Florence

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After my less than adequate sleep on the roof terrace, I woke up pretty early and managed to catch an earlier than planned train Bologna, and then on to Florence. Some countries require you to reserve your seat in addition to having a train ticket, and Italy is one of these (as was Poland!). The train reservations cost about another 7 euros, but guarantee you a seat on the train – which was handy as the train to Florence was packed!



I arrived at the station, walked with TP to my hostel and decided to just have a little chill time as a huge storm broke out. Thank Christ it did! It cooled down the country by about 10 degrees! I went for a walk around the city after this and saw the Duomo cathedral, which is very impressive, and visited some of the market places, before stopping to have some delicious bruschetta and mushroom pasta. That night, I went to the hostel bar (which had a pool next to it!) and met some other travellers. There were people from Ireland, Australia, Ecuador, Austria, and a couple of other English people, and we all went out for some drinks in the city. It’s really nice how everyone can get on so well after knowing each other for only about 10 minutes.



I didn’t stay out too late, and got up early the next morning to do a city walking tour. The guide pointed out tiny little doors about a foot tall and at head height, that were built in to various buildings around the city. She explained that historically, people on the street would knock on these doors and someone behind them would hand out bottles of wine. Apparently it was an initiative used when the country was in financial crisis, as the Florentine rule thought people wouldn’t care about the financial crisis so much if they had lots of wine to drink. What an excellent idea!! I demand that we adopt in the UK immediately! ?



The guide also told us about some typical food in Florence, which is ‘la lamprodotto’ – a ciabatta filled with meat from a cow’s stomach, and la bistecca alle Florentina – a steak which has to be at least 5cm thick and served rare. The steak sounds delicious but I didn’t have chance to try it☹…… La lamprodotto not so much! We also happened to walk past the best sandwich shop in Florence, which had a queue of probably 100 people, no kidding! And next to it, a gelato shop which the guide said she thought was the best. The guide said that the sandwich shop makes a sandwich which people flock to buy, which is made from ciabatta with prosciutto ham, soft pecorino cheese, and black truffle paste.



At the end of the walking tour, the guide recommended that we visit the piazza of Michelangelo, which sits on the opposite side of the river and has views over the whole city. I decided to get a bus to the piazza, and to do this, you need to buy bus tickets from tobacconists around the city. Talking of tobacconists – it seems that central Europe didn’t get the memo about smoking being bad for you. Everyone seems to smoke, especially young people, and tobacconists don’t seem in any danger of shutting down! You can also buy cigarettes from machines on the streets. I had forgotten what it’s like to have your clothes smell of smoke after you come back from a bar at night, because smoking doesn’t seem to be prohibited in clubs and bars like at home. It’s made me grateful for the smoking ban in the UK – especially because it’s such a ball ache to wash your clothes here!



Anyway, I bought a bus ticket and took the number 13 bus up to the piazza, and I’m glad the guide recommended it because the views were amazing! It’s probably my favourite thing to see in the city. I walked the hill back down from the piazza, and on the way, took a short de-tour back to the street with the sandwich and ice-cream shop and bought one of each. The sandwich was very nice but so big I couldn’t eat all of it, and I saved it for later. The ice cream (Salted caramel and rum & raisin) was delicious – the Italians do make the best gelato! Later though, the truffle paste on the sandwich had fully soaked into the ciabatta, and the flavour and smell was so strong I couldn’t eat it. It smelled a lot like petrol – so maybe that’s an acquired taste! Moral of the story – Just sodding eat the food straight away!!



I met some more travellers at the hostel that night, from Australia, Montreal, and the Netherlands, and it was like we’d been friends for years! We had some drinks before I headed off to bed ready for my early start the next day.



I had booked a ‘best of Tuscany’ sightseeing tour before I started this trip, so the next morning I got up early and walked to the bus station, before boarding a coach for the day. We first of all went to Sienna and had a guided tour of the city. The guide explained that we had arrived a few days before their huge yearly tradition of horse racing in the centre – called the Palio. Sienna is divided into 17 districts. You are born into the district, or adopt the district of your parents if you were born out of Sienna. Each district has its own flag and animal symbol, such as the caterpillar or the she-wolf, and you can tell which district you are walking in by the different painted street lights on the walls of all the buildings. The Palio is serious business for the people of Sienna. It has nothing to do with tourism, and they seem to absolutely live for the race each year. The horses are assigned to each district at random at an event in the town square (which is actually sea-shell shaped….say that 10 times!) and the people of the district will cheer and celebrate if they think the horse is good, otherwise they will cry with their families if they think the horse is a dud. Before the race, the horse is taken into the church of the district and blessed by a priest. The jockeys of these horses are called ‘mercenaries’ – no prize for guessing because they do it for the money! – and they ride without saddles around the fairly dangerous track.



The race can sometimes take hours to start, because the jockeys are perfectly permitted to negotiate with one another at the starting line and pay another jockey for their allegiance. A lot of the time, the aim of the race is not to win, but merely to beat your rival district – so jockeys can negotiate for a high price to sabotage another jockey! Jockeys can also whip other horses during the race. The race itself lasts only for 75 seconds, and covers three laps of the town square – which has some tricky 90 degree bends. The district who wins the race gets to celebrate their win for three months, and has feasts in the streets – which of course, the horse is invited to! They can keep their coloured street lights up for the three months, whereas every other district has to remove their lights. The aim of the game, apart from the celebrations, is to win a silk banner called the Palio. It all seems a bit silly, but the people of Sienna absolutely love it. There were parades in the streets while I was there from each district as a build up to the race.



We also visited the Duomo cathedral of Sienna, which was so intricately decorated. The tour went inside, but I was not permitted entry without covering my shoulders with some sort of polyester cloth given to me by a nun. I mean…. Seriously?! So God created us all from his own hands, gave us free range to piss about as we please naked in the Garden of Eden, but can’t possibly bear to see an uncovered shoulder?! Oh come on! I suppose if I flash an elbow the whole cathedral will crumble!!



Anyway….after the cathedral, we visited a farm in Tuscany who have their own vineyard and olive grove, and cows for cheese and meat. We had a quick tour around, before being taken to their restaurant in the hills of Tuscany to try their food and wines! I had met a family from America on the coach, and we all sat down to have dinner together with some other people from Canada and Mumbai. We had their bruschetta with own olive oil, spaghetti and ragu sauce which was delicious (how come it’s so much better than our spaghetti Bolognese!?), and then meats and pecorino cheese, which was served with their own honey. Who knew hard cheese and honey was such a delicious combo! Afterwards they gave us a sweet wine served with cantuccini biscuits, which you have to dip into the wine to eat. All washed down with some of their tastiest red and white wines while swapping stories about our respective homes. Nom nom nom nom nom!



We then visited a town called San Gimignano, which is known as the medieval Manhattan. It is a small but beautiful town with streets lined with shops selling stunning hand-painted ceramics and pottery. It also has a very beautiful view of the Tuscan countryside from the top, which was complimented by someone playing complex classical music on wine glasses!



After that, our last stop was to visit the leaning tower of Pisa – which is shorter than I thought it would be! There were loads of people doing the ‘one hand leaning on the tower’ pose while their friends took pictures of them. I found it more entertaining to take pictures of them all looking daft. The thing about the leaning tower is, that all the other buildings right next to it are perfectly upright and not suffering from the sinking soils whatsoever. I call bullshit! I recon the architect just buggered it up and blamed it on subsidence! I was slightly disappointed with the array of junk souvenirs though. I was fully expecting to see some fridge magnets, T-shirts etc saying ‘My daughter went to Tuscany and only bought me this Pisa shit!’….. but there was nothing of the sort!! They are missing a trick with that one I tell you! ……… P.S – I hereby copywrite that phrase and may well use it as my early retirement plan! Paws off! ?

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Comments

[Jean Foster]

Florence
Whirlwind tour guess u r feeling tried by now Emil Yuri