Italy: Udine
Our adventures to Italy were for the wedding of some of our bestest friends, and had us traveling to the incredible little Italian city of Udine, at the base of the Alps, where our groom is from! We flew directly from Helsinki to Venice, and then took the express train (only 90 minutes!) directly north. If you have spent any time with us, you know how much I LOVE traveling by train! To sit back, with some wine and cheese and cured meat, and enjoy the sites/sights of the passing landscape. For our week-long stay, we stayed at Hotel Allegria, and highly recommend it. It was really nice, decent breakfast (excellent coffee!), and very centrally located to all the things.
The focus of the trip was relaxing from a very tumultuous time at work, reconnecting with each other, living our best life with some of the greatest people on the planet, and celebrating LOVE!!! We were successful in accomplishing all of these things, filling our bodies and souls, with AMAZING people, THE BEST FOOD, and ALL the wine!
Udine is such a modern yet historic city, with all the cobblestone streets and piazzas (town squares abound!!!), cathedrals and castles, gelatos stands, and beautiful buildings. We really enjoyed just randomly walking around and exploring, and tasting our way through SO many places!
My new favorite drink: Hugo Spritz! And it paired well throughout the trip with all of the tasty snacks.
The best meal in the world: Hosteria Alla Tavernetta. Not kidding. We went here 3 times. We bonded with our servers, and got to to know the manager. Adam about died with the amount of black truffle. Seriously, we were here 2-3 hours for each of the 3 meals. Two of them were lunches, which is what I recommend the most highly because it was significantly more private and peaceful, and we enjoyed on the covered rooftop balcony.
Our final day in Udine was NOT without its struggles, as the entire public transit infrastructure went on strike. Buses, trains, taxis, etc. We had planned on taking the express train back to Venice from Udine, but that ended up not being possible, so we were able to reserve the last two seats on a private bus. With the lag time between checking out of the hotel and catching the bus, we incidentally stumbled on the the awesomest little pizza shop with THE NICEST owner (and his mother): Trattoria Alla Bonta. We walked in because the door was open, and the mother ushered us to sit, and took our order. The owner then came out, explaining that they were actually closed but the door was open because they were cleaning, but that our meal would take a little longer because they had to get the pizza oven going. How amazing is that!!?!? And then he proceeded to hang out with us and talk about his dream of going to visit America, starting this business with his brother, and ask us a thousand questions about living in and traveling the US. It was such a great time, espeially when he broke out and started sharing his grandfather’s homemade grappa. SO delicious, and the perfect end to our time in this lovely little city!
