Today I had two things planned and it does not include a marathon tour but it still turned out to be an 13 hour day by the time I got back to my hotel tonight.
First was a cooking class recommended by the company who helped plan our travel to Italy. The second was a reserved visit to the Uffizi Gallery.
Met a group of 12 others at 10am in the heart of Florence. We first went to the Mercato Central (market) for some shopping for ingredients and a vinegar tasting. Vinegar making is a fine art like making wine. The aged balsamic vinegars (10 plus years) are sweet enough to drink from a cup. This is not like the markets in Greece with meat hanging raw from big hooks and fisherman hawking their wares. It was very clean, well lit and yuppy. Not the type of place that locals do their daily shopping. But fine, fresh, local ingredients.
After shopping, we went to a kitchen for the cooking school. Menu was bruchetta, handmade pasta and red meat sauce and tiramisu for dessert. All made from scratch.
We made the tiramisu first with fresh mascarpone cheese, eggs, sugar, coffee, cookies and cocoa powder. It needed some time to chill. Amazing when it was done.
Then we made bruschetta for our appetizer. Bread grilled on oven top, rubbed with garlic, thick fresh tomatoe slices on top, sprinkled with fresh ground pepper, ground salt, oregano and drizzled with good olive oil and a balsalmic vinegar glaze. Then we proceeded to enjoy our appetizer with a red wine.
Our entree was fresh pasta with a meat sauce. The pasta ingredients were a fine ground white flour, eggs and a little bit of oil. Sifted flour onto the granite work surface, made a well in the center where we beat the eggs. Gradually stirred in the flour until it was ready to knead by hand. Lots of kneading, then let it sit at room temperature for 15 minutes while we started the meat sauce. Our chef cut up the dough into chunks for each of us to roll with a rolling pin till it was paper thin. Then we roll it, slice it and voila we have real pasta. He boiled water and added salt when water was hot, no oil. Threw in the pasta when the meat sauce was done. He cooked pasta for less than 2 minutes, taking it directly from hot water into the meat pan.
The meat sauce was very simple, fresh ingredients and not too many different flavors. Put olive oil in hot skillet, saute onions and garlic. Brown meat (fresh ground meat and fresh sausage). Add red pepper flakes, salt and handfuls of fresh basil leaves whole and tomatoes (canned). Let it simmer on medium heat for 30 or 40 minutes without much stirring.
Add the hot pasta and mix and serve with fresh grated cheese. Wow!
This was an excellent tour and the best meal I’ve had in Italy. Lots of laughs with my fellow students and a nice chance to talk to people other than the servers in restaurants and the people on the street I ask directions of. My favorite italian word today is “dove” where is…
I spent some time in an internet cafe after class was over to get caught up on this blog. I wish I had brought a small laptop or an iPad (though I don’t own one). It is hard to work on foreign pcs as the keyboards are different and all the windows menus and internet browser are in the native language. Luckily I know most of the positions for options but sometimes I have to guess. I am also a little leary of typing in passwords as you never know who is running a keystroke logger on their computers.
So I get lost again looking for the Uffizi Gallery and I popped into a little liquor store to ask the Indian shopkeeper dove uffizi. There were three people in the shop all trying to figure out where I was talking about. None of them had actually been to this museum. There was a lady there who said she hadn’t been there yet. So I offered her Bonnie’s extra ticket. I had to purchase the tickets online in advance as this museum is difficult to get into without reservations. So she said accepted my offer and we spent the afternoon together. She is a Romanian living in Boston with her family and is here in Florence with her daughter who is on a study abroad program. She told me her whole story as we got lost in Florence. However she actually speaks Italian so shopkeepers understood her questions. She made me laugh as she didn’t have a clue how unusual it was for her to be here with her 21 year old daughter who definitely doesn’t want to be told what time to come home and to study more and drink less!
So we wandered around the old town until 7pm. The Uffizi is an amazing collection of best painters from Italy including Giotto, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Caravaggion and Botticelli. I had downloaded a podcast of the museum which really helps explain the key pieces. I particularly liked the pre and early renaissance religous paintings as well as some of the pieces by Botticelli.
I snuck a couple of pictures with my cell phone when the attendants weren’t looking. This was one of the few paintings (for hanging on a wall) that Michelangelo did. The painting was commissioned by Agnolo Doni to commemorate his marriage to Maddalena Strozzi, the daughter of a powerful Tuscan family.I’m reading The Agony and the Ectasy about his life by Irving Stone. The books describes the story that Michelangelo didn’t really even want to paint this picture as he was focused on his sculpture. He quoted 70 florins to paint this as a favor to an old friend. When it was finished, Doni scoffed at the picture and its setting with the nude figures in the background and offered 35 florins. Michelangelo was offended by this and said his new price was now 140 florins which in the end is what Doni paid.
I didn’t leave until 8.30pm mostly because my feet were just aching. Then it took me forever to get home because I got lost and went around in circles, even with a map. It is hard to know whether you are going North or South because the buildings are all four stories high so you rarely see the sky or the horizon to get oriented. You have to rely on landmarks and piazzas. At least all the streets are marked with streetnames on every corner. And people are very helpful. I guess its obvious I am lost when I’m standing in the middle of an intersection looking at my map and up at the street names.
The streets are full of people at night, tourists, locals (younger people), and lots of American students (more girls than boys). Bikes are very popular here – streets are flat and they are not very car friendly. I feel very safe in Florence as I have everywhere on this trip. Florence is very clean and I have seen hardly any beggars and no homeless people.
Florence is a very walkable city as long as you know where you are going. Here are some more pictures taken during the day.
