Next time you visit Italy, think outside the pizza box. In North America, Italian cuisine is largely believed to be composed of five major food groups: Tomatoes, basil, bread, pasta, and cheese. But when you travel to Bella Italia, see for yourself what a wide variety of dishes and yes, even vegetables, make up Italian cuisine.

Of all the delicious things to eat in Italy, most important are the dishes you won’t find. Try ordering spaghetti and meatballs, fettuccine alfredo, or chicken parm, and you’ll be outed as a turista straightaway! Fettuccine and cream sauces certainly exist, but fettuccine alfredo doesn’t, and while eggplant is served alla parmigiana, chicken certainly isn’t. Sure, spaghetti al pomodoro (with tomato sauce) is available at many trattorias as a primo, or first course. But there are so many other options for your primo: all types of pasta (rigatoni, penne, bucatini, pappardelle, tagliatelle, and more), risotto, or gnocchi di patate take center stage as first course options. And while polpette (meatballs) are quite popular, especially with children, you’ll never find them atop a pile of spaghetti!

As a matter of fact, you’ll rarely find large quantities of meat combined with any sort of pasta. Meat dishes like chicken cacciatore, braciole, even a few meatless dishes like eggplant parmigiana are typically served in the second course, or secondo, along with a contorno, or side dish. Here’s where the veggies come in: fagiolini (green beans), broccoli rabe or chicory, a stringy and slightly spicy green vegetable, are all popular sides, along with roasted potatoes, yet another carb to propagate the Italian food stereotypes.

Another misconception is that all Italian food is slathered with tomato sauce. As a matter of fact, up until the 18th century Italian food was devoid of tomatoes altogether, due to a belated arrival of the fruit from Mesoamerica and the European misconception that it was poisonous. Thus many Italian dishes are sans tomato: saltimbocca, pasta alla pesto, cannellini bean bruschetta. The list goes on.
Yet even more stereotype-busting variety can be found with every region, every city you visit in Italy. Visit Tuscany and try panzanella, white truffle pasta, and cantucci, small almond biscuits or biscotti. Travel to Genoa and try the pesto Genovese, traditional basil pesto, or farinata, a savory crepe made of chickpeas. Parma might not be much of a tourist destination, but it is the home of an Italian staple: Parmesan cheese, while Naples is home to everyone’s favorite: pizza! Neapolitan pizza is the traditional soft-crust variety typically topped with the regional buffalo mozzarella, but nearly every region has their own style: thin-crust pizza in Rome, thick-crust or stuffed pizza in Sicily. Even focaccia, another product of Genoa, is sometimes considered a type of pizza.

The list goes on, as Italians have been cooking (and eating) for thousands of years. Yet ultimately, Italian food boils down to a few basic concepts: combine fresh vegetables, seafood, meat, pasta or rice with a little olive oil, a hint of garlic, oregano or basil, crushed red pepper, and just enough salt. Add bread, cheese, wine, fruit, dessert, coffee, a table full of friends and family, two hours of eating, talking with your hands, and of course, enough food to make you say basta la pasta (enough pasta). Then presto you have an authentic Italian meal. Buon appetito!

In a city with 153 museums, it’s tough to choose just one. Yet each Parisian art museum is a world of its own, spanning across palaces and gardens and châteaux with collections so vast that you could set aside a day for each. Though you couldn’t possibly see it all in one trip, here are a few of our favorites to start off your Paris art adventure.

Musée du Louvre
It’s an unwritten law that you have to go to the Louvre in Paris. After all, how could you go home without seeing the Mona Lisa? Try to resist the urge to make a beeline for Da Vinci’s masterpiece and soak in the other magnificent works of art the Louvre has to offer. Navigate your way through the palace-turned-museum to find the Code of Hammurabi, one of the oldest decipherable writings of length in the world and one of the oldest records of fundamental law. See the Venus de Milo, one of the most famous works of Ancient Greek sculpture. With all these spectacular masterpieces and more, the world’s most famous art museum is certainly worth the visit, but be sure to plan ahead and allot plenty of time to get through the 60,600-square-foot palace.

Musée d’Orsay
When you enter the Musée d’Orsay, you might find that it vaguely resembles Grand Central Terminal. Designed by Victor Laloux in 1900, the former Orsay railway station features work created between 1848 and 1914, including the masterpieces of Cézanne, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Pissaro, Monet and more. See some of the most famous works of the masters of impressionism, including Dancers in Blue by Degas, Bal du moulin de la Galette by Renoir, even Starry Night Over the Rhone by Van Gogh. See furniture built by Gaudí in the decorative arts collection. Journey through the corridors to witness a garden of sculptures, including the plaster original of Rodin’s The Gates of Hell, which was originally created and abandoned as a model for the doors of the museum. A new addition to the French museum is actually quite old and seemingly quite American: Lady Liberty. A scale model of the Statue of Liberty by the original artist, Auguste Bartholdi, now greets you as you enter the museum.

Pompidou Centre
Had enough of impressionism and ancient artifacts? Get a fresh take on Parisian art museums at the Centre Pompidou. Recently reopened after a lengthy renovation, the Centre Pompidou was founded by the Former French President Georges Pompidou as a public place for all forms of Modern art. The museum’s rotation has included works from Salvador Dalí, Edvard Munch, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock and more, with a constant influx of newer works from up-and-coming contemporary artists. For more Modern and contemporary art, you should also plan a visit to the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris.

Giverny guided excursion
Feed your love for Impressionism with a trip to Monet’s garden in Giverny. Claude Monet discovered this tiny farming village when he looked out the window of a stopped train. Impressed by its beauty, in 1883 he and his family moved into the pink stucco house where he spent the next 40 years planting his extensive gardens and creating some of the world’s most beautiful Impressionist paintings. Spend some time wandering through the riot of natural color in the Clos Normand, watching soft light shine on the delicate Japanese bridge and lush water lilies that inspired some of his most famous works. See Monet’s studio, preserved just as he left it, with supplies and sketches scattered around. Neglected for years and badly damaged during WWII, the house and gardens took 10 years to restore, but are now back in their full glory. Which just leaves one question: With all that weeding and fertilizing, how did Monet have time to paint?

Rodin Museum
Not only was Auguste Rodin a brilliant sculptor and artist, but he was an avid collector as well. Visit the Rodin Museum to see the master’s personal collection of 6,600 sculptures, 8,000 drawings, 8,000 antique photographs and 7,000 objects of art. Though most of the sculptures are the handiwork of the Father of Modern sculpture, including Rodin’s The Thinker, The Kiss and the bronze The Gates of Hell, works by Picasso, Renoir, and Matisse are also present in the collection.

When you first see the architecture of Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona, you might get the feeling that you’ve landed on a different planet…or at least a Star Trek set. After all, Gaudí’s most famous works involve a roof lined with multicolored dragon scales, vibrant fruit baskets atop cathedral towers, and chimneys disguised as knights in shining armor. His buildings line the busiest streets of Barcelona, standing out from the neutral-toned, red-roofed style of the Catalonian capital.

You might think that Gaudí’s work is a little out of this world. But in fact, it is quite the opposite: Mother Earth inspired nearly every element of Gaudí’s architectural masterpieces. Obsessed with nature from an early age, Gaudí incorporated the flora and fauna of Catalonia into all his works: palm tree bark, conch shells, alligator skeletons. A protégé of the famed Gothic Revival architect Joan Martorell, Gaudí began making his mark on modern architecture around 1878. His work evolved, ultimately taking on a style that was a combination of traditional and popular Catalan design, natural influence, strong religious beliefs, and a hefty dose of creativity. These elements all contributed to Gaudí’s role as the most prominent artist of Catalan Modernism, or Modernisme (in Catalan, the official language of Barcelona). Of all Gaudí’s works, the most well-known are centrally located in Barcelona: The Casa Milà, Park Güell, and, last but not least, the Sagrada Família.

Glancing at the Casa Milà across the street, you might wonder if you should have brought your climbing gear. Better known as La Pedrera, or the quarry, the complex is actually made up of two buildings, each built on a constant curve and looping around a small courtyard. Also vaguely reminiscent of a tortoise shell, the stone facade of the building is free-standing, which enables the buildings’ inhabitants to remodel their homes easily and frequently. The structure certainly is striking from a distance, but the real novelty lies above: dozens of what seem to be chess pieces, conch shells, and oddly angular knights line the steps of the rooftop, disguising chimneys and skylights to combine art and function in the buildings’ design.

Park Güell is one of Gaudí’s most famous creations, known for its iconic gingerbread houses, mosaic designs, and trademark lizard (also mosaic). Like Casa Milà, Park Güell was intended to include apartments in a multi-functional space. Gaudí himself even lived there for awhile; his one-time home now hosts the museum portion of the park. But, the use of this space as community living quarters did not take. Instead, the beautiful hilltop park was turned into a public garden and museum for all to enjoy. It serves this purpose beautifully, offering an oasis of silence and the best view of the city from its elevated roost. Find a seat on one of Park Güell’s curved mosaic benches, and take a snapshot of Barcelona framed by the work of its most famous artist.

Gaudí’s magnum opus was the Sagrada Família, started in 1882 and still under construction to this day. Even unfinished, the cathedral will leave you breathless. The 558-foot-tall structure features baffling detail, with intricate biblical scenes seemingly carved out of its walls, towers topped with stone baskets of Venetian glass fruit, and a jarringly modern (but still respectful) statue of the crucifixion adorning the entrance. One of Gaudí’s first large commissions, the artist continued to work on it until his death in 1926. Various architects have followed his designs ever since, and the estimated completion date of the cathedral is 2026. So if you want to see the finished product, start planning your next trip ten years in advance!

Everywhere you go in Barcelona, there pops up yet another surreal creation of Antoni Gaudí. Visit the Casa Vicens, one of Gaudí’s earliest works. Visit Casa Battló, nicknamed the Casa dels Ossos, or “House of Bones” in Catalan, and see the spooky skeletal structure with the aforementioned dragon-scale roof. Or even just stop by and see his very first project: the lamp posts at the Plaça Reial. After all, every great artist has to start somewhere.

I wrote this article to ring in the new year, and to promote Explorica’s more “off-the-beaten-path” tour destinations. This was one of our most popular blog posts, and it helped to establish our company as an expert in the travel field.

Top 15 destinations for 2015

I wrote the following article in order to promote Explorica‘s Cuba product, which is considered an exclusive offering of the company in the educational travel field. As the 2015 laws mean many changes for Cuba travel, it was important to inform our customers that A) We’re savvy enough to know all about these changes and B) even though it’s legal, it’s still a better bet to travel with a company experienced in Cuba travel.

Travel to Cuba: Road-tested Cuba trips with Explorica