Leisurely morning today with a nice, light, simple breakfast and fresh made juice and cappuccinos at "home". Made our way into the city center, specifically for the open air markets where leather, antiques, clothes, and assorted baubles and junk are sold. We strolled, talked, wandered, haggled, shopped, and meandered some more. The leather market lightened our wallets and was cheaper than anything comparable found in NYC, made by hand no less! You could have easily walked away with anything made out of leather here: a new suit jacket, purses, pants, boots, hats, capes, and probably underwear if we had only asked. The one advantage to having locals with us was keeping the price down (slightly - we still looked like tourists without our fashion sunglasses, t-shirts with labels, and nice leather shoes). We were told that being non-Italians tends to leave prices at sticker, or about 50% more than asking.
Hungry and dark, we popped into a wine bar, Bar Sant'Ambrogio, where we had apparativo. This simply does not exist in America but oh how wonderful if it did! You pay for a glass of wine, about €5-€7, and can then eat delicious (yes, delicious!) food from a buffet at no extra cost and no one monitoring quantity. Obviously this can't exist in America as people would take advantage of it. Our friends said it is a great way for single people to have a drink, eat good food, and meet new people for cheap. Great idea. We asked if any of these places served bad food or if this place was exceptional, and were told "No. Why would they serve bad food?". Not planning on making dinner out of the apparativo, we headed out for one of the best pizzas in Florence at one of the most unassuming of places, Pizza Man. Pizza Man reads local chain pizza joint, barely a step up from Pizza Hut. The crowd inside lets on no different either, with locals filling seats. Either we were just tricked by our friends or this place was as unpretentious as it gets, and pizza in Florence is as normal as breathing air. Fortunately it was the latter. We were told two things: each person gets their own pie (about 10" in diameter) and no one ever sends food back in a restaurant! Writing this five days later we can still feel the mark that Pizza Man left on us...literally. The pizza was so good we found room for as much as possible, unfortunately we have felt full whenever we've eaten since then!! Fresh buffalo mozzarella, sweet pomodoro sauce, fresh tomatoes, basil, and a crispy, chewy crust that does not quite exist back home. The dough did not have much for black burn marks from the oven and it definitely was not stiff enough to keep from flopping over, but it did set the benchmark for pizza on this trip to Italy.
-NT
No comments:
Post a Comment