Italy has been so full on that time to do anything but be present was nearly impossible. This one is coming for the island of Santorini in Greece after a whistlestop tour of Athens yesterday.
When speaking or thinking of Tuscany what comes to my mind
is red wine, white buffalo mozzarella and green countryside. Quintessential
Italy! Tuscany is so much more than just food and views though. There is a
friendliness, hospitality and a laid back life style that revolves around the simple
pleasures in life. These Italians know they have it all figured out and we love
it. Come explore Tuscany with us as we fill you in on some of the highlights we
saw, ate and experienced.
Florence
We arrive in Florence absolutely famished and we hear that Nerbone at the local markets is the
place to go for a cheap and tasty eat. We find ourselves in a 10 people long
queue and this is at 3pm. We grab the slow cooked beef ragout and bolognaise
and chow down on a taste sensation. We wander the markets and Simons eyes
quickly find the biscotti, towers and towers of beautiful biscotti. If you
think you have tried biscotti (you know, when you order a coffee and they put
one on the side) forget it, that’s tasty, but the real thing has a taste and
texture of heaven. It’s still got the crunch, but there is a bit of a chew in
there – we don’t know how to explain it, but the hazelnut and choc ones were to
die for.
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| It was hard to get a photo of Simon WITHOUT food in his mouth... This time it's biscotti. |
Florence is known as the jewel of Tuscany and seems to be
the biggest hub of Americans we’ve encountered thus far. The centrepiece of
Florence is its Cathedral or Duomo. Its exterior is richly decorated in marble and in size it’s one of the
largest in the world. It literally makes your jaw drop the first time you see
it. It’s free to visit inside like most churches and cathedrals in Europe which
is great because the painted cupola is incredible. You really need 20/20 vision
or binoculars to really enjoy it though as it’s so high! The dome peaks at 114 metres up with the
ceiling only a little lower than that. Florence is known for its Renaissance
architecture and art but we really have no idea about this! So there are a lot
of buildings that are apparently very impressive and Renaissancy – don’t ask us
about it.
Wandering the streets of Florence is an activity in itself.
The city has so much charm and character that you want to just keep walking, there is loads of high end shopping, impressive buildings (mostly churches), cute
boutique shops or just a cliché scene like a three wheeled truck next to a
Vespa… There are definitely moments where you feel more like a tourist than
others, taking this photo is one of those moments.
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| Random cool bookshop we found. Every inch of the shop looked like this! |
Michelangelo’s statue of David is probably Florence’s big
ticket draw card, and it is claimed that once you see him you never need to see
another statue. Honestly he is pretty breathtakingly awesome, can you believe Michelangelo
finished him when he was 26. The replica David can be found for free at the
Palazzo Vecchio, or the real one lives in the Galleria dell Accademia. We went
and saw both and to be honest, whilst the free one is an exact replica it is
not nearly as impressive and here is why. The real one is in a big empty space designed
specifically to house the statue which highlights exactly how magnificent and
awe inspiring this hunk of marble is. The free one is right in front of a
castle looking building which dwarfs David and makes him look small and not
nearly impressive. To be honest it is worth spending the 11 euro each to see
the real deal.
The Family Style
Experience
In Barcelona on our Spanish cooking class we met some
American teachers who told us about a restaurant in Florence that blew their
minds, so it went straight on our list of things to do. Finally after a 2 month
lead up we arrived at Il Latini for the ‘family style’ menu. The girls had
pitched this at a 10/10 experience so we were willing to blow our budget for
the day and dive into it. The whole restaurant is set up in the family style
which means you sit on long tables with strangers who become friends, we
happened to sit with some friendly Italians who spoke as much English as we did
Italian and somehow we got along well and shared some laughs. We asked the
waiter for the family style experience and he delivered. Boy did he deliver. The
family style philosophy is simple, the waiter will bring you course after course just
as you would experience in a family home; there is no menu you just get what the kitchen is making fresh that day. The whole deal
will take roughly 3 to 4 hours to get through. Just like Sunday at Nonnas…
On our table when we sat down was a two litre bottle of
local Chianti (local Tuscan red wine), all ours. We knew we would not finish it but we gave it a red
hot go anyway. Our appetiser was a plate
of shaved prosciutto with salami accompanied with a taster of warm chicken liver
pate on bread with a fried rice ball. After that was Primi (first) course consisting
of three different kinds of pasta, penne beef bolognaise, rabbit tagliatelle
and spinach and ricotta ravioli in tomato sauce. We could not believe how good
this was. Our waiter gave us the option for secondi between a roast tasting
platter and the traditional Florentine steak, going with his opinion we got the
steak. And what a steak! Even though he insisted it was small (it was 3pounds –
1.3kgs) we could not finish it. It came with sides of roast potatoes and
spinach and almost ended us. It was as good as promised and having not had a
steak in a long time it was all the more delicious. After the steak was cleared
we were given biscotti and sweet wine. At the time we just ate the biscuits and
drank the wine not realising the protocol (though not mandatory) is to dip the
biscotti in the wine before eating it. Whoops!
After biscotti dessert of a dark chocolate and limoncello tart and a custard and
almond slice arrived accompanied by dessert wine (moscato). Mamma mia
it just keeps coming! Finally after 3.5 hours of dining we are presented with a
digestif of traditional limoncello which we sipped slowly before
finishing up with an espresso. It’s what the Italians do! We needed the pep
because we were so full we would have fallen asleep on their doorstep. The bill
at the end of it all was completely reasonable given the amount we had consumed
over the hours we had been there. We felt like we had been part of the Il
Latini family, they took great care of us and we had such a fantastic experience.
Even if we were too full to move.
Exploring Florence
The Pont Vecchio Bridge is a famous semi enclosed bridge
over the river that runs through Florence. It’s covered in jewellery stores and
tourist shops but it has a nice charm to it nonetheless. The views up the river
are pleasant too.
After our visit to the bridge we wandered down a road
against the tide of tourists heading towards the bridge, sometimes it gets real
tiring pushing against the flow of people but we made it to the Pitti Palace.
There is a nice piazza out front with the palace looking like a palace does,
big and imposing. We thought about going in but we are frankly a bit over
palaces and the cost was ridiculous. Looking to the sky storm clouds were
rolling in and sure enough a massive boom of thunder rang out over the square.
In search of shelter we find a buzzing wine bar with crazy cool décor mostly from sculpture models. It was
packed but we found a seat up the back and sipped wine while the storm blew
over.
We had not yet had our daily fix of Gelato so we head to a
pretty glamorous looking place and joke around with the girl behind the counter
and soon find ourselves with the biggest gelato we have ever seen. She just
kept piling it on, I don’t know what we did or said, but everyone in the store
was green with envy of our leaning tower of Pisa (gelato). The mandarin flavour
was our absolute favourite.
Returning to our side of the river after our epic gelato we
got some great post storm photos looking up to the Ponte Vecchio before some
more wandering of the Florence streets.
Siena
We took a day trip out to the Tuscan countryside to see a
small town called Siena. There are so many beautiful little towns to see in the
Tuscan region it was hard to choose just one but we think our choice paid off
as we had a sensational day exploring this place. Siena has two main
attractions, the town hall and the Siena cathedral plus associated buildings.
Being the weekend and Carnivale month once again the children were out dressed
in costumes and armed with confetti and silly string. Everyone from Iron Man to
Snow White were out in costume and the square outside the town hall was
littered with confetti and silly string. Watching the kids running around was
highly amusing and the old lesson of ‘it’s all fun and games til someone gets
silly string in their eye’ was proved true.
Much like Brugge in Belgium the town hall has a large tower
attached to it. Of course being veteran tower climbers by this stage we aren’t
intimidated. Even with the narrowest of stairs and lowest of ceilings we
rapidly made our way up and were rewarded with spectacular views across Siena
and the surrounds. The weather was behaving and we had sun on our faces even if
the wind was whipping us around.
We bought a site ticket for the cathedral and went through
everything there was to see including the viewing from a high platform opposite
the cathedral itself.
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| Typical... scaffolding and cranes all too common in low season... |
Starting with the cathedral it is unique in that it’s
covered in stripes! It looks a little like a zebra with its black and white
stripes across it. Going in though and it’s the usual opulent splendour one
expects from a top tier cathedral. With the added bonus of a library (The
Piccolomini Library) stocked with some ancient (literally, ancient) books and
impossibly complex frescos.
The final part of the complex is St Johns Baptistery. A
beautifully decorated baptistery with no square cm of the roof left untouched.
Throughout the day in Siena we were snacking, munching and
tasting a variety of foods. Starting with fresh pizzas from the bakery on our
way into town and crunchy apples from the grocer. More gelato and hot chocolate
from Grom, coffee from the cafes and more pizza in the afternoon for an early
dinner. It’s Italy people! Eating almost constantly is the only way you’ll get
close to trying even half of what’s available.
The Cooking Class
Learning to make pasta in Italy was on our bucket list, so
we grabbed the opportunity and joined a cooking class. We spent 6 incredible
hours with Giovanni our chef. We learnt to make tiramisu, spinach and ricotta
ravioli, fresh tagliatelle pasta, bolognaise sauce and butter and sage sauce.
We started the day by heading to the markets and attending a mini class on olive oil, balsamic
vinegar, pecorino and parmesan cheese and a few other delightful Italian foods.
The shop owner took us through the difference between extra virgin olive oil
and plain olive oil and what each should smell and look like and what they
should be used for. Italians will have a few different olive oils for different
purposes in their pantry. Following that we sampled aged balsamic vinegar from
4 years through to 20 years old! This is not the stuff you get from Coles!
Again explaining that Italians will have three or four different vinegars in
their pantry for different purposes. The cheeses were a hit with Simon and
trying warm parmesan with 15 year old balsamic was palate changing! So
delicious! Truffle infused honey on bread was also something completely
different and incredible. After having our palates completely tantalised we
finished with quail egg and truffle scramble on bread. Yep… Don’t think regular
scrambled eggs is going to cut it now.
Throughout the day we met some awesome people finding new
friends Glen and Tracey from New York, who were an absolute blast to spend time
with and made the class that much more enjoyable! We also ‘enjoyed’ the company of some ‘real
housewives of Orange County’, who didn’t stop hitting on Giovanni and offering
him marriage so he can get a visa and cook for them. We think that the 2
bottles of Prosecco they had probably helped the proposal.
When we arrived at the kitchen we learnt to make pasta
(tagliatelle and ravioli) and bolognaise like Nonna does. Sundays in Italy are
about cooking and time with family. Real Bolognaise takes 3 hours to slow cook,
Giovanni was horrified when we told him that ‘spag bol’ is usually a 15 min
deal and is on the quick eats list of most Aussie households. He just kept
shaking his head saying “no, no, why, why, who would do this, this isn’t
right”. The proof was in the pudding, or sauce as it were, and to be honest we
could not go back to 15 min spag bol. Also as a hot tip, spag bol should not
have tomatoes in it, only tomato paste, and as for herbs don’t get Giovanni
started on this, absolutely no herbs go in bolognaise! The flavour comes from
the time it slow cooks, the tomato paste and the wine.
Pasta making is surprisingly simple so long as you a decent
bit of bench space, a good rolling pin and a bit of elbow grease. The key is
roll it evenly but not over the edges or you’ll ‘break’ them and roll the whole
piece in one motion not a bit here and there.
We finished up with a delicious meal of two pastas and
sauces and our divine tiramisu which was not topped for the rest of Italy.
Nonna makes it best…
Lessons Learnt
- We need to get jobs that allow us to work from anywhere in the world. Florence/Tuscany would be pretty high on the list of places to base ourselves.
- Proper balsamic vinegar is not available from Coles\Woolworths and the REALLY GOOD stuff will cost you upwards of $80 a bottle. You should have multiple vinegars for different things. Same with your olive oils. Extra Virgin Cold First Press for salads, breads, general eating. Regular olive oil for cooking. This is serious stuff, oils aint oils and the Italians know their stuff
- Flavour combinations we never thought of. Eg: Aged parmesan and 10 - 20 year old balsamic vinegar. Delicious.
- Get to know a local supplier and become friends so you can always get the best, in season and freshest ingredients. Only buy fresh and top end quality, it’s not about the quantity it’s just about the quality.
Parting Thoughts
Tuscany is in our blood now, there’s no getting it out. We’re
part of the family now after all! We will be back and hopefully for an extended
duration. Four nights was not anywhere close to enough time, and next time it will be hanging out in a tuscan villa and doing intensive cooking classes. I think we were both meant to be born in Italy and
just popped out in Australia. Even if youre not into the arty scene which Florence is known for, come for the food and get out into the Tuscan countryside.
There is no excuse for bad gelato - another blog will provide more info on how to tell the real vs. the fake - this is an important lesson.
Simon and Amy xoxo
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