Everything we ate on our Italian honeymoon

Hotel and restaurant recommendations for Rome, Puglia, and Sardinia.

Jul 09, 2024

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My husband and I have done most everything out of order—legally married (on Zoom!) in 2020, engaged in 2022, and wed with an untraditional party in 2023. We still don’t have wedding bands, but we can now add our honeymoon to the very wonky, but very us timeline.

We spent 15 days in Italy, splitting our time between Rome, Puglia/Basilicata, and southern Sardinia. I visited Italy for the first time in 2022 with my friend Eric for a yoga retreat on Pantelleria—a small, otherworldly island off Sicily. Eric and I also spent time in Rome and Palermo, and I knew southern Italy would resonate with Skylar.

We are both relaxed travelers. I do a lot of research beforehand but constantly tend to my Google Maps “stars.” As of this writing, I have 1,958 (!) places starred around the globe—restaurants, shops, hotels, museums, and other interesting sites. Some stars are from top restaurant lists, but most are from Instagram tags or recommendations from friends.

We make loose plans when traveling, but for the most part, we wander, see what’s starred nearby, and diverge when something seems interesting. The stars, in practice, are a bit of a joke between Skylar and me: I have no memory of their context. A hole-in-the-wall star could be from a mainstream outlet or a cherished friend; I’ll simply never know. But very rarely have they led me astray.

Here is what we did and what we ate:

Monday

After a red-eye and checking into our Airbnb in the Rome neighborhood of Trastevere what we needed was a snack. I had Trappizino starred on my map, a street food joint known for its invention of trapizzino, a hand-held pizza pocket. We decided to partake in supplí (pretty much Roman arancini)—eggplant parmigiana for me, and a meat ragu for Skylar. They had an inspired wine list, both Skylar and I drank a few glasses of an orange wine from Lazio (the region Rome is in).

We nabbed an early table at Ivo a Trastevere for dinner before it got crazy busy. We shared a simple, but perfectly dressed green salad. Skylar ordered cacio e pepe and I got a bufala pizza. I resisted my nature and tried to do as the Romans do: eat pizza with a knife and fork.

Tuesday

As a breakfast person…. Rome can be tough. A cornetto (croissant) and coffee are not my preferred way to begin the day, but I can acclimate. For our first breakfast, we popped into a neighborhood shop for coffee and shared a (too sweet, IMO) cornetto.

We had a lunch reservation at Settimio All’Arancio and began our day by wandering toward the area. On our way, we ran into the Pantheon and Spanish Steps. At the restaurant, we shared a caprese salad. I got ricotta gnocchi with spinach, and Skylar ordered a seafood risotto. When ordering post-lunch espressos, I confidently agreed to a crema Catalana (crème brulée) in my crude Italian... Worse things have happened…

I had been well-warned about the need for dinner reservations in Rome, but a packed schedule of dinner reservations does not suit our travel style—how could one possibly know where we might be on any given night? After a good deal of wandering, we grabbed a table at Ditta Trinchetti, down the street from us, which turned out to be perfectly lovely. We shared a fava bean and chicory appetizer, and I took advantage of a rare vegetarian interpretation of carbonara.

Wednesday

We started the day with a three-hour food tour with cookbook author and tour host Katie Parla. We chose the Trastevere and Testaccio tour since we were staying in Trastevere. We had a wonderful time and enjoyed Katie’s Roman history lessons nearly as much as the food!

On the tour, we popped into a few places, among many others, that I had already starred in Trastevere, like Otaleg and Forme, but it was fabulous to get Katie’s recommendations and insider tips. Skylar and I agreed our favorite thing from the tour was the artichoke sandwich at Mordi & Vai in the Testaccio Market.

I learned I am allergic to jasmine pollen, which Rome was just bursting with this week. So we recouped for a few hours at the Airbnb before heading back out to meet Skylar’s Roman friend, Fillipo, and his girlfriend at Blackmarket Hall. After a full day of starchy Roman food, I can’t deny that eating a perfectly fine-tasting vegan burger and fries was a nice reprieve.

Thursday

We shared a fantastic ricotta cornetto from I Dolci do Nonna Vincenza for breakfast and began our walk toward the Colosseum and Palatine Hill, where we had a tour scheduled for mid-afternoon. We quickly had lunch at Divinostilia food&winebar. I was misheard and served a ham sandwich, but I was able to pull off the ham and eat around the sauteed chicory and pecorino. Skylar ordered a salmon Caprese salad.

The Colosseum tour was genuinely very cool (we got to go onto the floor!). We were exhausted after the three-hour tour and, again, were without a reservation, but we were able to get an al fresco table at La vita è’ n’osteria down the street from our flat. Since it was our last night in Rome, I ordered a cacio e pepe (a Roman dish) and Skylar got spaghetti with mussels and tomatoes.

Friday

We were up early for our short flight to Bari, Puglia. We immediately headed to our hotel, Sexantio Le Grotte della Civita, in Matera. Matera is technically in Basilicata, a region just adjacent to Puglia, and one of the three oldest, still-inhabited cities in the world. I had heard of this hotel from an Elizabeth Minchilli TikTok. The hotel rooms were built in ancient caves that had been fashioned into dwellings, food storage, or animal pens (or a combination of all three) over the millennium. The cave dwellings were occupied until the 1950s when the Italian government forced residents to move to new housing due to the health conditions in the Sassi (old town) cave homes.

At the hotel, we befriended a stray cat named Rocco and ordered a fruit, meat, and cheese plate with local wine to enjoy in the courtyard. We loved the burrata (a Puglian invention, in fact) and Pane di Matera, a local bread with a soft and nearly-yellow crumb. I’ve googled around for a recipe, but if you have a cookbook recommendation, please let me know.

We walked around for a bit and got lost in the winding, often dead-end streets. I got a mango gelato at I Vizi degli Angeli, and we headed back to the hotel, drank wine, and watched the sunset.

Saturday

The hotel's breakfast spread was the stuff of dreams—abundant home-baked goods, local yogurt, eggs, cheeses, fruit, and fresh-squeezed juice—and served in an ancient cave church on the hotel’s grounds.

After breakfast, we visited MUSMA, a sculpture museum built into caves and a 16th-century palazzo. We had the place to ourselves, and it was delightfully eerie walking into the deep, dark caves and waiting for the motion-sensor lights to click on.

We ate lunch at Dulcis in Fundo. More fava and chicory. I got spaghetti, and Skylar got pork ragu orecchiette.

We booked a dinner reservation at Sanos but canceled it after spending a few relaxing hours in the hotel’s courtyard drinking coffee, reading, and journaling. We continued the luxuriously calm evening with another cheese plate and a medley of bar snacks and wine.

Sunday

After our final breakfast buffet at Sextantio, we headed back to Bari to pick up our rental car and begin the drive to Masseria LoJazzo, a B&B near Ceglie. At LoJazzo, we stayed in a renovated trullo—an ancient, domed stone structure common in the Puglian region. This one was historically used as a grain silo. The B&B was wonderfully designed and calming after a busy week in Rome and Matera.

Since we arrived at a weird time in the afternoon, we could not find lunch in town. The supermarket closed at 1:30 too, so we shared a focaccia and coffee at Alter Gusto, a charming bakery in town. We struggled again that night for dinner—after a few failed attempts at finding an open restaurant, we ended up at a lively kebabberia where I had some awful falafel.

Monday

Italian B&Bs know what they are doing with breakfast. Our B&B host and his wife served us a wonderful medley of local pastries, fruit from the farm, boiled eggs, and yogurt.

We went to the supermarket to pick up snacks for lunch. The chain market in town was nothing special, but it was wonderfully fun to inspect their offerings. I was shocked by how affordable everything was and surprised to see things like local wine and zucchini flowers in a chain supermarket. There was even signage on which fruits and vegetables were in season! Our trullo had no kitchen or mini fridge, so we picked up whatever could be kept at room temperature.

I shouldn’t admit it, but we had Cup Noodles ramen for dinner using our room’s tea kettle. Even in Italy, you can get tired of restaurant food.

After dinner, we realized it was our one-year wedding party anniversary (not to be confused with our marriage anniversary in October). We sat on the roof of the ancient trullo and drank wine with the sunset.

Tuesday

We had breakfast again at the Masseria. We returned to the supermarket for more snacks and spent most of the day reading and relaxing.

In the afternoon, we went to Grottaglogie, a nearby town known for its ceramics district. I love hand-painted Italian ceramics; seeing the artisan’s work up close was a real treat. We picked up a few things at Ceramiche Nicola Fasano, and I’m happy to report that they survived the trip home.

The town closest to us, Ceglie, was surprisingly difficult to dine in this week—many of our host’s recommended restaurants were closed for the week, assumingly on holiday ahead of the upcoming tourist onslaught, or packed full.

After wandering around for a bit, we ran into an older German couple also staying at the Masseria. They were struggling to find an open restaurant, too, so we ended up having pizza with them at Fiscolo Pizzeria Mediterranea. They are in their early 70s and 80s (!) and well-traveled—it was lovely to share a meal with them.

Wednesday

We ate our last breakfast at LoJazzo and headed back to the airport. After a stop in Rome, we flew into Cagliari, Sardinia. I had quickly shuffled our Airbnb plans the day before because the taxi union had called for a nationwide strike for the days we would need transportation in Sardinia. The original Airbnb was deep in Cagliari’s old town and would have required a train, bus, and a walk. I found a different flat close to the train station. The strike was called off hours later, but the last-minute change worked out wonderfully—the new apartment was nicer and cheaper, and we could easily take the train back to the airport the next day.

For dinner, we booked a reservation at Bar Pipette. I don’t eat fish (or any meat), but I decided a few months ago that I would be open to eating fish when we were in Italy, as most of it would be fished locally, and I knew I was going to need more protein diversity in a land without tofu. At Bar Pipette, we shared deep-fried whole prawns. I ordered the charred eggplant parmigiana, and Skylar got steak frites. I love a restaurant that pairs wine for you, and the waiter picked a wonderful selection of Sardinian wines.

To be honest, neither of us had given much thought to Cagliari since it was mostly going to be a place to crash before heading deeper into the island, but we both got a new push of energy and excitement that night.

Thursday

Before we headed back to the airport to pick up our rental car, we stopped at Pbread Natural Bakery for a crema cornetto and coffee. I typically find croissants to be rather one-dimensional (sorry!), but this one was naturally leavened and deeply flavored. Maybe the best croissant I’ve ever had?

We stopped at a supermarket for fruit and snacks on our way to our final B&B, Domu Antiga, in Gergei. Our Rome food tour host, Katie Parla, had written about Domu Antiga in her Sardinia recommendations.

We arrived at the charming, family-run B&B in the early afternoon. The owner’s mother cooked dinner for us and other guests. We were served pasta, salad, stuffed zucchini, ricotta squash blossoms, and more. This felt like such a special, sweet night.

Friday

Domu Antiga had a gorgeous breakfast spread, too—a beautiful array of fruit, baked goods, and cheeses on the patio.

We scheduled a last-minute tour and cheese tasting at Sinnos, Domu Antiga owner Samuel’s micro-dairy and cheese shop in town. Samuel gave us a short tour and an incredible cheese tasting. I also got to peek at their gardens and recently hatched chicks.

We made a reservation at Osteria La Forchetta, known for its seafood, in the nearby town of Mandas. Our first course was a tasting plate of various fish (swordfish, shrimp, octopus, tuna, and squid). Our pasta course was a fish ravioli with truffle, and our main course was roasted seabass with potatoes and tomatoes in a butter sauce. Everything was exceptional, but my favorite dish was the smoked swordfish in a red pepper sauce.

Saturday

After breakfast at Domu Antiga, we went to Isili, a nearby town, to the linen and copper museum MARATE (incredible!). Afterward, we walked over to l’AngoLino, an amazing linen workshop and store. The owner and artisan, Daniela, was generous and gave us a tour via Google Translate. We bought a hot pad, a bread bag, and a gift for our housesitter.

We ate supermarket snacks again for lunch but kept our appetites high for a cooking class at Domu Antiga. Guilia taught us how to make a wide variety of semolina pasta: ravioli, culurgiones (a Sardinian dumpling), malloreddus, and sebadas, along with sweet and sour zucchini and stewed chicken.

Sunday

It was our last breakfast at Domu Antiga and our last day in Sardinia! Our flight wasn’t until that evening, so we went on a tour of the UNESCO World Heritage site Su Nuraxi di Barumini (so cool!).

On our way down the island, we stopped at Coxinendi in Sanluri for lunch. This was one of my favorite meals of the whole trip! We shared a roasted potato starter, I ordered a Sardinian blue cheese ravioli with chard, and Skylar got a quail and roasted vegetables dish. It was all perfectly prepared.

We had more time to kill and ended up at Domus de Janas di Corongiu, an ancient (what I can find in English says 5000 to 4000 BC) necropolis in the middle of nondescript farmland.

We headed back through the airport, landed in Rome around 9pm, and grabbed sandwiches at the airport before heading to a shitty hotel to crash for the night before our morning flight home.

Home Food

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