I’m also glad and not surprised Italy was awesome!
This! I like tomatoes, but I ask for them to be left off things typically when not in season, because I do not like what I call “sad tomatoes,” those pale red cold tasteless things places insist on putting on sandwiches/burgers.
Yes, I agree about the fresh produce and grocery in the supermarket. I like shopping and doing a little cooking when I visit a city because I’d like to have the “natives” experience. The brocoli rape and other green vegetables were all so fresh, mostly from Tuscany, it seemed. It’s quite likely that vegetables traveled less than a day. The milk and yogurt choices were aplenty. There were a lot of plain, whole fat varieties, milk goat, organic, regional…etc. It was a Carrefour market, which I don’t think is upscale or expensive. When I cooked the rape using only salt and pepper and olive oil, my family was surprised by how tasty it was considering the limited seasoning. I said it was the freshness of the ingredients.
We flew into Milan. Due to very limited time, we spent one lunch meal in Milan - http://www.giacomoristorante.com/. I highly recommend it, although it is a bit pricey. Then we took the train to Florence.
Florence was wonderful. The Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti and the Museum Galileo were all terrific. Because it was the low season, the wait for the David, was not more than 15 minutes. We were bracing for a very long wait, according to the guidebooks. Therefore, we were pleasantly surprised. The leather school, http://leatherschool.biz/en/, that I happened upon during the walk from the apartment to the museums, was a great discovery. The quality of the leather goods (although somewhat limited) was better than most of the leathershops or the “duty free” shops catering to tour groups located around the piazzas. The food, caffe, gelatos, desserts were all excellent, not too sweet. (The US desserts drive me crazy; they’re excessively sweet!!) The Ponte Vecchio was very charming. The food was all very good, and reasonably priced. We ate at restaurants near our home, between the museums and the walk to our home. Overall Florence gets a thumbs up.
We then took the train to Pisa to visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Very nice town. We decided to ride the bus that encircled the town and was treated to a scenic view of the Italian Alps. We ate in a small little restaurant, also very nice.
The train ride to Rome from Pisa was scenic in certain portions, travelling through a few seaside towns. I would imagine that the coastal train ride would have been more scenic. I did find the trains a bit confusing: Italo, Trenitalia, Frecciarossa. In the US, it’s pretty much Amtrak, Express or local. Maybe it was also been unfamiliar with Italian and the geography. Not being fluent in Italian, the online purchase was not always the easiest. I also observed that the train tracks were not posted until about 15 minutes before departure. We observed many people running to make their trains.
In Rome, we stayed in an apartment near the Vatican. Culturally, archaeologically Rome had the most to offer: Vatican, Coliseum, Forum, Galleria Borghese, Castel Sant’Angelo, Pantheon,just to name a few. From Bernini’s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, to the Trevi Fountain, there were such magnificent works of art. I was astounded by the ability of the artists to incorporate such details using the tools and techniques that they had.
We spent 10 days in Italy. There will definitely be a follow up trip to Italy! It’s my general understanding that Rome becomes more crowded starting late March/early April and lots of tourists during the summer. Our overall museum wait times and crowd experience was short and no waiting at restaurants. This could be because we went in early February. The Museum Galileo was a nice surprise. it was scientific and technology oriented. There were obstetric instruments in addition to what one might expect to find at a museum named after Galileo.
@Michel I envy that you will be able to spend 2-3 months in Italy! Where will you be based?
There is a solution to that here in US. Go to New Orleans. Or San Francisco (though the value proposition in New Orleans is better).
@lh378, what a fabulous trip, and a wonderful info: your travelogue really makes us all want to go right away!
Do you have any BG thoughts on eating in Italy and BG management?
We are planning to move every week or two. Our thoughts right now are to spend 10-12 days slightly south of Naples, in the old Magna Graecia, a week in Rome, a couple of weeks in Tuscany, a week or two in the Lakes district in Northern Italy and in Venice, and 3-4 weeks in Sicily (we have never been there, but have been to the other regions on the itinerary before).
We are expecting to be in the Eastern Med from April 25 through August 1 (2019), but some of that will be spent on the Dalmatian coast (ex-Yugoslavia) and Greece.
The meals in Italy were not problematic for me at all in terms of BG management. When the family, the four of us dine out, we “strategize” on how much starch, protein, sweets each of us may want. We then order with the intention to share some of the food. For example, if my daughter ordered a pizza, I may have a slice and she may have some of my fish or chicken or the protein dish of the meal. The pizza in Italy is different from the ones in the US. I often had pasta, generally choosing the ones with vegetables and some meat for protein. I almost always skipped the bread, or only sampled for taste. I would share a dessert with one of my family members. Because we walked alot (according to my daughter’s app on her iphone, we walked about 10 miles a day) visiting the museums, sightseeing, shopping, window shopping, I never recalled having to correct for meals. Their dark chocolates are quite tasty.
@Michel - please tell me you will visit the Amalfi Coast. You will not regret it.
We will be right there! We will probably spend our 10-12 days near Naples on this very peninsula, although probably on the Sorrento side, in a small village on the rocky part of the coast. We have every intention to haunt the Amalfi coast between Positano and Salerno!
One funny story. A few years ago, we were spending a week in the same region. My primary purpose was to check out the Naples Archeology Museum, which is one of the best in the world. When the time came, my family was museum’d out, so I left them the car, took a 2.5 hour train to Naples (we were staying in the Sorrento peninsula), and arrived to find the Museum closed for a strike. Furious, I decided to spend the day in Herculaneum instead, took a second train to Herculaneum, and found it closed too…
This was the year when the garbagemen were on strike in Naples for weeks on end (one of the many years, really). It was even dangerous to breathe the air in the streets 
Yay! I’m from Calabria, but I love the small villages on the cost.
We have never been there yet! I was hoping we would spend some time there next year, since I thought we would drive down to Sicily. But now it looks like we might have to fly to Sicily instead from Rome, so possibly we will need yet another opportunity.
I have no doubt it will come, as we LOVE Italy!
@kmichel, since you are from Calabria, you will enjoy this story:
Ten years ago, when my older boy was 10, we were spending a couple of weeks in Tuscany. Every day, at the end of the day, I was encouraging him to guide us back to some place we had been to, or the hotel, or the restaurant, so as to develop his sense of orientation. The motivation was a $2 prize every time he was successful.
In San Gimignano, he was doing just that, when he crossed a narrow street on foot with me in tow, a few yards ahead of an older woman biking on the road. The woman got really irritated with us, and screamed at us, in Italian: “Where do you think you are? This is not Naples here!” (My son and I are both short, fairly tan, and curly haired, by the way)
I assume you replied “Qual è il problema?” 