The history of Carbonara is uncertain, mysterious and debated. There is not an official version recognized by all but many and various hypotheses about the birth of this delicious dish of the gastronomic tradition of Lazio Region, like the Amatriciana and Gricia.
 
There is a nationalist hypothesis that says that the birth of the Carbonara is related to the woodsmen who were producing charcoal during their seasonal migrations to the Apennines between Lazio and Abruzzo. They would bring saddlebags with eggs, pecorino cheese and pork cheek and they would prepare the pasta on open fires. In this case the recipe would be the evolution of the "cacio e ova" typically consumed by the farmers and by the woodsmen of these lands.

There is another (interesting) version that says that the recipe was born by chance during the occupation by the American troops in Italy, around 1944 with the introduction of bacon and lyophilized eggs. The legend says that American soldiers added their ration composed of bacon, cream and powdered eggs to spaghettis.
 
After the liberation of Rome, the dish became increasingly part of the menu of Roman taverns from 1946 onwards.

Carbonara’s history is complicated and uncertain while present-day Carbonara’s offer is much more clear and definite! That is why we want to present you a guide of the top 7 Carbonara’s in some of the best Roman restaurants.
Have a look to the Puntarella Rossa article from last year (still up to date) clicking here.

There is a magic address in Rome for kids:  via Flaminia 82.
 
At the beginning of one of the ancient Rome consular roads that starts from Piazzale Flaminio (and finishes on the Adriatic coast), nearby the very central Piazza del Popolo, you can find, walking just a few minutes along the tramway rails, inside the old tramway deposit of the Borghetto Flaminio, a double surprise.

A magnificent museum for children from 3 to 11 years (with twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday, activities for babies from 0 to 3 years old) called “Explora”.  And also, in the same place, one of the oldest Neapolitan pizzeria (founded in Naples in 1870), the “ Antica Pizzeria Da Michele” that was opened in Rome last year by the descendants of Michele Condurra.

A double pleasure if you have children under 11.  And even if you don’t!  You’ll discover a fantastic place full of little Romans (that often visit the museum with their teachers) and little tourists from the entire world who play together. And then, you’ll enjoy your “Margherita”,  “Marinara” or  “Napoli”, the specialities of the “historical” pizzeria as did a few years ago Julia Roberts….a scene of the movie “Eat, pray, love” was shot “Da Michele”, in Naples.

The museum Explora has four sectors. The first is called “Me” and, to introduce the children to the mystery of life, recreates a mother ‘s womb. The second, “Society”, is a miniature town that has a supermarket, a post office, a bank, a petrol station and even a dentist. So the children can play and, through that, observe and experiment a daily life of adults. The third section is dedicated to the “Environment” with solar panels and waste recycling systems to teach the children how to respect the nature and their surrounding. The fourth sector is  “Communication” with a television news show made by the children that interact with all the available materials and tools.
 
An unforgettable experience for your family!

“Explora” is opened every day from 9H30 to 19h30 except on Monday.
Tel: 0039 06 3613776
 
Antica Pizzeria da Michele is opened from 12h to 17h and from 19h to midnight.
Tel 0039 06 32600432

Winter is very close and grape and olive harvests are almost completed in Italy.
Now it is time to rest a bit and tell you the amazing story of our olives harvest experience.
We are located in Maremma, the southern part of Tuscany: our country house lies within a working farm estate (27 acres) producing first quality Tuscan extra virgin olive oil.

The olive trees that are all around our house have seen many things and many people as they are much more old than our grandparents. There is a very special atmosphere, the time seems to stop some days, the surroundings are whispering stories about farmers and old traditions from once upon a time.

The olive picking usually starts at the beginning of November and ends in Mid December all around Tuscany depending on atmospheric conditions.
 
Olive harvesting is not an easy work: usually, the entire family, often friends and even seasonal workers are called to help during the harvest. Usually the older people of the area are the only people whit the know how in order to correctly decide when to start picking up these little green enchanted fruits. If you start too early the oil quantity will be modest, if you wait too much the taste will be bitter. This activity is not about science and numbers but about skills and experience.

The olives are picked by hand or with olive harvester shakers, they are stocked in nets and then in baskets that are transported the same day of the picking to the mill (the Frantoio). In order to have the best oil and to avoid fermentation the olives must be squeezed in 1 or 2 days from the picking.
There is an unrepeatable energy that is produced during these long days around, inside and over these beautiful trees. Probably brotherhood is the best term to define this nice atmosphere.

We do send our olives to the Mill (Frantoio) in Scansano, where Mister Osvaldo controls, manages and conducts all the different aspects of the squeezing procedure. First of all the olives are separated from the leaves and are cleaned with water.

Then the cleaned olives are pressed obtaining the Olive Paste as a result. Then this paste is gently mixed in order to help the separation of water from oil molecules.

The next step is extremely important and consists in the extraction of the olive oil: the paste is sent to a centrifuge that separates water from extra virgin oil. After 1 to 2 hours of procedures the “green gold” flows out of the machines and can be finally tasted on a crispy homemade Tuscan bread bruschetta. The only word that describes this moment is happiness.

Do you know want to learn how the olive oil is produced? Have you ever experienced the olive harvest tradition in Tuscany?
Many hands are needed to pick olives! That's why it could become a very interesting experience for you to join us, so contact us if you're coming to Tuscany during next Fall. We can host you in our marvelous villa!

A beautiful surprise is waiting for you in Rome, in the Termini Railway Station.  These last years, especially, the station was not at all a place where to stay more than the strict necessary time to catch a train.

Now it is completely restored and the right wing that was build in the thirties by a great architect of that time, Angiolo Mazzoni, closed for years, is again a beautiful opened space dominated by marble vaults (Cappa Mazzoniana) that houses (from the 5 of October) an extraordinary traditional Italian food market called "Il Mercato centrale", opened every days from seven in the morning until midnight in Via Giolitti 36.

Exactly like the one opened in Florence two years ago, at the first floor of the old San Lorenzo market by the famous Florentine chef Umberto Montano and that had, this year, more than 3 millions visitors.
This anti-fast-food place seems to have already a lot of fans.  It is so unusual to see all together so much high quality artisanal food especially in a place that never had an "Oyster Bar" (New York-Grand Central) or a Train Bleu restaurant (Paris- Gare de Lyon).

Inside the "Mercato Centrale", there is a restaurant on the first floor with the chef of a famous roman restaurant, Oliver Glowig, and tables everywhere (for 500 people). It is also possible to buy and take away anything, raw food to prepare at home or already cooked delicious traditional dishes. Fresh fish or meat, fresh pasta, pizzas, pastries, ice cream, chocolate, cheese, truffles, Sicilian specialities, salamis, artichokes, mushrooms and other roman specialities...Also bread and whine, vegetarian and vegan food, hamburger of the best beef from Tuscany, the "Chianina" etc...
 All together, there are 15 boutiques, 15 big names of Italian culinary tradition. Amongst them, the roman "pizzaiolo" Stefano Callegari that invented, years ago, the famous "trapizzino", a little jewel where a piece of pizza becomes a sort of "tramezzino" (sandwich of sliced bread) full of tasty food.

There is a strange contamination effect: when you leave the "Cappa Mazzoniana" and continue to walk inside the station, you notice that the quality of the food that you can find there, in the "bars" of the station, has improved, at least from an esthetical point of view, and it is a pleasure to go around and discover nice shops everywhere.
It should be even better in the next months if Umberto Montano, the creator of this magic "Mercato Centrale", succeeds to go on with his project that provides also cinema, theatre and other cultural events inside his Mercato Centrale that he wants to be "a space for high quality and culture, a place for interlocking".

"The beauty will save the world", said Dostoevsky. 
 
In this dark moment of the History, the best antidote is probably that: the beauty. And, in Rome, there is a magic place with an incredible concentration of natural beauty and art:  the Villa Borghese park.
 
This huge park in the hearth of the city is probably unique in the whole world. Here you can not only walk amongst the golden trees of an extraordinary Indian summer, or rent a row boat on a peaceful lake surrounded by roman pines and other trees and bushes, with a roman temple in the middle, in a purest romantic English Garden style, but also discover so many master pieces from all periods.

From the strange Mona Lisa smile of the Etruscan couple of the "Sarcophagus of the betrothed" that will welcome you in the "Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia" to the tiny but so alive Giacometti's sculptures and the solar Van Gogh's "Gardener" or Modigliani's "Reclining Nude" at the "Galleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna" (distant only a few minutes walking). 

Another very famous laying young lady, the beautiful Pauline Borghese, Napoleon's sister and prince Camillo Borghese's wife, sculptured by Antonio Canova as "Venus Victorious", will receive you in the first room, on the ground floor of the luminous "Galleria Borghese".
The Cardinal Scipione Borghese, an ancestor of the prince Camillo, built it for his magnificent collection of sculptures and paintings, at the beginning of the 17th century. You can still find there an important part of that extraordinary collection. Amongst all these treasures, The Bernini's "Rape of Proserpine" or his "Apollo and Daphne". But also a few Caravaggio:  "David with the head of Goliath", "Sick Bacchus", "St Jerome." A "Deposition" of Rubens or the famous Titian's "Sacred and Profane love"...

Not far from the Galleria, you can bring your children to the "Bioparco", a new word for the old Zoo, whit a population of 1.444 animals and 200 species. For the more curious, there is even a new little very avant-garde museum dedicated to the "Environmental Crimes". To regenerate yourself, you can find also a restaurant inside the Bioparco.

There are, however, in the Villa Borghese, other places, much more sophisticated, where you can have a lunch, a dinner or just a drink. One of them, a beautiful sunny terrace where you can sit outside in the middle of the winter if it doesn't rain, the "Caffé Delle Arti", is attached to the Museum of Modern Art (entrance Via Antonio Gramsci). The refined menu and the exquisite desserts seem to be just a natural continuation of the museum visit.
 
At the other side of the Villa Borghese Park, called the Pincio, other surprises wait for you. Coming up next... 

After the surreal Alpine dream in the heart of the Mediterranean we experienced in the islands and islets in front of Korcula and Lumbarda we continued our journey towards the gentle shores of eastern Hvar and Brac Islands! The first part of the navigation was made through the Pejlesac Channel, between Peljesac peninsula and Korcula Island. The Peninsula is a mountainous finger of land which stretches for some 90km from Lovište in the west to the mainland in the east. It’s an exceptionally beautiful place, with tiny villages and sheltered coves rimmed by beaches, and although it’s an increasingly popular holiday area, development remains low-key.

The high peaks of Peljesac protect Korcula and its southeastern coast from rough northerly winds. The dry terrain is covered with macchia in the north and dotted woth vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in the south. This place retains a thriving agricultural business especially in winemaking. Dingac and Postup wines are appreciated throughout Croatia and Peljesac vineyards are open for visits. Do sample the farmed oysters and shellfish from Ston that attract gastronomes from far away.

After a relaxing early morning navigation through this quiet channel the view opens up again on Hvar and on Vis Island on the back! Hvar South Eatern Shores are just 4 Miles from the most western cape of Peljesac Peninsula. Hvar coast is covered in Pines and Mediterannean macchia, it is soft and welcoming compared to the south western area we visited the first day of navigation. There are several relaxing and bright blue sea bays as Smokvina, Smarska, Mrtinovik, Zidigova making it and ideal place to have a day boat tour!

At the eastern tip of Hvar lies the pretty little port of Sućuraj. From there, it’s only 5 km, a short hop by ferry across to Drvenik on the mainland. From the island the effect is rather dramatic – you’re looking up at a 4,000 ft wall across the small channel, which looms ever larger as you sail across! The lightouse located at the most eastern point of Hvar Island seems coming out form a fairytale!

Generally most Dalmatia’s visitors head straight for the islands, as we did but the Makarska Riviera on the mainland coast, between Split and Dubrovnik, is home to some of the country’s loveliest stretches of beach. Running from Brela in the north and to Gradac in the south, the riviera is 38 miles long and centres on Makarska. We therefore decided to stop there on our way to Brac Island.
Makarska itself is built around a deep sheltered bay, and backed by the dramatic rocky heights of Mount Biokovo (circa 1700 meters), which acts as a buffer from the harsher inland climate. Biokovo’s sea-facing slopes are criss-crossed by well-marked trails, so besides swimming in the deep turquoise Adriatic, it’s possible to get in some hiking or mountain biking too.
Today, through summer Makarska’s main square is filled with open-air restaurants and cafés, while behind the church, in the shade, the daily open-air market sells fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables. Along the harbour, overlooked by a string of cafés and pizzeria, wooden excursion boats offer one-day trips to Jelsa on Hvar and Zlatni Rat beach in Bol on Brac.
But the main draw here are the beaches, backed by fragrant pinewoods overlooking the glistening turquoise sea.
Makarska has a dual soul indeed: on one side a typical Mediterranean touristic destination with bright blue sea, tranquil atmosphere and a good sports offer, while on the other side the nights are much more active with many bars, clubs, restaurants and live music!

After this coastal stop we just continued our planned trip towards eastern Brac Island shores where we visited some amazing deep bays like Rasotica close to Sumartin and the superb Luka very close to Povlja village. The first one is a very narrow bay where the anchorage is possible only with some ropes on the shores in order to leave some free room for other boats while the second one is made of several very deep fiords that will protect you from almost every wind! The Povlja fiords must be visited if you have the chance and do not forget to have a dinner in the dreamy atmosphere of Pipo restaurant, which can be reached only walking or by boat! No cars arrived there yet, and this is something very special!