It's a (Roman) Holiday
June 12-16, 2025
Some people go to the same place every year for vacation. They find a spot they like and then decide they never need to travel anywhere else. We are not those people. There is so much of the world to see, why would we possibly want to return again and again to a place we’ve already been?
Obviously, there are good reasons to revisit a travel destination you’ve enjoyed. The best reason is people; when friends excitedly welcome you into their homes and offer to show you around their country like a local, the allure is strong. So, when Kirb’s birthday was rolling around and Mazz asked if there was somewhere he would like to go, Kirb didn’t fight his first and strongest inclination: He wanted to go to back to Rome and eat pasta with his friends Georgia, Giovanni, and Mathilde. This time, he decided to go with what he knows.
It didn’t seem like that much time had passed since our last foray into Italy, but upon closer inspection, four whole years had gone by since our last visit. Time flies when you’re exploring the world! The last time we went to see our Italians, people still flew on planes with masks on, Mathilde couldn’t walk, and Mazz still didn’t know that gluten was poison to her body. Never mind worrying about vacation repetition - we were far overdue for a visit to our friends.
We took the train into Rome from the airport and met Giovanni at Trastevere Station, where we hopped into his car and he shuttled us directly to a museum. Left to our own devices, we probably wouldn’t have chosen to dive quite so quickly into Roman antiquity, but Giovanni explained that we had a lot of alcohol to drink that evening, so we had to do something cultural first to feel good about ourselves. We could not argue with his logic. Musei Capitolini Centrale Montemartini was a striking hybrid of ancient Italian sculptures and Industrial Revolution-era steam engines that are housed together in a decommissioned power plant. The contrast between historic periods was weird but fascinating. We’d never seen a museum quite like it.
We met up with the rest of the family at their flat and walked to Clivo Bistro, a favorite neighborhood restaurant that melds Italian and Moroccan cuisines. As we ate, a babysitter arrived to accompany Mathilde for the evening, allowing Giorgia to enjoy her meal without a child sticking their hands in her mouth. Though we’d visited Rome with Giorgia and Giovanni twice before, we hadn’t explored much of the nightlife together, so they offered to show us around the Regola neighborhood across the river. On our way there, the road was closed down, so Giovanni parked in the middle of a turnoff behind some other cars and decided that was probably good enough.
The old streets were bustling in the summer evening, every plaza packed with people drinking around fountains and statues. We weren’t able to get a table outside at Caffè Perù, but there was a table inside right next to an open window that was basically the same thing. The bar was decorated with vintage tennis posters and soft orange lighting, and the warm night called for drinks that were refreshing and not too strong. We were a little embarrassed to learn that the cocktails we wanted - Campari, vermouth, and sparkling water (basically a negroni without the gin) - were called “Americanos”. Luckily, the waitress kept any disdain she might have felt for Americans ordering Americanos to herself and we had to force ourselves not to chug the delicious drinks as soon as we got them. We ordered another round and watched the crowds pass by outside down the ancient cobblestone streets as we caught up with our friends.
Kirb likes pasta as much as the next guy, but it’s usually not something he feels the need to go out of his way to eat. That said, the stereotypes are true and the pasta is exceptionally good in Italy, and for some reason Kirb got it in his mind that he just wanted to eat Real Italian Pasta with some Real Italian Friends for his birthday. We found Osteria Palmera online and walked there from Giorgia’s apartment, and the small neighborhood eatery was exactly the sort of place we were looking for. We ordered a carafe of crisp white wine, sauteed chicory greens, and each got a plate of carbonara, which they were able to make gluten free for Mazz. The first time Kirb came to Rome to eat pasta, he had the stomach flu and could only manage a few bites. This time, nothing was going to hold Kirb back from his dreams.
In the afternoon, Giovanni took over Mathilde duty for the weekend and we loaded up Giorgia’s car for a girls’ weekend in the country. She’d been renting an apartment about an hour outside of Rome in a lakeside town called Anguillara Sabazia, much closer to the laboratory where she works, and we were going to spend a night there before moving on to her family’s place in Tuscany. We were thrilled to pull up to the waterfront and find that her kitchen window looked out directly over the water.
Anguillara Sabazia is beautiful but off the beaten path, so the tourists there are predominantly Italians visiting from other parts of the country. The first order of business was to go for a swim, and after lazing in the sun for as long as our pasty white bodies dared, we decided to go into town to look for provisions. We found an amazing deli called Il Norcino that Giorgia had never seen but was thrilled to discover. It was filled with every kind of delicious Italian cured meat and cheese you could imagine, and we spent nearly an hour inside tasting and debating and continuously adding to our order. We would be eating well for the remainder of the weekend.
One of Giorgia’s coworkers joined us for aperitivos at a beachside bar, then for dinner overlooking the sunset on the water. Kirb continued his pasta pilgrimage with a plate of cacio e pepe, but that particular boardwalk restaurant served better ambiance than entrees. When we walked back to Giorgia’s apartment, there was an enormous concert taking place outside, with a mother/daughter cover band playing a wide array of hits from the last 50 years, complete with confetti cannons and pyrotechnics. It was a weird scene, but fully entertaining.
The next morning, we continued our drive into Tuscany to Giorgia’s family house in Porto Ercole. When we arrived, it seemed as though there were butterflies completely covering the grounds, but on closer inspection, we found that they were actually white moths. Thankfully, they seemed to have replaced the mosquitos that had terrorized us the last time we were in Tuscany, buzzing in our ears all night and keeping us from getting any sleep. Apparently, the nearby town had to put up special giant traps to deal with the crazy mosquito infestation the summer before, and it seemed to have worked. Swarms of moths are much easier to deal with than mosquitos.
The beaches in this area are rocky, but the water is cool and clear. We rented loungers and umbrellas for the afternoon and bought refreshing Aperol Spritzes from the beach bar and enjoyed our summer holiday like proper Italians. Refreshed, we went into Porto Santo Stefano and found a butcher shop and ordered an enormous steak for the three of us. Back at the summer house, we grilled it with eggplant and zucchini and opened up a fantastic bottle of Montepulciano red. When we thought it was time to call it an evening and get ready for bed, Giorgia insisted that we drive into Porto Ercole instead and check out the town. We were easy to convince, and were shocked to find the streets bustling with both adults and children at 10pm, eating ice cream and listening to jazz bands playing in the street.
We got up early the next morning to catch a ferry from Porto Santo Stefano to the island of Giglio, where we could find some proper white sand beaches. The shops in Giglio were full of particularly cute stuff; if we had a beach house, we would certainly want to fill it with the crafts and knickknacks sold on that island. We supplemented the last of our delicacies from the deli in Anguillara Sabazia and took off on foot to Giorgia’s favorite beach on Giglio, Spiaggia delle Cannelle. It was properly hot out and the sand was scorching, and we were glad Giorgia knew well enough to bring an umbrella from home. The water was a perfect turquoise blue and swimming felt incredible after our long, sweaty walk.
There is a specific wine made on Giglio called Altura that Mazz was very interested in trying. Apparently, we had both watched a documentary about the winemaker, but Kirb had no recollection of ever seeing it. Still, it didn’t take much to convince him that he wanted to drink some special wine. It was hard to get a definitive answer online as to where we could actually find this wine, though. Our best lead was that it was sold in a single wine shop up high in the old town around Giglio Castello. We called a cab that drove us up through the steep hillsides to the towering village, but when we arrived, all of the shops were closed for an afternoon break. After a significant amount of searching, we finally found the storefront that was supposed to sell the wine, but it too was closed. Giorgia called the number listed out front and the proprietor said they were not on the island that day, but that maybe their father would be willing to come down and open the shop for us to drink the wine. This turned out to be a dead end, as eventually (and understandably) the shop owner stopped answering Giorgia’s calls.
Right when we were about to give up and catch a bus back down to the port, we noticed a little shop on the edge of the old town that we had passed on our way in was selling Altura wine. Though the place was closed, we could see the bottles on display inside the door. As we turned to walk away, a man appeared and opened the shop back up. We went inside to look at the wines, and as we did, our bus drove by and left us behind. It would be an hour until the next one, so the man poured us some orange wine from a giant jug and told us we could get refills for €3. He didn’t have any Altura wine that was cold, but he had a freezer in his store, so we bought a bottle for €30 and stuck it under a bunch of frozen peas to try and cool it down as quickly as possible. When it was getting time to leave, we realized we had no bottle opener, and the man in the shop had to search around to find one. Then, when we tried to open the bottle, the cork broke off inside, and we had to struggle for several minutes to get it out. Just as the last bus before our ferry arrived, we dumped the prized wine into our insulated water bottle and hopped on board. Because we are very classy, we drank it out of plastic cups on the ferry back to Porto Santo Stefano. It was a tart and unique natural wine, and though it certainly would have benefitted from a little more time in the bodega freezer, we’re glad we got to try it.
The next morning, we said our goodbyes to Giorgia as she dropped us off at the train station in Porto Ercole, where we returned to Rome and she went back to work in Anguillara Sabazia. We had just enough time for lunch before heading off to the airport, so we made our way to Mama Eat, an entirely gluten free Italian restaurant. Though most restaurants on the trip had been able to offer gluten free options, this was the only restaurant we had found where everything on the sizable menu could be made gluten free in a separate kitchen. We ordered meatballs in red sauce with chicory greens and a plate of cacio e pepe to share. By the time we left, the place was completely packed. Italy is very good at giving people exactly what they want.
Birthday Pt. 2: Never Enough
For us, birthdays aren’t just a single day, but an entire week. So, when our favorite band of 2025 came through Prague and not Berlin less than a week after Kirb’s birthday, we decided the side trip clearly needed to be tacked on to the Italian festivities. We hopped on a late-morning Flix Bus and were sightseeing in the Czech capital by the afternoon. Just like in Rome, we found a completely gluten free restaurant called Restaurace u Agamy that served traditional Czech food and beer. We ordered pork with gravy and potato pancakes and duck with dumplings and red cabbage and it was all very good.
Turnstile played a beautiful venue called the Lucerna Great Hall to an unexpectedly large crowd. We stuck to the back on a set of stairs, giving us a clear view of the performance and the endless stage diving antics. They played most of their new album “Never Enough” as well as a surprising number of old tracks from when they were a much more straightforward hardcore band. Nowadays, their sound has expanded and matured, drifting to unexpectedly mellow and melodic places while still retaining its energetic core. We love their recent records and had a phenomenal time at the show. And while we certainly didn’t need an excuse to go all the way to Prague for a night to see one of our favorite bands, falling within the boundary of Kirb’s birthday week made it an easy decision. One little weekend in Italy to celebrate Kirb? It’s never enough.