Eating Our Way Around The Tourist Heart Of Rome – A Surprisingly Good Experience!

If you read this blog at all, you know we LOVE a food tour, and have taken a few in Italy (here, here, and here)! On our most recent trip to Italy, we booked a tour with a new (to us) tour company visiting restaurants in Rome’s Centro Storico, or historical center. Think Campo di’Fiori, Pantheon, Piazza Navona, etc.  It ended up being a surprisingly good tour and resulted in us finding some new recommendations. Here is my review of our tour and information on how you can take the same tour!

STOP ONE – A VERO NORCINERIA IN ROMA

Our first stop on this food tour was at a “norcineria” that I have certainly passed numerous times and never gave it a second look: Norcineria Viola 1890!  A norcineria is a shop generally particular to the Umbrian town of Norcia, where its very common to salt and cure certain types of wild boar and pigs, as well as make other products out of them. Prior to this food tour, I had never once visited a norcineria. This one, however, is quite accessible, located right on Campo d’Fiori. True to its name, Norcineria Viola 1890 is a butcher and cheese shop selling products from Norcia and Umbira in general. Here, we tasted five types of salami. Yes, five, including the traditional salami, salami with truffle, a spicy salami, a more fatty salami than normal, and a jerky style salami. We also tasted bread in local olive oil (duh), three types of cheese, and wine from Umbria (our favorite)!

Seriously, this is right on Campo di’Fiori.

Continue reading

The Perfect 40 Hours In Rome, Italy.

Dan and I spent a magical 40 hours in Rome to finish our Italy trip in September 2021, which is definitely NOT enough time to properly see Rome. However, we were only in Rome because our flight departed from Rome’s FCO and we will be back in Rome with our whole family in November. This was just a little taster of Roman goodness! While not the most popular Italian tourist destination (wrongfully so IMO), Dan and I spent a summer in Rome back in 2008 (yes, we’re that old) and have looooved Rome ever since. So this 40 hours was a real treat for us! Here’s what we did if you have your own 40 hours to explore Rome if you like to eat, drink, and shop.

Gorgeous, gorgeous Rome!

Continue reading