My Yiayia

My Yiayia was fierce, independent, a total love and a damn good cook. She collected coats, shoes, jewelry, hats, fabric, Danish Modern furniture, teacups and blue and white dishes (among many other things). She made the best lemon potatoes.

Italy | The place you love to love...

Sunset in Montepulciano

... and hate to hate. As my friend Stephanie put it "Italy is exactly what Italy wants to be in that moment and you just gotta roll with it."

I Red Books

My wife and I have been doing a lot of reading on this trip, and I thought I'd share which books I've read and what I think of them. I will avoid spoilers except when I go out of my way to include the biggest spoilers imaginable. But that probably won't happen.

27 hours in Bologna

What do you do when you only have 27 hours in Bologna? Eat lots of gelato, walk everywhere and drink beer of course.

Our 27 hours in Bologna were inspired by this article by the New York Times.

Beaches

Kefalonia does not disappoint in the beach department. We only went to 2 (both multiple times), but we were very happy with what we found.

We rented a car in Kefalonia. You'll never guess what happened next.

Despite my best efforts, my wife has not yet barred me from the blog. I shall redouble my efforts, which is impossible because I cannot do 2x better than my best. English is full of idiomatic nonsense.

Today I will ramble about getting around Kefalonia, which is an island in Greece. More information about it can be found on Wikipedia. See? I provided you a link this time. What can I say, I'm a hopeless romantic.

Drinking Wine in Kefalonia

We didn't know much about Kefalonia before we came here. The Lonely Planet book on the Greek Islands only had a few pages in this island, mostly listing some restaurants and places to stay in a few of the bigger villages. But it did point out that Kefalonia has some amazing wines. We, of course, had to try them!

Everyday Life in Monopolata

Our wonderful hosts, Gerasimos and Marika. 

When we got our rental car at the airport in Kefelnoia, the lady asked where we were staying. I searched on the map, found the village and pointed to a small dot: Monopolata. "how did you find that?!" she asked surprised and incredulous.

Block party in Monopolata

This is the first installment of our new series, AC/PC.

Peter's comments will be bullet points; Drea's will not.

Lixouri in the morning

I have been trying to hunt out a beach umbrella. I happened to walk into the hardware store hoping for some luck. Not much English here, but a few polite Greek words later, the proprietor tells me to come back in an hour. He knows a place, maybe 2km from here. He will go get one for me. I love this place. I said I would finish my shopping and come back. While shopping, I found another shop that already had umbrellas but I couldn't bring myself to buy one there when someone was personally going to find me one.   While waiting, I went to find some coffee.