italy

Rome Outfit Inspiration

Published on April 27, 2016January 14, 2017 by PeculiarPorter6 Comments

Hello darlings! I have an interesting post for you today. I’ve created a some outfits based on my favorite pictures taken in Rome. You can see more of these awesome photos here. Let’s get started!

Just looking at this chocolate-coffee gelato is making my mouth drool. I decided to mimic the rich coffee flavor with this beautiful jacket. Since the jacket is open on the bust, it makes the outfit very relaxed and casual. However, the shoes and the clutch have a more sophisticated touch so it pulls the outfit together. This outfit would be perfect for going out with the girls.

This was my first plate of spaghetti and I can remember exactly how it tasted! I really liked this shirt because it kind of reminded me of when you’re little and you get spaghetti sauce all over your nice clean shirt. This outfit needed the touch of red to spice it up. This outfit is perfect for going on a date.

This outfit would not only be perfect for walking around the ancient streets of Rome, but it would be perfect for a casual summer concert. Throw on a bunch of layered necklaces and a jean jacket and put some jams on.

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This outfit is great for a casual Friday at the office. By pairing a blazer and heels with the graphic shirt and clean cut jeans it makes a perfect balance of casual and professional.

We walked everywhere when we were in Rome, which is why I had to throw in these flats. If you ever think that a dress is too short, throw on an oversized jacket or a cardigan to cover you butt. It is one of my favorite tricks. This outfit is perfect for shopping at the mall or outlets with friends. This crossbody is great because you’re free to move around… a necessity for shopping.

Finally, my favorite outfit! I love this 70’s inspired outfit because of this super retro bandana. It is such a great statement piece that adds so much to this outfit. Plus the skirt has these very unique trend I talked about last week I talked about last week.

Let me know what your favorite outfit is in the comments down below!

As always,

Christmas in Italy

Published on December 10, 2015December 29, 2015 by PeculiarPorter1 Comment

Hello darlings! I was luckily enough to stay in Siena, Italy this week! I know it’s a shock! The last weekend I stayed in Siena was the week I did a day trip to Assisi… in October! It’s been a long time.

So instead of rushing myself to get to a foreign country I enjoyed Siena. I got to enjoy every bit of Siena.

Instead of having class inside, my flavors and taste class went to a panforte factory! We got to see how these “energy bars” are made. Panforte originates in Siena in the 13th century. It’s made of fruit, nuts, and spices. We also tried ricciarelli, an almond based cookie. The ricciarelli cookies are delicious!

I enjoyed the lovely view near school and ate some delicious gelato. I got coconut and Nutella!

Wednesday, I headed to the market and snapped a picture of these beautiful flowers. I also got market pizza on my way back to class.

I spent time in soul cafe and tried some of their delicious cake. (The coffee is actually my friend’s… I don’t drink coffee).

My friends and I went out to dinner. I tried this giant tortellini dish! It was very good.

Saturday and Sunday there was an adorable Christmas market in the Piazza del Campo. I ended up purchasing an adorable ornament, a water colored painting, and a few gifts for loved ones!

December 8th I turned 21 so my friends and I went out for dinner. We had the entire day off because it is an Italian holiday!

I have one more weekend in Siena before I go back to the states. It’s such a bittersweet feeling. I miss my family, friends, and puppies so much! However, I’m going to miss picking up market pizza whenever I want to, walking wherever I want to, and traveling every weekend to some foreign land. There is no other way to describe it other than bittersweet. I just need to soak up as much as I can!

As always,

P.S. This is my 100th post on this blog! Thanks for staying with me for this long!

All That Glisters is Not Gold

Published on November 17, 2015December 29, 2015 by PeculiarPorter6 Comments

Hello darlings! I had to start this blog post with a line from the Merchant of Venice! Especially because I visited both Venice and Verona this weekend with my friends! Lucky for us, everything that looked beautiful stayed true! Venice and Verona was incredibly beautiful despite the fog on Friday! The fog actually made a lot of these pictures look eery and gorgeous!

Friday, we woke up early and jumped on a bus in Florence. When we arrived to Venice, we checked into an… interesting… hotel. There was a little mold in certain places, but we survived! The first thing Courtney did was check the corners of the beds for bed bugs, ha!

Afterwards, we headed to see the Murano glass being made. It was such a cool process! The glass is literally made in just seconds! When the glass is hot, it can be stretched out like play dough.

We then ventured to St. Mark’s Square (Piazza San Marco). It is crazy to think that all of the gold and statues were stole from other countries.

For the rest of the day, we wandered aimlessly to see the beauty of Venice. I was told that the best way to see Venice is to just get lost in the canals! We certainly did that!

Murano

The next day, we hopped on a water taxi to explore the little island of Murano. I ended up buying an adorable little pumpkin wine stopper. I loved how adorable the little town was. Both Burano and Murano looked as if they were an section of Disney world!

Burano

If you ever go to Venice you have to see Burano. It is the most adorable little island you’ll ever see. People hand make lace in many stores and all of the houses are painted vibrant colors.

Make sure you look into all the shops before you buy something! My friend bought something and wanted to return it after she found something she liked more. The shop keeper gave her a hard time when she wanted to return it. It all worked out in the end but just be extra careful!

We then headed back to Venice. Courtney and I really wanted to see the top of St. Mark’s Campanille. When we reached the top, I started tearing up. I’m lame, I know. It was just incredibly beautiful. Venice was always a place I wanted to visit one day and when I finally got to see it all from it’s highest point it was amazing. Plus we got to see the sunset. What a beautiful time to see it.

I also ate my first Buffalo burger and buffalo milk ice cream!

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Verona

Sunday morning, we headed to Verona. We were able to see Juliet’s Balcony. It was an English Major’s dream. We all wrote letters to Juliet and shoved them into the wall.

It is good luck to rub Juliet’s right boob for a good love life. Here is a wonderful picture of Mickey and I laughing while we were doing so. Sorry for violating you, Juliet!

And that was my weekend in a nutshell! I hope you had a fantastic weekend as well. Thursday, I’ll be heading to Ireland for the weekend! I’m quite excited.

As always,

Rain Can’t Even Make Italy Look Dull

Published on October 12, 2015December 29, 2015 by PeculiarPorter7 Comments

Hello darlings! This past weekend I survived my first bus2alps trip to the Amalfi Coast… thank god! I have four more bus2alps trips so I’m very excited that I loved this trip. Not that I was worried. Bus2alps Amalfi Coast trip is actually rated #1 for best European tour!

Thursday a big group of my friends and I headed up to Florence to catch the 6 hour bus ride to Amalfi Coast (that includes the 45 minute rest stop). We got a bite to eat at Gusta Pizza in Florence. Micky and I split gnocchi and vegetables. It was my first time ever eating gnocchi and I loved it! It’s kind of like mini pierogis!

After we got dinner, we rushed to where bus2alps was meeting us. We literally ran across Florence to make it in time. It was well worth it. If you’ve never been to Magnum ice cream before, it is similar to a froyo place. They allow you top pick three toppings, ice cream favor, and a chocolate coating flavor. They dip the ice cream bar into the chocolate and dump all the toppings on it as the chocolate hardens. It is very similar to the delicious Häagen-Dazs bars I mentioned over the summer.

The drive was not bad at all. Courtney and I made friends with two random guys sitting behind us and we got to watch movies the whole ride. It makes me a lot less nervous about our upcoming trips to Budapest and Prague that are 12 hours long.

Friday morning, we woke up at 6am to catch a ferry to Capri. From Capri we took a guided boat tour around the islands featured in famous movies like Wolf of Wall street. We saw the amazing Blue Grotto. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw how beautiful it was. In complete darkness you just see this vibrant blue water and the small tunnel you were launched into. I kept joking with my friend, Courtney, that I want the color of every water surrounding Italy. It’s unreal. While you’re inside the Blue Grotto, the man driving the little boat sings to you in Italian. So far, it is my favorite experience of Italy thus far.

We went back to Capri and ate pasta and pizza. Many people got handmade leather sandals. I figured I would save my money for Italian leather boots. Trust me it was a lot of will power to resist buying the sandals! I did buy a Christmas Ornament. I’ll be doing a post about souvenirs/gifts I’ve purchased once I’m home so be on the look out for that in December!

Later that night, we went out to a restaurant where I got antipasto. It was very good.

After eating, we went out to an American karaoke bar. There was a DJ who let us play our crazy american songs and dance on stage. The DJ even randomly started wearing this giant wig and dancing and singing with us! We had the time of our lives singing and dancing to all the classics. After the American Karaoke bar we headed to the planned bus2alps bar where there was a million people dancing. It was so much fun.

The next day we got to sleep in until 10 because it was raining. We jumped on the bus to Positano to see the beautiful houses and black sand beach.

When we arrived, we were famished. So we ran to Vini & Panini and got the best panini ever. Since I’ve been in Italy, I have not had turkey once. They had turkey! I can’t explain in words how excited I was. I ended up getting turkey, provolone, pesto, tomato, and lettuce. That is the same sandwich I get at home with the addition of the delicious pesto. I would go back again just to eat that again.

We kept running into different stores because it was raining so hard. Since all of Positano is a mountain, you could only imagine how soaked we got when we were climbing up the hill or crawling down the hill. Here is a picture of the river down the stairs:

Later that night, we bought food from the super market for incredibly cheap. If you’re traveling, I highly recommend doing that for some meals because you’ll save a ton of money. If you save money that mean you can see more things! We made sandwiches in the hostel’s restaurant and the power went off four times. We cracked jokes and talked about everything under the sun. It was a very low key night but one of the best. Sometimes you need a low key night to appreciate what you have.

The next day we packed everything up and headed to Pompeii. We couldn’t really see the mountains because they were covered by clouds, but I could only imagine what they looked like based on the little we could see.

The picture above is actually my iPhone home screen. I just loved how pretty it was. This was from the flooring in the biggest home in Pompeii.

Have meaning welcome in Latin.

To end the perfect trip we watched Pitch Perfect, Wedding Crashers, and Dodgeball on the way home. We also got to see this beautiful sunset in Tuscany.

Next weekend will be very low key. My study abroad program is taking us to a wine tasting on Friday and on Saturday to a chocolate festival in Assisi. Saint Francis is actually from Assisi so that is going to be really cool to see. I go to a Franciscan catholic college for those who do not know.

The week after, I’ll be going to Barcelona October 23-26, Paris October 26-29, and London October 29-1. It’s going to be a very crazy week! I can’t wait to show you all those pictures! I’m incredibly excited for Barcelona! Tapas, Churros, Casa Batllo, and the Picasso Museum! I really can’t wait for every place but especially Barcelona.

I hope you’re having a wonderful week and are enjoying nice weather wherever you are.

As always,

Cinque Terre: The 5 colorful towns.

Published on October 6, 2015December 29, 2015 by PeculiarPorter3 Comments

Hello darlings! This wonderful weekend I went to Cinque Terre with three of my friends! Each weekend in Italy is spent seeing the most beautiful places. Cinque Terre might be my new favorite. This weekend we hiked, ate the best seafood, and saw some of the most picturesque houses in the word. I took over 200 photos and I am being serious when I say not one photo turned out poorly. Cinque Terre is one of the most picturesque places I’ve ever been to (so far).

Lets start with food.

Have you ever heard of focaccia? I never heard about it until I went to Cinque Terre. Focaccia is a flat oven-baked Italian bread similar to pizza… but better. If I could have Focaccia every day of my life I’d be pretty happy.

My first piece was a vegetarian slice in Vernazza:

The second piece I tried was rosemary and tomatoes in Manrola:

After having a piece of focaccia, I would recommend getting calamari. I’m having a tough time deciding if I liked the calamari in Vernazza or the calamari in Riomaggiore more. It’s a tough pick! If you want it deep fried go to Vernazza and get the best salty, crispy calamari ever. If you want something fresh go to Riomaggiore and have some calamari at La Lampera.

Calamari in Riomaggiore:

Calamari in Vernazza:

If you decide to get calamari in Riomaggiore make sure you get pesto when you sit down. It’s their specialty food. Pesto actually originated in Cinque Terre! It was worth getting.

Enough about food! What is there to see? Well every town is worth seeing. Each of the 5 towns has it’s own personality. I recommend seeing them all but if you were to leave one out I would leave Corniglia out because there wasn’t much to see. The other four are tied for my favorite. I loved every single one of them. If I had to pick I would say that Vernazza was my favorite because the food was out of this world.

Since it was rainy when we went, we took a train from Riomaggiore (where we stayed in a hostel) to Corniglia. We climbed a million stairs and not much was there once we got to the top. We did see a couple take beautiful wedding photos though. We then took another train to Vernazza where we had lunch (focaccia and fried calamari). By the time we were finished with lunch the weather cleared up and we were able to hike to Monterosso. The hike is the best part of the trip because we got to see a ton of sights that we wouldn’t have seen if we had taken the train instead. It also makes it you very excited once you get to your location. It is a pretty challenging hike. There are tons of stairs up a few mountains. My iphone said I did 133 floors.

Proof:

How cool is this? The locket on the bottom says “Tegan & Daniel 05. 09. 2015 Just married”

If you look closely at the rocks in the middle you can see a bride and a groom taking wedding photos!

Micky, me, Courtney, and Susana (in order). It was Courtney’s 21st birthday!

Date goals in Monterosso:

Locks and the view on our hike:

Riomaggiore:

Check out Susana’s video blog of our Cinque Terre experience! It came out fantastic!

If you want to read her post click here.

If I ever return to Cinque Terre and the weather was nice I would love to hike all the different paths. It’s a great work out and it makes you feel less guilty for eating all that delicious focaccia and calamari!

I hope you had a fantastic weekend as well! Next stop: Amalfi coast!

As always,

Sardinia and Pisa

Published on September 28, 2015December 29, 2015 by PeculiarPorter5 Comments

Hello darlings! I went on an adventure with my program this week! I have way too many pictures so hopefully you don’t mind too much!

We all woke up early and got on a bus to Pisa. The drive to Pisa is about two hours from Siena. Everyone pretty much zonked out on the bus ride there. When we arrived, we did a walking tour around Pisa. It’s a city you can easily see in a day. We saw the leaning tower of Pisa because you obviously have to when you go to Pisa. When you finally do see it, you can see hundreds of tourists taking the famous tourist picture.

During our free time, we wandered into random stores and ended up getting gelato. I would totally post a picture of the delicious KitKat flavor I had from La Bottega del Gelato, but I actually melted it all over myself before I got to take an artsy picture. It was a rough scene.

After visiting the city of Pisa, we took a 15 minute bus tour to Marinia di Pisa. None of the pictures I took do it justice. I must have sent out 15-20 video snapchats of how incredible the waves were. Never in my life have I seen waves that big and crazy! I was completely awestruck. If you’re ever in Pisa go to the Marinia di Pisa and see what I’m talking about. It is worth it.

After exploring Pisa, we got on plane to Cagliari. Fun fact: Cagliari is the second biggest island in Europe, Sicily being the biggest. We quickly got into our hostel/hotel (still unsure of what exactly it was) and went to bed.

The next day, we woke up early for a guided tour of Cagliari. The tour was incredibly helpful because if we didn’t have the tour we would have probably missed out on this amazing view:

After the tour, we darted to Poetto beach. The beaches are completely different than in the states. First of all, the water is incredibly clear and you can walk out very, very far. In the states, the water is not as aqua blue and it drops off very quickly. People are also a lot more confident in Sardinia. Many people walk around in revealing bathing suit bottoms and many people don’t even wear tops! Kind of shocking to us Americans, but I guess we’re learning some cultural differences.

After the beach, we had to get ready for a dinner and a play at our school’s conference. We were able to watch the sunset from there. It was incredible.

The next day we woke up early to go to Nora. We looked at ruins and took a million pictures at the beach.

Getting lost be like:

Later that night, we went out to dinner with everyone. We had like a million different dishes of food. I ended up trying liver, cow intestines, and snails. Snails were okay, cow intestines tasted like calamari, and the liver was the grossest thing that has ever entered my body. I came into this trip saying I’d try anything so I guess I can say that I did!

The snails and liver:

Our last day was my favorite day. We woke up early and hiked at Sella del Diavolo. Desi and I were told the day before that the hike shouldn’t be that bad and it would be like the walking around we did all week. That is incredibly wrong. The hike was rocky and I really wish I was prepared to do an actual hike. If I had known that I would have worn sneakers. None the less, the view was worth trekking up the mountain in sandals.

Next week I’m going to Cinque Terre and I’m incredibly excited! Wait until you see my awesome pictures from that. I hope you’re having a wonderful week!

As always,

Grapes are Healthy

Published on September 21, 2015December 29, 2015 by PeculiarPorter5 Comments

Hello darlings! I had a cooking class this week! We learned how to make pasta, pizza, and tiramisu. It was a very interesting experience. Here are some pictures of the delicious food we made.

If you read this post then you know I was in Florence this weekend! On Saturday we went on a wine tour through Smart Trip. It was a very interesting experience. Nothing really went right but it was a great time. The first winery we went to, Greve in Chianti, there were wild cats everywhere but an incredible view. The pictures of the view don’t really do it justice but you can slightly see it in the background of this picture of Courtney, Micky, and I. This winery gave us two wines and kind of rushed us out into the vineyard to take pictures.

The next winery, Chianti Hills, was amazing. On our way there our bus actually got pulled over by the cops. Once we got there they gave us a white wine and then 4 or 5 different red wines. They even gave us truffle oil, olive oil, and balsamic oil. I tried desert wine with a biscotti cookie. I don’t think my mouth is mature enough for that because I really did not enjoy that. The oils were amazing. I’m kind of sad I didn’t buy the truffle oil but if we go back then it’s meant to be.

The bus brought us back to Florence and we were starving so we found Gusta Pizza. If you like doughy pizza with a strong flavor then I would recommend going here while you’re in Florence.

The next day we wandered around Florence. I ended up going into Zara for the first time and bought this wonderful jacket. I’m so excited for it to be cold… words I never thought I’d say.

I had an oral quiz today and I have my final exam for Italian tomorrow. Wednesday we’re going to Sardinia and coming home Sunday morning (around 2am). Feel free to stop buy and check out those beautiful pictures! I’m incredibly excited. I wanted to go to Sardinia but thought it would be too much for just a weekend. I’m so glad that we’re going with my school.

As always,