Skip to content

Month: May 2019

Day 7 – Pompei & Erculano

Our first day in Napoli, we didn’t actually spend a lot of time in the city, but on the sites of the Pompei and Herculaneum excavations, checking at least one thing of my bucket list.

When we returned to Napoli in the evening, we first visited Ventimetriquadri for some top quality coffee. For dinner we had a cuoppo di terra from Friggitoria Vomero.

Then it was time for—not surprisingly—beer, provided to us by Murphy’s Law, Hoppy Ending, Mosto, and Il Birraiuolo. This little pub crawl also learned us that Napoli is quite big, and the height differences can be huge!

Day 6 – Roma II

On the second and last day in Rome, we first visited the Palazzo Massimo Alle Terme to see their nice collection of Roman statues, mosaics, and frescoes.

After some pizza al taglio, we then went to see the Ara Pacis, and the Claudius exhibition in the same museum.

West of the Tiber, we checked out coffee place Pergamino and beer bar Be.Re., that strangely enough seemed to be two parts of the same business…

A last visit to BrewDog Roma to have our beer visas stamped, and we had a couple of beers as well of course.

After a excruciatingly slowly served dinner, we quickly picked up our bag at our B’n’B, and eventually still managed to catch our train to Napoli.

Day 5 – Roma

We started our first full day in Rome with the obligatory visit to the Colosseum, complete with tour, and the Forum Romanum.

For lunch we had porchetta at Pane & Vino. I have to say: this Roman snack with crispy bits beats the Florentine lampredotto hands down!

Of course we had to visit the Imperial Fora as well, in particular that of my favourite emperor Traianus, before we had our first beer of the day at Johnny’s Off License, a beer shop where you can drink in as well.

In the evening we first visited the bar that once was the only craft beer bar in town: Open Baladin. We then crossed over to Travestere for Ma Che Siete Venuti A Fa’ and Bir & Fud.

Day 4 – Firenze

Today we left Bologna early in the morning to spend the day in Firenze. Starting with another NannyBag drop off, in a hotel this time, where they even lent us an umbrella for the day when it started pouring down right when we were about to leave.

The tickets for the Galleria dell’Accademia we’re already sold out when I tried to book them two months ago, and the line at the ticket booth went all around the block, so we just had a look at the David in front of the Palazzo Vecchio instead.

After not even being able to sit down for coffee, and having our panino co i’ lampredotto standing up as well, we decided to visit BrewDog Firenze a bit earlier than planned, just to get out of the rain! After a couple of beers and a nice chat with the staff and other beer geeks, it stopped raining, so we could continue our tour of Firenze.

We also visited the Palazzo Pitti, were the lines were remarkably short for a museum with great interior decorations, and paintings from both Flemish and Italian masters.

To conclude the afternoon we went to Archea Brewery, which turned out to be more a nice bar, than an actual brewery.

For dinner we went to Osteria Del Cinghiale Bianco to try two other florentine specialties: papardelle al Cinghiale and bistecca alla Fiorentina. It tasted as good as it looks!

After the exchanging the umbrella for our bag again, we took the Frecciabianca train to Rome.

After arriving at our B’n’B Rhome86, we nipped out again for a nightcap at BrewDog Roma.

Day 3 – Bologna

On our day in Bologna we had our first real Italian breakfast: caffè and some sweet pastry standing at the bar.

After that we headed into town, but we seemed to have forgotten to account for Monday being a closing day for some museums… Still, we enjoyed visiting the Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio and it’s Teatro Anatomico and the part of the Museo Civico Archeologico that was still open.

For lunch, we had to have a piadina at La Tua Piadina, and we didn’t regret that decision at all!

After spending some time in the student neighbourhood and the farmers’ market that happened to be there, we went to one of the two Zapap TapRooms.

For dinner we went to Ranzani 13, a name we knew from events at Moeder Lambic and BXLBeerFest. We were quite—positively—surprised to be served something quite different from the pizzas usually served at those events!

In the evening we went to beer bar Il Punto—they surely love Belgian beers there—and BrewDog Bologna again. We didn’t understand much of the stand-up comedians performing, but the atmosphere and beers were great!