Krik's Picks

This was the shortest part of our trip to Italy in May, only two nights. We arrived in Cinque Terre after a very pleasant drive from Piedmont. Well, mostly pleasant. We took a slightly longer route, driving south to the coast then along the coast to Genoa. When we left the wine country, the landscape got increasingly mountainous and the scenery more dramatic. When we exited from the highway for the final few kilometers to Monterosso, the road was extraordinarily twisty. It was not a relaxing conclusion to the road trip. We got checked in to our hotel and then walked around town getting our bearing and checking out restaurants. Of the five towns in Cinque Terre, Monterosso is the first one on the north. The guidebooks said it's the busiest of the towns. We were still a little ahead of the main tourist season, and besides, we were there on a Monday and Tuesday. So it wasn't too crowded. We picked Monterosso primarily because we needed a hotel accessible by car and a hotel that...

I have to admit that this was the most poorly planned part of our trip to Italy in May. Not that we didn't have fun. We had lots of fun and saw some great sights. We ate delicious food and drank wonderful wine. It's just that it wasn't the experience we had planned when we set up our itinerary.  Here's what I wanted - to stay in a small town in Umbria to use as a base for exploring the Umbrian wine region and sampling some new wines, especially white wines. The town I picked was Civitella d'Agliano . I picked it because it was close to Orvieto, which was appealing because I was familiar with the Orvieto white wine. However, I quickly discovered a few facts. The town is actually in Lazio. And except for Orvieto, we were quite far from the main wine producing part of Umbria. And most of the wine we drank was red wine. And we also concluded that it's possible for a town to be too small for a tourist destination.  This part of the trip started with a long drive ...

I have to admit, I worried about the travel arrangements for Day 19 of our trip to Italy in May. Our goal was to leave the agriturismo where we stayed in Civitella  D'agliano (a very small town near Orvieto) and arrive at our hotel in Praiano on the Amalfi Coast. The trip would involve starting out by car, 3 train rides, and then a local bus to our final destination. In retrospect, I shouldn't be surprised that it turned out badly. Step 1: 30 minute car ride to Orvieto We left  Civitella D'agliano right after breakfast  and drove to the train station where we returned our car. That went smoothly. When we visited Orvieto a couple of days earlier, we had scoped out the train station and the rental car return site. Even though we'd driven the route before, we used Google Maps on my iPhone to make sure we didn't make a wrong turn at the beginning of our journey. Step 2: 1 hour train ride to Rome As we waited in the train station, we became worried when we...

When I travel, one of the things I'm looking for is something new - new restaurants, new food, new wine. So when I go to a new restaurant, I rarely return for a second meal, even if I really liked it. The caveat is - I always reserve the right to go again on my next visit to that city.  I traveled to DC in early June. I was arriving on Sunday evening. The weather was threatening rain. So I looked at what new restaurants would be reasonably close to my hotel. (I was staying at the Hamilton Crowne Plaza  at 14th & K NW.) That's how I came across Centrolina . I almost didn't go. My wife and I just got back recently from Italy, and I wasn't sure if I really wanted more Italian food. But it had good reviews on OpenTable, and in the past, I've found Italian restaurants in DC to be very good. (I've lamented that our own Minnesota Italian restaurants just don't measure up compared to those in DC.)  When I arrived, at 8 on a Sunday night, I found a hopping, b...

In many ways, the Amalfi Coast was the best part of our 26-day trip to Europe in April and May. The scenery was breathtakingly beautiful. Our hotel in the town of Praiano was comfortable and accommodating. We had fantastic fish and seafood. We 'discovered' a couple of Italian white wines that we really liked a lot. But as a counterpoint to how wonderful it was, transportation was a terrible hassle. We'd heard how treacherous the roads are on the Amalfi Coast, so we decided not to have a car. I don't regret that decision one bit. It would have been unbearably stressful trying to drive there. It was bad enough riding the buses . I have to admire the bus drivers. They somehow managed to get around the hairpin turns and through some of the narrowest roadways you could possible imagine.  On Day 2 of our stay in Praiano, we had perhaps the most unique experience of our trip to Italy. We decided to take a hike up into the cliffs above our town. The path we took climbed up ...

We ate a lot of great food on our 26-day trip to Europe in April and May. But I do have a favorite. It was on the last day of our stay on the Amalfi Coast. The restaurant was Kasai. (They don't have a web site, just a Facebook page. Click here to view it.) It was located just a half block away from the hotel we were staying at in Praiano. Every night, as we trudged down the hill to the main square of Praiano to find a restaurant, we walked by Kasai. Every night, it was overflowing with customers with music pouring out the door. It looked appealing. So on our third night, as we returned to our hotel, we made a reservation for the following night.  The headline says it. It was my favorite meal of our whole trip.  When we arrived, our table wasn't ready yet. So we were served a glass of prosecco and some fried zucchini and eggplant, which we consumed outside overlooking the sea. (That was our only outdoor 'meal' because of the chilly weather.)  When our table was...