Bread topped with herbs)
Farinata (Bread made with chick-pea flour)
Sciachetrà (Sweet wine)
Grappa (Brandy made with the pomace left from winemaking)
Limoncello
Grapes
Olives
Here are some photos of the coast of the Italian Riviera as seen from the towns
The posts that will follow will be displaying photos for each of the towns.
This weekend was very special. We went on Friday afternoon to Cinque Terre in the Italian region of Liguria. The Cinque (five) Terre (lands) are indeed five beautiful towns (Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza & Monterosso) right on the Ligurian coast, all connected by multiple pedestrian paths through the mountains. The towns are also accessible by , train, buses and ferries.
The towns’ economy basically depend on fishing and tourism. Le Cinque Terre are also considered an important national park and a protected marine and land reserve.
Well, right after we arrived to Riomaggiore, the first of the five towns we learned first-hand how friendly everyone is around here… including the Ligurian cats!
You can see beautiful chubby cats everywhere, and they are not afraid of people. All seem to be well fed, well treated and they don’t mind the tourists. We’ve been away from our cat “The Boss” for a while now, and feeling home-sick just a little bit. My husband went to pet one of the cats sitting on side of the street minding its business, and the cat went all cuddly and nice, leaning to rub its chubby head on the back of his hand. It stayed there, and allowed me to pet it myself. Later that night we found another cat (in the next town) that did the same. And another one… well it was raining and the cat was sitting under a bench trying to hide from the sparse drops of rain. Still it welcomed our petting hands on its head, for a little while before it looked away (probably saying to itself: “tourists!”).
Well I decided to write this blog and post some of the pics we got for the Cinque Terre cats!
We did much more than pet cats here. Maybe that should go in another post!
I’ve been eating Spaghetti ala Bolognese for as long as I remember. Well, I thought I have anyway. After I got married though, I truly tasted the Bolognese sauce for the first time (as it should be) and it was even greater.
Well, today we wanted to go to Bologna to taste the real thing. We took a train from Rifredi train station (in Florence) at about 11:30am and got there shortly before 1PM. An easy ride, and we had some time to study what parts of the meetings we missed this week.
Arriving at the train station we did what we customary do as soon as we get to a new city: get the bus tickets. The lady at the tourist information office almost laughed at us, saying we should simply walk over to the center of the city. We got a free map from the information office and waited about 10 minutes for the bus that goes to the center anyway.
We spent a few minutes in the center near the Neptune fountain then quickly decided to go get some food!
We found a nice cozy place (Pietro’s Trattoria) we read (on some blog) it had good food. Pia had the Tagliatelle with Bolognese sauce, and I asked for some Large Raviolli. Well, the tagliatelle was good (as one would imagine), and the raviolli were indeed large, all three pieces! And the wine was simply great. I’ve been drinking Chianti and other Tuscan wines for a while, but this was truly wonderful. It’s a shame we didn’t get any with us, but I forgot to ask for it when we had to leave (some Dutch guy who was behind us struck a conversation with me right after after lunch).
After lunch we strolled around the center, saw the hordes of university students with weird dresses and gothic look filling the streets. It was truly disturbing!
Finally we went back to the center and waited for an hour or so for our train. We tried to find a bus back to the train station, but an old lady looked at us funny and explained (in Italian) that it’s about 500m away, only one bus stop anyway. Well, we walked over and took the train back.
A nice day all in all, I should have ordered the Spaghetti ala Bolognese myself. Maybe next time!
- Primo: Cannelloni con ricotta e spinaci (Spinach & ricotta cannelloni)
- Secondo: Bistecca e ruccola (Steak on a bed of arugula)
We didn’t actually have a salad, but it was too much to eat already.
The recipes are truly simple.
For the primo: We got a box of cannelloni from the supermarket (250gr). We also found a plastic box of spinach all cleaned, cut and ready. Now that’s convenient
On top of that, a 200gr pack of ricotta cheese actually costs less than Labneh. So put that with the spinach and mix, then stuff it all in the canneloni (do not pre-bake those) Pia: season with salt and pepper to taste, also some extra virgin olive oil here to bring the mix together.
Now for the “hard part”, make some “roux”, mix with milk a bit of mascarpone (we had this laying around) and season with salt and pepper.
All in the oven for about 20-30 minutes. Wow! We had half at lunch and I finished off the rest earlier in the evening.
Pia adds: Abdallah missed the fact that I added some grated Parmigiano Reggiano to both the sauce, and on top of the dish before sending it to the oven. It gives a nice color and a wonderful extra taste.
As for the secondo: well, it’s a piece of steak. Season it with some salt and pepper. Put some extra virgin olive oil in the pan (no idea why!) and put the steak there for a couple of minutes. Done!
Of course, just doing the above may give you the worse meal ever. But with my wife, it tastes and looks great. She makes it sound so easy. Heh!
Check out the pics below. And let me know how lucky I am.
“When it rains, it’s definitely time for soups and stews!” says Abdallah.
Today it rained in the morning, so I decided to cook something special for my dear husband.
It’s been three weeks now that I am cooking almost everyday. The COOP is near, and I ‘m managing with the ingredients here.
So far we’ve had: Tawouk, Mjaddara, Riz w Fasouliah, Balila, Fasouliah Bzeit and Tabbouleh (without mint & bulgur). But we were still craving for stews with rice, and Abdallah had mentioned earlier craving for ‘Aleb Khodra’ (Lebanese vegetables stew). I had found earlier in the frozen section of the COOP, a bag of frozen mixed vegetables for Minestrone*, and I thought I could give this traditional italian dish a Lebanese twist
Meat, onion, tomato sauce and paste, pepper and oregano… and cooked rice.
Minestrone: Thick Italian soup made with vegetables, often with the addition of pasta or rice. Common ingredients include beans, onions, celery, carrots, stock, and tomatoes.
