Porchetta Makes Me Happy

I spent a big chunk of this weekend munching on food at my Roman home base. However, Clare and I did take a little adventure to the town of Ariccia-- a small historic village with a famous passion for pork, or porchetta. Now before we get too far into this adventure, it should be known that Clare and I are planners. We write itineraries and do research and double check our directions. Some days are just not meant for planners though, and this was one of them. After attempting to translate the bus website into English for the umpteenth time, we surrendered and decided to take the train to Ariccia's neighbor town-- Albano Laziale. We couldn't exactly find directions from the station to Ariccia though. And so it was with no return ticket and some googled streets written on a notecard that we set out on the 50-minute train ride.

There was a huge moment of panic when we got off the train and realized there wasn't even a kiosk to purchase our return tickets. However we fought the urge to turn right back around, took a deep breath, and started walking (to where? we had no clue!). After about five minutes we found a little bar where we were able to purchase train tickets. With that checked off the list, we felt a lot better about the day. Lucky (or so we thought) for us, there were blue signs pointing us to Ariccia. After a few twisted turns though, we had noooo clue where they were leading us.

After some deep breaths, we resumed our quest for porchetta. We found a main street, crossed our fingers, and kept walking. We crossed a bridge and suddenly... we were there! Ariccia was very cute and quaint and the smells of porchetta were luring us into dozens of "osterias." After walking around and getting the lay of the land a little, we grabbed porchetta sandwiches from a tiny vendor that had been endorsed by Gambero Rosso (kind of the Italian food authority) and found a bench with a beautiful view to enjoy our sandwiches. The porchetta was absolutely worth the adventure to get there. In fact, it might have been worth fighting dragons, crossing a moat of lava, and climbing to the tallest tower to rescue the porchetta princess. Yup. That good. It was a pretty simple sandwich-- no BBQ or fancy toppings about it. The closest thing I could compare it to would be a Little League Opening Day pork chop sandwich. It was half the taste, half the experience.

What could possibly make this sandwich better? This view, that's what.

Clare and I learned some important lessons this weekend. First, plans (or lack thereof) can work out ok if you take some deep breaths and go for it! Second, order two sandwiches. Just do it. We can't yet understand people judging us in Italian anyway.

Ciao!