A travel vlog by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting a favorite day in Italy while staying at Bovadina farm (hosts: Bob and Gina). The couple rides a Vespa to the beach, eats fresh seafood (mussels and vongole), returns to the farm during a storm-turned-sunny day, then rides to the hill town of Monte Fiore for gelato in the piazza. The vlog emphasizes local food, Vespa travel, small-town character, and the hosts’ hospitality; they decide to extend their stay by a week.
La.
It is another beautiful day on Bovadina's farm. I still can't believe how awesome this place is. Have we said that enough times? Today we are taking advantage of only being a 20 minute drive to the beach and taking a very Italian way of transportation, a Vespa.
Haven't been on a scooter since Asia. That didn't go so well.
All right. Almost took the side out, but really excited to get to drive a Vespa today down to the beach. And then later we're going to take it over to a little hill town. It's going to be a fun day, just an adventurous day on a Vespa.
It's going to be awesome. But first, Bob and Gina are taking us to one of their favorite restaurants. The lunch.
I think there's going to be some seafood involved.
Vespa, it's all yours, man.
Break on.
Ready to go.
Wow.
It feels amazing.
So we just made it down to the beach. That may have been like my favorite 30 minutes of our entire time in Italy so far. It could not be a more perfect temperature. They're just like so much freedom. The views, the water was like, incredibly.
The air is so fresh and then you're smelling like the sea and the vineyards and all the farms.
It was the best. I will be spending more time on the Vespa the rest of this trip. So now we are down here at the sea and we're going to have some seafood on the beach.
Yay.
And every day here has been incredible. That's here? Yes.
There's no winter, it's summer. Wow.
That's crazy.
Wow. 24 hours ago. So yesterday, when we got home from our day trip to San Marino, like a big Stormy came through and there were a lot of like, branches down and stuff. And we knew it was a bad storm, but we didn't know how bad. When we got to this restaurant, the restaurant owner was showing us pictures and videos that he took on his phone yesterday. This beach was literally white. It had held and the beach was completely covered in ice. There was a car that had a sign through was like golf ball size hell. That was crazy.
It's the middle of summer.
I'm probably eating the freshest mussels I've ever had because they came from this sea and now they're in this pan on the table and they smell amaz. What's the proper way to eat a mussel?
You can do that or you can use your fingers.
That would be the French way to do it.
Oh, my gosh.
The Best the garlic and the butter. And with these tomatoes.
They'Re so soft. So Gina has taught me a new way of eating mussels. You take in the empty shape shell.
Use it as your little clipper.
That way.
It'S a real shrimp. Yeah. Get it nice and juicy. This one's coming to you, Gina. Our main dish is vongole, which is spaghetti with these itty bitty clams. You only get these tiny things from this seabed in, like, in San Ben.
You're only going to find these here.
Wow.
This is going to be great.
So the plan was for us to go to the beach after lunch, but it's cloudy and raining a little bit, so we're just gonna head back to the farm. And if the weather breaks later this afternoon, we might take the scooter for another ride.
Nate is so not sad about having to get back on the scooter.
No.
So on our way home, it got a lot colder. It's raining really hard over in the valley that we can see. Bob and Gina went to the store in the car, probably to get more good food to cook us while we're here, because they are the best host ever. So since we got nice and chilly, we are going to enjoy their hot tub.
We took a little nap while it was raining, and now the sun is back out, and we're gonna get back on the Vespa.
We are driving to a little hill town that's like 30 minutes away to get what's supposed to be some very delicious gelato. The first night we were here, when we went to the Co Op, the lady at the Co op recommended that we go. And this hill town that we're going to is so small. She was like, you go and you go to the piazza, which is the plaza. The plaza, the plaza. You go.
Plaza.
Be back later.
So full of desperation. I can barely stand the rotation.
I can hardly start to speak.
I'm weak.
We just made it to the town of Monte Fiore, and now we're gonna go find the piazza and grab some gelato. We basically just drove down a mountain into a valley, and then back up another mountain.
So fun. I love hill towns.
Can you imagine living there in that little house? It seriously blows my mind that places like this exist that are this old, with this much character, that aren't just flooded with tourists and souvenir shops. There's none of that here. People just live in this tiny town, these super, super old walls. One of my favorite parts is the really skinny alleyways, and everything's Concrete. But everybody has so many plants outside their doors that it makes it just so pleasant.
This is awesome. We were in the alleyway leading up to the square, and Nate said, I hear fountains. Thinking we were going to be in the main square.
I feel like the fountain has a story. Yeah, it has to have a story. Just a very odd fountain to put, like, in your town square around all these other beautiful buildings.
So it turns out the ice cream shop that we parked our Vespa basically right across from is the only ice cream shop. So we did a little circle around the town. Now we're going to what we came for.
Now.
It's not a door.
Are you sure about that? Pretty positive. It's the door.
Oh, it is.
Yeah.
Wow.
Cool door. The gelato is as good as it looks. Totally worth the drive. Actually, it would have been worth the drive no matter what. I would have driven here for a terrible ice cream. I just love driving the Vespa. No, not ice cream. Gelato. Could you have a better day in Italy? Drive the Vespa down to the beach. Eat delicious seafood. Drive the Vespa up another mountain. Eat gelato. We're really getting spoiled. It's going to be hard to leave Italy. Also, I'm not sure what's with the. The little cone on top of the gelato, but it seems to happen everywhere. Maybe so you can share with a friend.
So we just got back to the farm. I smell Gina's cookies baking in the oven, and Bob has something cooking on the grill, and it just smells amazing.
It's been our life for the past five days. So we were supposed to be leaving here tomorrow morning, which would have been super sad.
I can't do it.
We've extended for an entire week.
We may just move in. The vlog may be over. We may just never leave.
We're trying not to overstay our welcome with Bob and Gina, but they assured us that they're enjoying us. Probably not as much as we're enjoying.
I just don't think it gets any better.
Really doesn't. I love it here.
And.
Bob said they were supposed to be incredible.
This hill town right over here. Am I pointing to it here? There?
Yeah, yeah. Up, up, up, and point down.
That is Ripa Transone, where we came from.
