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ABOUT VISITING THE LAST SUPPER As a general rule, tickets usually go on sale four to six weeks in advance, and are available for a two month period. The website does tell you in advance when tickets go on sale for a certain time period, but since it varies, it’s best to check often, bookmark the date, get up very early the day of (8am Italy time) and try to reserve immediately. You can however book a guided tour for certain time periods for an additional €3.50 per person. If you’re planning a last minute visit, arrive in Milan without tickets or if you haven’t been successful with any of other methods I’ve mentioned, don’t give up hope just yet.

The old city, often referred to as La Cité is the small, fortified medieval walled city; and the lower city, known as St. Louis or La Bastide. The old city can be a very touristy place, but if you do your best to avoid visiting in summer and steer clear of the ubiquitous souvenir shops, you can have a very pleasant visit. If you’re staying inside the city walls of Carcassonne, my fave hotel pick is the Hotel de la Cité. I love a good wine bar and Le Comptoir des Vins e Terroirs (3 rue du Comté Roger) is the perfect spot to sample a wide selection of local wines by the glass and charcuterie plates to share.

Rome has it’s share of amazing places to eat; like wine bars offering all manner of charcuterie and cheese; trattoria serving up traditional Roman pasta classics like cacio e pepe and carbonara; and when artichokes are in season – Carciofi alla Romana. You can get pizza in a sit down joint as a meal, which you eat with a knife and fork – but pizza al taglio, which literally means pizza by the slice is THE BEST. Gelato is perfect any time of year, but when you need a quick pick me up in the heat of Rome’s summer, as a coffee lover, my vote is for a caffe con panna. Porchetta is basically deboned pork stuffed with a mixture of salt and herbs like garlic, fennel, rosemary; it’s rolled and roasted slowly on a spit for hours.

As luck would have it, my best French foodie friend, who also happens to be one of my partners for cooking classes and food tours in Paris, happened to see it and sent me a private message, offering to join me somewhere along my journey. If you know anything about Venice – it’s basically a culinary paradise, loaded with cichetti, which are tapas-style snacks available at little bacari (wine bars) tucked into the tiny calle (alleyways) of Venice. No surprise, it revolved around tapas-style snacks from France’s Basque region at a lively and popular spot in Paris – A Noste. We ordered and shared an assortment of tasty small plates, all beautifully presented, including fried calamari, served in a giant napkin-lined wooden clog (there’s that personality again! ); arancini on a bed of arborio rice and some really tasty meat-wrapped-cheese skewered with grapes and sprinkled with chives.