I've never been so happy that a restaurant was closed. Ever. We were supposed to go to this other…read moreplace in Cremona that specializes in risotto, but it was closed. Much like a lot of things are in Cremona on a Monday evening. Kind of strange but, it opened things up for our drive out to this place, and I'm so glad we did! My in-laws said this place was good, and they also mentioned that we should do the tasting menu, because it's good and it's a good price. OK, we thought. We head over. first of all this place is gigantic. I mean, it's a cascina so you would expect it to be grand. The decor is nice and there is outside seating, that that night it wasn't warm enough for that. We showed up and grabbed a seat. It wasn't packed by any means but there were other people enjoying their meal. We browsed the menu but we were going to do the tasting menu anyway, so when our waitress came over we let her know we were doing that, and we were ready to rock. She brought out our wine, which they make in house. In fact, all of the food is pretty fresh and made in house (agriturismo of course). The wine was great. It came with a few nibbles, some cheese, bread, and small pizzas, as well as olives, as is the norm when anyone gives you a drink in Italy. Our first dish from the tasting menu came out: anti pasti. Which was probably way too much food for a tasting menu! Oh man. There was so much meat on this platter, and it came out with a basket of these pane fritti which is basically fried dough, that you put your salami and bologna inside of and make little sandwiches. It was so good so I was stuffing my face until I realized that they were going to bring out more food. The 2nd course was risotto, which was a little bit less than a regular sized portion of risotto. After an over flowing tray of cured meats! As me and my wife struggled to eat this, the 3rd course came out: tortelloni. Thank the stars it was only one bowl for us two to share (instead of the 2 separate dishes of risotto) but it was still really difficult to eat that too. None of these were the main course too! We ordered the steak as our main course because, of course we did. When it came out it was par for the course, a regular size full place portion of skirt steak with grilled veges. By this point I could barely fit another anything in my stomach! Which is unfortunate because it was also quite good, but We got these boxed up to go. I was OVER STUFFED. Our waitress came back and asked, can you guys handle dessert?! haha. We said just bring out one plate and we will share it. They brought out one place, but the one plate had two pieces of lemon tart cake on it. Of course it did! I probably took 2 bites of this AMAZING lemon cake thing with powdered sugar and realized that I had reached my limit of food intake for the day! I really liked that cake thing too, but I just couldn't manage anymore. Here's the kicker: after everything our waitress arrives with the bill: 50€. total. WHAT?! 50€?! How is that possible?! This is almost criminal! My wife said, yea this is about right, because the tasting menu is 25€ per person. For 4 FULL courses of delicious italian food and dessert AND wine. 50€ total! I was like...well we have to tip. I don't really know how tipping works outside of the USA (FYI, they don't really tip in Italy) despite having lived in Europe for two years already, although to be fair that was Spain, which is a bit different. My wife said that if we leave 5€ tip that would suffice. HOW SWAY?! The funny thing is, she was right, because when she tried to leave the tip our waitress kept saying "OMG that is too kind but it's totally not necessary!" Where am i?! This restaurant is probably in the Twilight Zone, but I want to go back. NOW.

We recently rented a car and traveled to some locations in Italy. I drove from Florence to Levanto…read more(about an a hour and a half or so). We ended up here as it was already setup by our travel agent for us. We were supposed to take a boat tour but the sea was too choppy for those two days so our travel guide picked us up here and walked us to the train station (10-12 min walk. You can see the station from this location and can park there also if you wanted to). She ended up taking to the 5 towns of cinque terre (about a half a day or so) which was a good move because we learned how to navigate the trains and where to go. The rooms are pretty nice and bathrooms all brand new as this villa/farm home was just modified about a year ago into this B and B. surrounding the home is all types of different fruits and vegetables which they serve to you the following morning for breakfast which I tell you is amazing. They definitely know how to cook and make you fresh omelets for breakfast instead of just slapping cheese and ham out for you everywhere else in Italy. Everything they make fresh down to the croissants which also was the best we had as well. There is a jacuzzi, parking, bike rentals, and im sure other things to do as well. Overall we enjoyed it and would stay there again if we went back to that area as they all spoke pretty good English and accomodated us for whatever we asked.