The Duomo and the Christmas Tree

The Florence Duomo is one of those building that makes you have an instant intake of breath. A “wow” moment, if you will, and (at least for me) not just the first time you see it. It’s not only breathtakingly lovely with its variety of colored stone, marble, and statues, but also just massive. Seeing a giant Christmas tree alongside it, which it dwarfed (even though in this photo the tree is partially holding its own—due to my lack of a sufficiently wide-angled lens to even come close to capturing much of the Duomo), only emphasized the massivity:

*Note: We were on pre-tirement, and now we’re back. Want the full story? Start the pre-tirement journey here. Want to go backwards? Read the last pre-tired post here and scroll back. Or, just keep coming back for pretty Italy pictures.

Dinner at Quattro Leoni

As mentioned in the big Florence post below, we had dinner while with pals Angela and Bobby at Quattro Leoni, a nice little spot on the Oltrarno side of Florence. Funny enough, we had dinner here before with pals Jeremy and Megan, way back when in an earlier trip to Florence, and they went to school with Angela, which is how we know Angela. Isn’t that amazing? Our dinner was also amazing, as we started with a Vedure Grigliata e Burrata (or, grilled veggies and that creamy oozy in the middle, firm on the outside, ball of wonderfulness known as Burrata):

and a Sformatino di Carciofi con Fonduta di Formaggio (think smooth, rich, artichoke-y goodness):

Then both Natalie and I had a Fiocchetti di Pera in Salsa di Taleggio e Asparagi (pears, asparagus, cheese sauce, pasta). Nat had this the first time we ate here, and it was amazing, flavorful, hint of sweet, and so good we ordered it again (this picture doesn't do it justice, much like the above don't do their subjects justice):

Now, cause I was just sipping wine and talking and sipping more wine, I didn’t right down the fancy names of Bobby and Angela’s dishes, but remember enough (and have better photos of their dishes anyway) to talk a touch about them. Angela had a pasta dishes full of fennel sausage that she couldn’t stop raving about:

I think she said it was her favorite dish in the six months she’s been living in Italy (she has been known to gush though). Bobby started with a spicy tomato sauced pasta that he was nice enough to share with us (so I know it was good) and nice enough to top with a heaping helping of freshly grated parmesan:

Since he has a healthy appetite (like all decent Midwesterners), he followed up the apps and pasta with a baccala (or salt cod), fried and topped with tomato sauce (I didn’t taste this dish of course, be he seemed awfully fond of it):

A dandy enough dinner that we may just stop at Quattro Leoni a third time, the next time we’re in Florence.

*See more Italian restaurants: Capponi, Nestor's,Nonna Gelsa, Le Capannine di Sommavilla, Calagrana, Trattoria Il Saraceno, L Enoteca Wine Club, Mastro Dante, Bar Fizz, Da Cesari, al Frantoio, La Balestra, Lo Strattoio, Mencuccio, La Fortezza. La Tufa, Kentia Pizzeria, Il Feudo del Vicari, Buca di Bacco, Camino Vecchio

*See all Italian restaurants

10 Pictures of Florence

We were lucky enough to be back in Florence for a day and a night recently (a rare night away from the dogs—thanks to Doris our German neighbor, house caretaker, and dog-sitter), and though I’ve blogged up about our love for Florence a few times already, with pics and such, I wanted to do another post, since this time we stopped at a few different spots. In the interest of any readers sanity, I’ll try to keep my typing to a minimum and let the pictures do most of the talking (especially since there are ten pics). We first checked into our hotel (more on this later), and then instantly walked across the Ponte Vecchio (we were staying Oltrarno style), past the Uffizi, through the Piazza della Signoria, and down the way a bit to a side turn to stop for a sandwich at the renowned I Due Fratellini. A true hole in the wall, I Due Fratellini has been around since 1875, with brothers making sandwiches and pouring wine out of a tiny space. You actually just eat standing next to it, resting your wine glass between sips on shelves to the side of the take out window. In this pic, you can see our two glasses to the right (and see the line that’s almost always in place at the window). Mine is the one almost emptied of its Lambrusco:

We both went for the #23, which is a slightly crisp on the outside, soft on the inside roll topped with cheese, arugula, olive oil, and a hint of truffles and pepper:

After finishing out street side wine and sandwiches (and wondering why, why can’t Seattle have a place like this? Besides the whole “drinking wine in the street” issue) we walked past the Duomo and around back to visit the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo (which I’d never been too). At around the 15th century, this building in the back of the Duomo started to be where the maintenance decisions about the Duomo were made, and for almost as long it’s also held this museum, where many (if not all) of the original art from the Duomo and the Baptistery have been keep. This means it’s packed with artistic hits, including Michealangelo’s famous Pieta, and a host of sculpture by Pisano, Cambio, and Donatello, all of which was in the Duomo (or on the walls outside) at one time. I tend to be a Donatello sculpture guy, loving his facial expression such as this:

The dell’Opera also has painting from the Duomo, the original doors to heaven from the Baptistry, loads of relics, and lots of architectural drawing and models from the Duomo’s restoration and façade creation. However, my other favorite room was full of bas-reliefs, showing a variety of humans in honor of the arts, work, and other scenes, including this jolly vintner who seems to have enjoyed the fruits of his labors quite a bit:

From the dell’Opera del Duomo, we wandered over to Santa Croce, which we hadn’t yet seen on any trips to Florence since moving over for our-pretirement. Which is a shame, because of the three bigger Florence churches (the Duomo, Santa Croce, and Santa Maria Novella—with no disrespect to the many other Florence churches large and small), Santa Croce is in some ways my favorite. The Duomo is more massively mind-blowing, and Santa Maria Novella is better for buying drugs (no, no, it’s lovely, but being so close to the train station is the sketchiest) , but Santa Croce has a more approachable feel, as well as more work inside still in place (and Brunelleschi’s Renaissance-perfect Capella dei Pazzi). The piazza around it is large and open, perfect for festivals, and the church itself looks amazing on a sunny day:

Inside, you can see pictures of the massive flood of 1966, with water up to the church’s middle (you can also still see how high it got on the buildings outside the church), but the picture that made me catch my breath was the “after” photo, with the debris in place around the statue of Dante (which has now been moved to the side):

Inside the church there is a host of famous frescos (by Giotto, among others), tombstones (many worn by years of visitors) covering the floors, and a number of more famous monuments are along the walls, and it's where Machiavelli, Galileo, and others (not Dante, however, though he does have a monument there—he’s in Ravenna of course) and buried, most notably Michelangelo:

After wandering through and around Santa Croce, we headed back to the hotel, stopping for a Negroni along the way. We splurged a bit on our hotel, and stayed at my favorite hotel (in the world? Perhaps), the Lungarno on Borgo san Iacopo. It sits right on the Arno, so has fantastic views (as well as a fantastic staff, fantastic bathrooms, and fantastic little slippers) of Santa Trinita one way:

and Ponte Vecchio the other:

We reveled in our sunny Florence afternoon for a while, then had visitors: our pals Angela and Bobby, who are living in Florence currently (sadly, for Italy, moving back to the states next week). We had a drink on the balcony, looking at the Palazzo Vecchio’s tower as the sun went down:

then went to dinner (at QuattroLeoni, which I’ll describe in detail tomorrow), and had a couple drinks, a few while wearing blinking bunny ears:

A perfect end to another perfect day in Florence.

Fat Cats in Florence

We were back in Florence the other day and night (more pics from that and from dinner in the next day or two), walking through Santa Croce and took a peek through a window into a side garden and saw two cats that looked like they enjoyed the Italian cuisine as much as we do (and yeah, I’m putting these up in some ways to just torture the puppies, who would like to chase these kittens until they slimmed down):

Five* More Pictures of Florence

Earlier, I posted five pictures of Florence, and talked some about wandering around this city that Nat and I are both really fond of, both for its art treasures, its food, and its streets and atmosphere. Since then, Nat’s been once more, but I hadn’t until we stopped in a few weeks ago to give our pal Shane (who you may be sick of hearing about—then again, how could you be?) a one day Florence overview before he headed back solo, and to meet up with Angela and Bobby, some pals of our pal Jeremy Holt who just were lucky enough to move to Florence. Before meeting up with them for lunch though, we walked Shane around a bit, starting with the Duomo and strolling down Via dei Calzaiuoli to the Piazza della Signoria, one of the main piazza’s in the city, where the Palazzo Vecchio sits, as well as where the horses who buggy folks around Florence stop for snacks:

Also, in the same piazza corner as the Palazzo Vecchio and on one edge of the Uffizi (which is just off the piazza) is the Loggia della Signoria. The Loggia is a sort-of covered porch, where at one point city officials would sit when ceremonies and demonstrations and jugglers were in the piazza, but which now houses an incredible outdoor sculpture museum (the art’s been there since about the 18th century). There aren’t a ton of sculptures there, but the quality is out-of-hand, and the collection includes two favorites of mine, Cellini’s (who features prominently in the title poem in Want, by the by) Perseus and Giambologna’s last work, the spiraling, forceful, Rape of the Sabines:

Florence, naturally, is famous for a number of things: art and culture, leather goods, the Negroni, Dante and the lack of Dante, and much more, but also for fashion. With the latter in mind, and as we often end up walking by the Ferragamo palace (usually on our way to Procacci), Nat and Shane and Bobby and Angela (we met up with them at lunch) decided to stop by the Ferragamo shoe museum. I skipped it and up the street, but Nat was kind enough to take some awesome pictures and I wanted to put one here, because fashion has played its part in Florence history, and because I think this picture of shoe forms (which Ferragamo was famous for) is awesome:

From there, we wandered over to the Oltrarno, or east of the Arno river, side of Florence. The Oltrarno is a charming place to walk through, with bigger sites (Pitti Palace, for example), but also with winding streets with small shops where artisans and craftspeople work, tasty restaurants tucked away in corners, and more. I also love the view over the river, either looking at one of Florence’s bridges, or just at the apartments, hotels, and homes (while dreaming of living there myself of course):

But maybe when considering all of Florence’s beauties, both smaller and larger and gigantic, nothing is as enjoyable as sitting down with a glass or two of wine with friends old and new. Luckily, though we saw a good part of the town this trip, we still had time for this very undertaking--sitting down in a cozy bar in the Oltrarno neighborhood with Angela and Bobby (they were nice enough to introduce us to the bar):

Another fabulous day in Florence—hopefully not our last before the pre-tirement ends.

*Okay, okay, there are really six pictures here. But through the magic of computroning, I combined two into one. Which makes six five. Right?

Five Pictures of Florence

We’re bubbling over excited: we have visitors coming a week from Thursday. And, even better, the visitors are Nat’s mom and sister, and they’re coming for Christmas. Yay! They’re flying in (from KS and LA) to Florence first, and spending a day there more-or-less with Natalie. Florence is one of my favorite cities in the world (Seattle being the other), and if we had limitless $$s, maybe we would have tried to find a place big enough for us and the dogs there (though the country is pretty darn fine, so I'm glad I didn't have to face that daunting choice. Well, sorta glad). We stopped in for the first time (which is sad, but hey, things happen) last weekend, in preparation for Nat’s mom and sister because Nat wanted a quick Florence refresh. We trained in, ate some lunch, walked here and there, and saw some sites without getting in too deep (as Nat will be there again so soon). I thought I’d take you on your own whirlwind tour, following our basic itinerary. First stop, the San Lorenzo market. It’s surrounded by a street market, but to us the real San Lorenzo market is the indoor food market in a building behind the sellers on the streets. There are many, many meat stalls (pretty much every meat you can imagine), a fish and seafood stalls section, veggie stalls, condiment stalls, wine stalls, and more. There are also a few restaurant stalls, and we had lunch at one: the Virginia. While waiting for our mushroom risotto and pesto lasagna, I took a pic of the stall across the aisle:

From there, we headed inwards to the centers of old Florence, stopping first to take in the Duomo. One of those buildings that never ceases to amaze me, take my breath away, and make me wonder “how,” the Duomo is hard (impossible?) to get a full pic of, but here’s a shot from the front:

Heading next to the Arno, we ambled towards, and then into, the Piazzo Vecchio, where the statue garden is fabulous (the Cellini is my fav, but the Rape of the Sabines is heart-stopping, too), and where the statue of Neptune (with a Medici twinkle in his eye) gazes out over the populace. Of course, this art doesn’t stop commerce, as shown by the man riding his bicycle through the center—with a ladder:

From there, we walked past the Uffizi (one of the best art galleries in the world, natch), walked along the Arno, past the Ponte Vecchio (the most famous bridge), and along the Arno towards Santa Ponte Trinita, which is my favorite bridge in Florence. Its un-assuming lines, and the array of colorful houses, buildings, and hotels reflecting off the Arno make it more of an approachable, convivial, bridge to me:

For our final stop, and our final picture, we headed up the most fashionable avenue in Florence, the Via de' Tornabuoni. Now, it’s not that we aren’t fashionable (Nat does have the snazziest jacket in Italy), but we head down and up this street for one reason: Procacci. A Panini and tartfuoreum (I made that word up—but they have lots of truffle and other products), Procacci has the finest mini-sandwiches ever. White truffle pate on light little loaves. They rule. I didn’t take a picture of them, cause after going in the door my hands hold only sandwiches: