Emily

Sarah and I ducked in here to get out of the cold while we were shopping the Christkindlmarkt. It was so close to my birthday and I was craving sushi, and so was Sarah, so we split a couple of not very good dishes. It was nice to be warm though.

Noel and Sarah helped me devour it. Sarah offered a sip of her Schokolade Baileys—spiked hot chocolate—as compensation.

I had a primo of ravioli with walnut cream sauce here that knocked me off my feet. One of my favorite meals from my three-month study abroad trip. I wish the picture did it justice.

I walked past this place every day while my study abroad group went here for our class trip, but didn’t eat here until Noel and I came back for fall break.

From Eat, Pray, Love:

But he is Neapolitan, no question about it, because before I left Rome he gave me the name of a pizzeria in Naples that I had to try, because, Giovanni informed me, it sold the best pizza in Naples. I found this a wildly exciting prospect, given that the best pizza in Italy is from Naples, and the best pizza in the world is from Italy, which means that this pizzeria must offer… I’m almost too superstitious to say it… the best pizza in the world?

I really want to visit Praha before the Czech Republic changes to the Euro!

They’re announcing the adoption date on November 1, 2009.

This place caught my eye on Valentine’s Day as my boyfriend and I were driving to see a movie. After the film was over, we stopped here to check it out.

Despite several visits to Southern Pines, I’d never seen this place before. I asked when they opened. Turns out this place was opening while my boyfriend and I were in Italy, so it worked out perfectly that I got to eat here on Valentine’s. It brought up a lot of Italian memories, including what an Italian salesman told me in Sorrento: Your boyfriend is too tall for you. Go buy him a gelato!

The owners seem sweet. They’re a well-traveled couple who brought their love of Florentine gelato to North Carolina, first to Cary, then Southern Pines, and with plans to expand into Raleigh. They continually develop new flavors and currently offer 24 choices at each location from a rotating stash of 85.

I tasted Chocolate Chili, but because there wasn’t quite enough heat in it for me, I opted for Indulgent Dream, a chocolate raspberry flavor. A small was $3.15. A little more expensive than nearby Coldstone, but it’s so rich, I promise you won’t need more.

If you only have one day in Munich, like I did, try a New Munich Free Tour. The guides are well trained and entertaining.

The tour lasts about three hours and gives you historical background to the places you visit. It’s a little heavy on the history of the Third Reich, but there’s a stop at Hofbräuhaus and the Viktualienmarkt, plus a great legend about the devil and a pair of Birkenstocks, so it’s not too dark.

This is an incredibly subtle memorial that I would have completely missed had I not been on a tour. It’s simply a line of gold cobblestones in the middle of a street.

They were put there to commemorate the people who were beaten, jailed, or sent to Dachau for walking down this alley to avoid walking by a memorial to Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch, which they legally had to salute as they passed.

Munich is full of about 120 memorials in this same spirit—easy to miss if you’re not paying attention.

The architecht left his footprint near the front entrance, and the workers who completed the church left little busts of themselves on the columns.

On the ceiling, there are crests of people who donated money to have the church rebuilt. My favorite one is yellow and has a menorah on it; the Jews of Munich gave money to help rebuild a Catholic church, and the Catholics gave money to help rebuild synagoges, too. Such a nice story.

I would have loved to see this from the outside. (I walked across it from the inside during my visit to the Doge’s Palace.) However, the entire thing was covered in scaffolding, which wouldn’t have been so bad had the scaffolding not been covered in advertisements.