Our aim with these My Favorite: posts is to give our well-traveled Explorica employees a chance to share some of their favorite travel experiences with all of you.
This week’s my favorite comes from Program Consultant Julie Castanino. Take it away, Julie…
Italian food is my passion, so I had to choose one of my favorite restaurants in Italy. Valle Dame is located on the same steep hill as Cortona, a quaint Italian town filled with little shops, good food and even better wine. If you pass Cortona, and continue on a tiny winding road that has no streetlights, somewhere along the way you will find Valle Dame. It appears to be more of a home than a restaurant and that is definitely the feeling you get when you are there.
You have to be open to trying different food, and picky eaters might want to pass on this one. There is not a menu and typically the chef, who is usually your waitress, prepares the same primi course for the entire table.
Are you having second thoughts, yet? Don’t.
I assure you, the food is well worth ever having a choice of what to eat. Most of the pasta is handmade (pici pasta is the pasta of the area), the wine from the Cortona area, and the meat is fresh and flavorful. Before you know it, you are talking with the 3 tables surrounding you, people from all over, somehow finding a way to converse because you feel the need to talk about the delicious food. And 3 hours later, you are wondering how you can get to your car after eating all of that food!
I went with my family and I remember when we were leaving, we felt like we had to take something with us to remember this tiny place on the dark road high up in the hill of Cortona. So we have one souvenir that we will hold onto until we all make it back there soon!
