Yet perhaps my most vivid recollection is of a cold night in Florence, eating a cone of Italy's fabled ice cream. I am to this day, all but rendered speechless at the memory, as I was struck dumb that night. I was with my wife and son, he only 3 years old at the time. We stepped into a gelato shop, ordered, then went outside. After my first lick, I just held the cone in front of my face for a couple of seconds. This was not just an ice cream. This wasn't even just a gelato. This was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever tasted. Its texture was smooth and velvety, its flavor sweet but not-too. More than anything, its sensation was seductive with its own essence, which, in this case, happened to be hazelnut.

I've had gelato in the States. I've had it in other parts of Europe, too, for that matter. But something about that gelato so surpassed any other that I just stood on the corner, suddenly not caring about the bitterly cold night, which I had been grumbling about just a few minutes before, and instead embracing it while looking up at the starry sky, as if for answers to how something so perfect could exist on this Earth.

I say that by way of saying this: When traveling, you are likely to remember most clearly that which is most unexpected.

And so it is with a trip to Europe. Or, as they say inside the velvet-rope lines, The Continent.

The unexpected is everywhere. For example, don't even think about ordering Continental cuisine. You might think that Europe, being The Continent, would have a lot of continental cuisine. It doesn't.