November 9, 2015

 

 

Filling Florence Gaps

We avoided the biggest of the tourist sites over the weekend because we have three more days to fill in all of the blanks.  The unfortunate gap we are filling this morning is laundry.  The little European apartment machines are small to begin with and then there is no dryer so everything has to go on the line.  Mary takes most of the morning to make sure we get a load washed and hung out before we leave so it is after 11:00 when we hit the street.

We were going to our little neighborhood church but the market is also on our agenda and that closes at 1:00.  We go straight there, and after fighting our way through dozens of leather vendors outside we go in for the grand tour of all the animal and fish parts that good Florentines cook at home.  After the last nine weeks and a dozen other markets we are no longer shocked by seeing piles of cow stomachs or stacks of octopi (we read something this week that said “octopuses” is proper—don’t know.)  Given all of the markets of the world this will fall into the second tier but the big deal is upstairs.

Upstairs is the mother of all food courts.  The Florence cooking school is up there for the budding chefs of Tuscany.  All of the big time chefs of Florence are participants in the school and the dozens of food outlets around the entire second floor of the market.  You can choose from soups here and salads there, and fish over there and burgers around the corner.  Elsewhere there is pasta, bruschetta, paninis and gelato, all staffed by students from the school and overseen by the chefs.  Behind a long glass wall is the actual school with dozens of cooking stations where we see about 20 bored students listening to some sort of lecture.  The upper classmen are all working the food booths where the action is.  We absolutely love this concept.

John has been looking for a whole hog porchetta since we got to Italy and we saw one at one of the food booths downstairs.  Mary has her eye on a veggie burger with fresh tomatoes, capers and a ricotta cheese sauce from one of the booths upstairs.  John runs back down to get his sandwich while Mary gets her burger, a bowl of riboletta and a couple beers and we meet at one of the tables in the food court.   This place is packed with the lunch crowd and it would seem to be the perfect blend of talent and labor to create a win-win for the guests and students.

After winding around the Church of San Lorenzo we restart our day by going back to the Square of Santa Maria Novella.  We walked past this square last night and really just enjoyed the grounds as much as the church.  There is a working pharmacy around the corner, the Farmacia di Santa Maria Novella, that has been operating since 1612.  Now it specializes in herbal treatments as well as cosmetics and perfumes.  It is pretty to look at but we are definitely not target market.

Speaking of herbal cures, Mary is now the latest recipient of our back and forth cold and is feeling miserable.  We decide to shut it down for a couple hours and resurface for a late afternoon sunset.  All the other Italians are off from 2:30 to 4:00 and we are going to join them.

We reemerge at 4:30 and walk down to the river for the twilight stroll.  It is always crowded and we find a good lean on the Ponte San Trinita to watch the world and the river flow by.  Mary spies a couple gondolas but they are really just racing sculls (she’s such a kidder).  Our walk continues up through Santa Croce square where plans are being put in place for a special guest tomorrow.  The Pope is coming.  It is the first time for a pope to visit Florence in 30 years and there will probably be more in our blog tomorrow.

We have one more little happy hour break before going to dinner.  Tonight it is La Bussola, another recommendation of hosts Miki and Franco.  This is their pizza choice and we are a little taken aback when we go in.  It seems a little too upscale to be the real deal pizza spot but we’re game.  We start with a basic tomato/mozzarella bruschetta which is very good (we’ve never had a bad one).  We break the mold of Anchovies and go for the parma ham and gorgonzola pizza.  It is rich and tasty, a perfect choice for people who are tired and really not feeling all that well.

We don’t dilly-dally after dinner but head straight to bed.  We actually have plans tomorrow so we need to recover.

What did we learn today?  If people are creative, the cost of education can be offset by the practical labor of the students.