Pittsburgh is about 3 hours from Columbus and we arrived late Friday evening and checked into our Bed & Breakfast – The Inn on Negley, which we loved!  We stayed in the “Granny Smith” room which was a large suite with a sitting room and fire place.

The next morning we were surprised to look out our bedroom window and see SNOW falling!

We watched the snow fall outside as we enjoyed a delicious breakfast of baked pears with cranberry sauce, banana nut muffins, bacon, pumpkin pancakes (Funnel) and autumn veggie hash with poached eggs (me).

After breakfast, we bundled up and headed out into the cold to the Duquesne Incline – a century old cable car that transports people up to Mount Washington, where there is a beautiful view of the city.

Here is a panorama of the Pittsburgh skyline I created using the Brenizer method (I apologize for the small size!):

We decided to get out of the snow and cold for a bit and go to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.  It was really cool – they had dinosaurs, mummies, gemstones, bugs, and all kinds of other weird things.

In one room, they had bottled dead animals.  We couldn’t figure out what this is: a baby deer? kangaroo?  dragon?

We could have spent a lot more time at the museum (and the admission ticket also gets you in the Art Museum!) but we were getting hungry so we headed to the Strip District for probably our most anticipated part of the trip – Primanti Brothers!  Funnel & I are huge “Man vs. Food” fans and Primanti Brothers, the most famous restaurant in Pittsburgh, was featured on the show.  This little 24-hour dive is famous for their sandwiches with french fries and coleslaw served right on the sandwich.  We waited about half an hour in the rain (the snow finally turned to rain – yuck!) to even get into the restaurant, but it was well worth it.  Best sandwich ever!

We headed back to our Bed & Breakfast for wine & cheese hour, relaxed in the room for awhile and then drove over to Southside Works, an outdoor shopping mall (very similar to Columbus’s Easton).

We ended the night with dinner (and beer) at the Hofbräuhaus!  When I was in Munich many years ago (in 2000, I believe), I was too young to go the real Hofbräuhaus, so I’m glad Funnel & I got to go to the Pittsburgh version.

On Sunday, we enjoyed another delicious breakfast – this time we had baked apples, apple strudel muffins, bacon and an omelet with goat cheese, rosemary and tomato.

After breakfast, Funnel and I checked out, and headed to our last stop – the 300-acre Allegheny Cemetery.  Before you think we’re weirdos for going to a cemetery, I think cemeteries are really pretty & interesting, plus it’s the day before Halloween! As we were driving around it, we saw a bunch of deer wandering around:

So that was our trip to Pittsburgh!  There were a lot of places we wanted to see, but didn’t have time to check out, so maybe there will be another visit in our future!

Completed:
Columbus Arts Festival
Zoombezi Bay
Kings Island
Clippers Game
Indians Game
Yellow Springs Street Fair
Rising Park
Taco Truck

Need to Do:
Camping
“Beers, High Street, Friday Night”
Drive-in-movie
Crew Game
Hartford Fair
Mammoth Cave
Pataskala Street Fair
“The Trifecta”
Canoing
Hocking Hills
Renaissance Fair

Fail:
Comfest (Funnel had to work)
Jazz & Ribs Fest (too hot)

* * *

Here are some photos from some of our recent adventures:

King’s Island:

Columbus Clippers Baseball Game (Dime-a-Dog Night) with Peab & Amy:

Cleveland Indians Baseball Game with my Parents:

Taco Truck (Yum!):

We still have a lot of things to do before the summer is over!  Yikes! We should be checking the Hartford Fair off of our list on Wednesday, though!

We stayed two nights at the Arthur Morgan House B&B and had the best time.  We hiked, we laughed, we ate, we reminisced. And I smiled a lot.  It’s hard not to smile when I get to be at my favorite place with my favorite person.

There’s a gazillion more pictures from the weekend right here.

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I really thought that our trip to Europe in May would cure me of my wanderlust for awhile. 
It didn’t. 
I think it made it worse. 

And I wanted to ask all of you, if money was no object – I guess basically, if someone was going to give you an all-expenses-paid trip to anywhere in the world – where would you want to go?

Put-in-Bay ::: South Bass Island ::: Lake Erie.

After a bit, I went back to the hotel to get Funnel, and then we grabbed a late lunch from a little pizza shop.  It had started to drizzle a bit, so Funnel and I ate our pizza under the awning of a hat store.

After the rain stopped we visited a bunch of the stores that I had gone to earlier that afternoon.  We did a little shopping – we bought our moms necklaces and I bought a little plate to hang in our living room from this cute pottery shop:

We had some gelato and enjoyed walking around the town square:

Funnel bought me this Hello Kitty bling from a vending machine that was set right outside a toy store:

We walked a ways down the main road below the town, into the more modern area of Cortona:

It was about dinner time, so we went back to our hotel to freshen up.  For dinner we decided to go back to the same restaurant as the night before.  It had been so good, and we had  talked to someone who had been in town for several weeks who said it was the best restaurant in Cortona. 

For dinner, Funnel and I split bruscetta and Funnel had sausage (he said it was the best sausage he had ever had) and I had this pork with balsamic dressing and peppercorns:

Funnel and I rushed a bit through dinner (much to the dismay of our sweet waiter) because we wanted to catch the sunset over beautiful tuscany.  We climbed the hill to a nice lookout spot (I realized then how out of shape I am) and we got to see the very end of the sunset. 

I was sad that night that we were leaving Cortona the next morning.  Cortona stole my heart – it was my favorite place we had visited, and I wished we had planned more than 2 days there.

It was a beautiful day, the nicest our entire trip -sunny and warm… I was so excited we could wear short sleeves!  We headed out to the town to do some more sightseeing.  This time we took a path that went below the town.   

There was actually a couple of escalators that took you back to the top (why I didn’t take a picture of this, I don’t know). 

Then, Funnel and I headed back up the stations-of-the-cross-path to the church.  It was much harder climbing up that path then going down it.   We found some paths that led even further up the hill, above the church.

We were both tired from walking uphill, so we sat on a bench for awhile and just took in the beautiful views.  It was so peaceful – the only sound were the birds singing.

Then we headed back into town and Funnel and I made a plan to meet up for lunch after he took a nap and I did some shopping.

At one point, we ran into an American and talked with him for a bit.  He’s a professor with the University of Georgia, which has a study-abroad program in Cortona.  He was currently there with a group of students, teaching a course on wine grapes.  He told us a bit about the area and made some suggestions of some places in Cortona to expore. 

The road we were traveling on took us to a church at the top of the hill.  As we were standing out front looking at it, a young, beareded priest in a long, brown, hooded robe came out to talk to us.  He was Italian, but his English was perfect.  He told us about Frances Mayes, the American author who wrote “Under the Tuscan Sun” and some other memoirs about Tusacany, and lives in Cortona.  (She’s the reason I picked Cortona as one of the places we would visit).  He was super nice, as were most of the Italians we talked to.    After he went inside, Funnel whispered to me, “He looks like Friar Tuck” . 

Behind the church, we found a path that led back down the hillside, into the town.  Imbedded in the walls were the “Stations of the Cross” that showed the story of Jesus and his crucifixion and resurrection. 

After our walk up and down the hillside, it was time for dinner.  Our hotel had made some suggestions for us, so we checked out one of them, Trattoria La Grotta. 

We had a wonderful candlelit dinner: I had really good chicken, Funnel had really good steak, and we split a huge pitcher of really good red wine that only cost 5 Euros.  I love how dinners are drawn out over there.  When you have dinner, that seat is yours for the rest of the evening – there is no pressure to pay quickly and leave so the next couple can sit down.  Funnel and I lingered for a long time over our wine, talking and playing a trivia game that we made up, which ended up turning into a Star Wars trivia game (maybe we had a little too much wine.. haha).

When we got to our stop, it was late afternoon.  The train left us at a quiet, empty train station, looking up at Cortona on the hill.   We waited for a bus to come and it did,-  a gigantic bus that looked even more giant as it navigated through the tiny, winding roads up into the city.  It dropped us off along the main road in town, and we walked down it- past a gelato stop, pottery stores, a bakery, a hat shop.  And there was our hotel.

After staying in pretty basic and bare 2-star hotels in Paris, Nice and Venice, our 4-star hotel in Cortona made me feel like royalty.  Our luggage was attended to, our room was beautiful and roomy and our bathroom was triple the size of any of the bathrooms we had up until that point – and had a real walk-in shower! (not just a tub with a hand-held showerhead!) 

After checking in, we headed out to see what Cortona was all about.  And our first view at the landscape below literally took my breath away.   Now this is what I traveled across the ocean to see.

We were pretty hungry, so we grabbed lunch at a little cafe.  Funnel had a pretty un-photo-worthy sandwich, and I had tuscan bread soup.  It had potoatoes and beans and big chunks of Italian bread in it.  (I’ve been trying to find a recipe for it since we’ve been home – no such luck.  All the ones I’ve found have been tomato-based).

After lunch, we wandered around town a bit and headed up the long, winding road that went above the town and up the mountain…

The restaurant we picked had a large canopied terrace, as well as big heaters all around, so even though it was wet and cold out, we could have a nice candelight dinner along the canal and watch all the boats go by.

 Funnel and I both decided to order fish.  I ordered salmon, and Funnel ordered their special: sea bass that had been caught earlier in the day.  When they brought out our meals, they brought out the whole, intact fish for Funnel, and then prepared it right at the table: they cut off his head and tail and then de-boned it. 

During our dinner, our waiter and some of the others started singing.  It wasn’t something gimicky that they do for tourists.  I could tell it was impromptu, as they were all huddled together under the awning trying to keep warm, talking and laughing.  I’ve always heard Italians love to sing!

There were many options for dessert, and we asked our waiter to tell us his recommendation.  Between our limited Italian and his limited English, we were able to decipher that it was gooey, caramely, and custardy, and so we went for that.  It was an excellent choice.

As we were eating our dessert, the water level started rising so much so that the patio started flooding a bit!  “Ah… nine o’ clock” the waiter told us.   I guess they are used to the flooding at certain times!

Unfortunately, as dinner ended, the drizzle turned into a downpour, so we didn’t get to go on our gondola ride.  I was dissapointed, but the evening was still absolutely lovely and romantic.