After a week of exams and group projects I needed to get out of Dublin. Mom was heading to Florence to spend Easter with Lilly, so I booked a flight to Florence to tag along. Ryan Air is incredible. I think the flight to Florence was 100 Euros round trip. I turned in my exam, had a few celebratory pints of Guinness, and went straight to the airport. I landed in Pisa, took the “Pisa mover” to the train station and took a train into Florence. I had never been to Florence, and the only other time I had been to Italy was in 2012. Mom didn’t really have an itinerary, and Lilly doesn’t like to make group decisions under pressure, so we just strolled. After I dropped my bag at Lilly’s apartment, we walked to Santa Croce, a church with a massive open square and restaurants bordering the square. We settled on a restaurant and had pizza, pasta, wine, and olives. I don’t really remember the difference between any of the meals we had, honestly. I know they were all incredible, we would always start with charcuterie and olives, get a few liters of the house wine, maybe some bruschetta, and then split 2 pastas and a pizza.
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| The Walk to Patricia's House in Fiesole |
After dinner we took a cab up the mountain to Patricia’s house which was amazing. It was an old horse farm that was partitioned into three sections. Their section used to be the stable. So all of the doorways and ceilings were massive. It was built into the side of the hill so lighting was tough and it felt a bit like a hobbit hole, but it also had that “beach house vibe” that not a lot of houses can pull off. It’s not on the same comfort level as 89B (Bethany beach house) but it is an unforgettable house.
On Saturday, we took the bus into town and walked across town to Piazza Michaelanelo. Florence isn’t a massive city, but there’s something about Italy that makes you walk slower. It took us three hours to cross town. Mom and Lil took their time in the leather market, we got a few bottles of wine to drink and walk, I fell in love a few times, we got some gelato, you know the drill. The entrance to Piazza Michelangelo is at the bottom of the mountain and it’s about a mile up to get the park. Half way up there was a rose garden. It was intended to be a quick pass through on the way to the summit, but the combination of wine and sun put forth a unanimous, unspoken decision that this was the perfect place for a nap. We slept for about 40 minutes, finished the walk up the hill and climbed the steps of the church. The church was built in 1013 and the monks weren’t much younger. They were setting up for Easter mass, and all of the old timers were practicing walking upstairs for exercise. If you’re trying to picture the monks, think more Divinci Code, and less Ace Ventura When Nature Calls. We had a few drinks in the park, and then my mom took a cab home and I hit the town with Lilly and her friends.
On Sunday, all of the museums were closed for Easter, but all of the churches were open. After mass and a few other touristy events we took a cooking class in town. It wasn’t really a class, they just tell you what you’re making for dinner and then you cook if yourself. We made a White Wine Chicken Cacciatore with olives, pancetta, capers, anchovies, onions, garlic, lemon and some Italian spices. We also had homemade pasta, bruschetta, and a lot of red wine. The food was unreal, and the guy was actually really cool. About an hour into the class we found out that he actually wasn’t a chef, his wife is the chef who runs the school, but she had other plans so she just texted him the recipe and told him to fake it. I think he would have gotten away with it if mom didn’t ask so many specific questions. In any event, the night was great and the food was amazing. The setup they had was amazing. He was a photographer/artist, and she was a chef. The had a baby, and subdivided their ground floor studio into a big kitchen, an art studio, and a lofted bedroom and nursery. They had a golden retriever playing in their shared courtyard and felt completely isolated even though they were in the middle of Florence.
On Monday we drove to a Vineyard on one of the neighboring mountains and did some wine tasting. The owners of the Vineyard were American, and the wife was an early Microsoft employee trying to find ways to spend all of her money. The Vineyard had an unusual phenomenon where bright red wild tulips would sprout up between the vines. They never planted any seeds, and there was no order to their clusters, but it was mesmerizing. The wines were good. I honestly don’t know the difference between a merlot and cabernet so she lost me when she started talking about blending. We were there for almost two house and the owner couldn’t have been nicer. She took her time with us, she wasn’t in any rush, and she told us all about the history of the land and her plans for the future. After the vineyard we went home, fell asleep on the back patio, and went into town for a nice dinner.
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| Lilly, Sam, Nicole, Olivia, Caitlin |
The next two days we just wandered around the city. We went to the Academia (statue of David), the Duomo, and the Uffizi (hundreds of renaissance paintings). We walked all day, ate really well, and just sat and people watched. We had some incredible meals and just wandered. On Wednesday night we went out to a restaurant called La Giostra. It’s an amazing back alley restaurant that all of the locals love. Carla, knew a lot of the employees since her shop was two doors down, and she highly recommended it. The food was unbelievable. We didn’t do pizza here, we stuck to the specials. We started with some burrata and an anti-pasta plate, and a small bowl of olives. For the main course we shared a pear ravioli and lobster risotto, and mom got a salad. We sat there and drank wine for three hours and then walked off the food coma past the Duomo to the river.
On the last night with all three of us, we took the bus up to the top of the mountain to a little town called Fiesole. The town overlooked Florence, and felt like it was 100 years in the past (in a good way). We had an unbelievable steak dinner and a bottle of wine each. The steak was called “Bistecca alla Fiorentina” which is basically an inch and a half bone in ribeye that could feed at least 2 people. Mom got a salad and Lilly and I shared the bistecca with some bruschetta and burrata for the table. When they say wine is cheaper than water in Italy, this place actually lived by it. Every table had a 2 liter bottle of the house wine just out and ready to go. In their eyes, it’s just another necessity in their starter pack of condiments – Salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, parmesan, and wine. You drank until you finished the bottle, and then they give you another bottle. Once dinner is over, there’s no wine listed on the bill, its just a table charge of like 5 euros. That dinner is still one of the most memorable meals I have had in a long time. After dinner we missed the 10:30 bus home, so we had a full hour to kill in Fiesole. The restaurant was kind enough to let us back in and have a few more glasses of wine, and then we walked through the town looking at all of the shops and churches trying to guess what life was like in the old Etruscan times.
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| Monterosso |
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| Manarola |
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| Vernazza |
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| Back in Dublin with Thom, Christian, and Gabber |
Song of the week: La vie en Rose - by Edith Piaf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzeLynj1GYM
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