Someone told me that Valentine’s day was not a thing in Italy. NOT true! There are hearts and lovers out and about everywhere today! It didn’t hurt that it was blue skies, sunny, and 65! We are expecting rain on Saturday though.
We went to a couple of outdoor markets today. We bought plenty of veggies for a nice salad for dinner tonight. We already had close to 10k steps and it wasn’t even 10 am yet, so we decided to buy a day bus pass. The bus we were waiting for didn’t show, so we got on the next one.
My sister asked me to pick up a product that they bought here last time and ship it to her, so we were on a mission to find it. Success! Now I just have to figure out the shipping process 🙂
We saw an ad for a chocolate festival which we happened upon. We decided to purchase some chocolates, it happened so fast but a good lesson for us – she told us the price per 100 grams – which we agreed upon – but we didn’t really agree upon the amount before she started giving us scoop after scoop. Hey! Stop! THIRTY euros later – off we went! Again, valuable lesson for us. Stupid tourists. Good thing we have some friends and family coming soon to share with 🙂 Although, it IS really good, so who knows maybe we have it eaten before they get here!
We wandered around the old part of Bari and stopped for a coffee. I tried a Macchiato – that will be my afternoon drink of choice for sure! It is bad form to order a cappuccino after 11 am. But you can order a “stained” or “marked” coffee without raising an eyebrow. It’s basically a shot of espresso in the teeny tiny cup with some steamed foamed milk on top. There was very little room at the counter so we drank up and headed out.
Bari has a gorgeous waterfront – we strolled along in the sunshine while kids kissed on the benches or along the rail. (we’re in our 60’s now – so that leaves a lot of room for who is a kid!) We whiled away the afternoon, hopped on a bus and headed home for our aperitivo.
Our salad was AMAZING! Wow, the amount of dirt on the endive though! It must have been plucked from its home first thing this morning! I thought there was some balsamic vinegar in the cupboard but it turned out to be red wine vinegar. Our salad was too hearty for a wine vinegar, so I ventured out to find some balsamic. The first store only had “glassa”. I didn’t understand what that was and google translate was no help. I tried two other places, none at the next store and only “glassa” at the third stop. I decided to take my chances on the glassa. I think that means glaze. It is very thick. It turned out to be a good choice. Not sweet. Our salad was excellent!
We enjoyed the rest of our evening – we watched some Italian food network. His name was Ruben and he cooks right there at the Roman outdoor market. He was very engaging. Watched a little bit of SanRemo festival and then off to bed.
We’re heading out in the rain tomorrow. Not sure where to yet.
paleremo presto.
Sounds like another awesome day!