It's our last night in Florence. We have wandered and toured quite a bit of the city. First day was crammed, based on our neighbor's recommendation. We were wiped out but it was good in a way. Got a good feel for the general history and layout as well as some of the art. There are art museums everywhere and even a palace tour starts with room after room of special exhibits and then paintings on every wall. Glad we had a guide in the first museum (art historian) to give us the highlights! Stood and gauked at THE David. Pretty impressive chunk of marble!
Yesterday we walked to the old wall of the city and then found our way to a little park, where we weren't real sure we were in the right place, to meet Jessi from Phoenix, Arizona for our Italian cooking school! Took us out in the country about 30 minutes to the top of a gorgious hilltop with a very, very old farmhouse (800 years old) where we made pasta from special pasta flour, one egg and mix just so, knead, let it rest and then start running it through the handturned pasta machine. We made spinach ravioli with awesome ricotta and fresh nutmeg and also made flat noodles (tagliatelli). Christiani, the owner the house, was busy cooking up eggplant lasagna, zucchini frittata and pizza which we ate before OUR pasta. Ravioli cooked in 3 minutes and then served with sage butter and fresh parmesan- wow!The tagliatelli was cooked in 2 minutes with a very light tomato sauce over it. Finiti sin Christiani's tiramisu (translation: finished with). Stuffed pigs we were. In fact that is the name of the game here.
We went to the Central Market and thought we were ordering a small salad, an eggplant/egg dish, a pork roll thing and a cornmeal something and ended up with 3 huge plates. They told us what it was as we pointed but the names escape me. So guess we will have only gelato for dinner tonight! Actually we did climb the 463 steps to the top of the Duomo for great view of the city. Could almost see into our hotel room from there, just a block away! Coming down was a trick, tight space with people coming up and then around and around and around.
Hope to sleep well tonight but that is questionable - sleep has been not so great. The studenti party most of the notte and chose our window to hang out and hoot and holler at midnight. Plus, the little hotel is great but we question the foundation.... every truck, and these are small trucks, that rumbles by makes our floor shake!
Tomorrow we head for the train station (less than 15 minutes away) to go to Venice and our cruise. We missed a bunch of stuff here so we just may have to come back. While walking along a street I noticed a group on a cruise tour and asked how long it took to get to Florence as we are not on the coast. Over 1 1/2 hour bus ride, stopped in Pisa first and then Florence. Well they got the quick gloss over and guided by one individual for probably about 30 people. Glad we are not trying to get so far from the boat and doing most of our stops on our own!! ONLY down fall so far is there are sooo many tourists!
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