I have spent half of my life in Ohio, and if you are not from the United States, there is nothing that people from Ohio hate more than people from Michigan. No, not just the people, the land they live in, their funny accent, everything. Those of us who reside in this great state full of corn fields, Amish folk and pride in our “American accent” (Movie stars seriously come here to mimic how we speak), have a very special disdain for our slightly northern neighbor, rooted deeply in an American Football rivalry going back for a century (University of Michigan vs. The Ohio State University).

Well here I find myself, accompanying my friend to a wedding in the far northern reaches of “enemy territory” and I have a confession to make.  To be honest, Michigan is pretty. No, Michigan is Gorgeous.  I found myself saying those stupid phrases certain travelers say when going north, “the air is better up here,” “it just smells good,” “its so clean.”  Believe me, thinking back on my speech during the trip I kinda deserve a slap in the face but I still hold to the message, it was and is a wonderful place to visit.  They have, unlike my native Ohio, massive amounts of pristine forest.  The whole state is peppered with grand state and national parks, each with their own lakes.

When we finally reached our destination, Traverse City, MI, I was already charmed by this corner of the country.  The sky was gray, the air wet, the temperature was cold, and I was frikin’ charmed.   I was fortunate enough to eat delicious food in Traverse City, in fact I had a Mediterranean theme the whole time there.  I started with Trattoria Stella, which I think made my top 5 Italian restaurants list in the whole USA (I will post my list in progress later, haha).  The next day we worked on maintaining a strong wine buzz starting with a day at the wineries in the region, 11am sharp.

Michigan has wine country, who knew?

After a good wine-ing (can I claim credit for turning wine into a verb?) we enjoyed a wonderful wedding, some pool time and managed to find our way back to our rooms.  The next day on our way back to Ohio we made a point to take a detour to Detroit, a city I had yet to visit.  Don’t worry, I am not going to rag on Detroit being an industrial wasteland, there are whole websites devoted to that.   Truth be told, we had great food at the Pegasus Tavernas, which was stuffed full of happy Sunday dinners. After a good meal, which is pictured below, we drove around downtown and found ourselves at the GMC building, an impressive structure. With little time to spare we continued on home.

Below are a few pictures from the trip, thanks for reading! 🙂

Lemon chicken and lamb shank with noodles across the table, solid Greek lunch.

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