A trumpeting good morning To you all,
Italians like to make the most of their Sunday. No sleep in for us as some kind of brass band convention congregated in Florence and took over the narrow streets to show off their nifty uniforms and co-ordination capabilities of playing while marching. Many bands across the many directions converged onto Piazza del Signoria (where the copy statue of David stands outside the Palazzo Vecchio). There were baton twirlers and brass bands of all descriptions and the cacophony they created was extraordinary. So much fun watching this organized mayhem.
We headed to Palazzo Pitti for our last tourist day of Florence sight seeing. Palzzo Pitti which is across the Ponto Vecchio was the last Palazzo brought by the Medici and was the residential palace for the remaining rule by the family. Although not quite on the scale of Versailles in size, it comes close in terms of the beauty of the building, the state rooms and the collection of artworks contained therein. It has a pretty wow Tuscan garden out back that is terraced upwards with the slant of the hills behind the palace. Elanora, Cossimo I's wife brought it for her growing family as she thought they needed a garden to play in. To give you some comparison, it would be like Steve Vizard buying the MCG and surrounding car park for his kids to play in!
The Palazzo has a number of interesting sights, the Boboli Gardens, the Bardino Gardens, a porcelain museum, a silver museum and a costume museum - all within the grounds of the palazzo. The costume gallery was of particular interest to us as it showcases the burial clothes of Cossimo and Elanora. They both died around 1560's. But one of their descendants opened up their tombs around 1764 allegedly to see that they were appropriately arranged- whatever that may mean. And the tombs we opened again in 1947 when they took the burial clothes out and started a restoration project. Today you can see his doublet and cloak and her Bodice and stockings - pretty macabre but interesting.
After that we headed across the road to a great Enoteca. InFlorence you have gelaterias - selling ice cream - natch, bars selling coffee, cakes and light lunches, ristorantes doing the whole meal thing and finally Enotecas specializing in boutique wines.
There we spent a great couple of hours tasting local wines produced by boutique wineries from surrounding regions or outstanding small Italian wineries. And they ship to Australia. We are heading back there today for Zeno, one of the lovely sommeliers, to take us through some reds........ Whilst we were there tasting, sirens started, an ambulance roared by, motorcycle cop after motor cycle cop also roared past, then a couple of police cars as well. We turned out onto the street, expecting to see some disaster, and then everyone started clapping. It was a bike race. The cops clear the roads of tourists and then along comes the riders !
Headed home for a shower and then dinner at a place called Concerdarus which was just wonderful. We had these barbecued eggplant pieces that had provolone cheese and sundried tomatoes wrapped up into rolls, delicious given I don't even like eggplant! Siobhan had Orrichiette with a minted pesto sauce, almonds and salted ricotta. I had ravioletti which are like the little Thai money bags but these were filled with honeyed pear and a bitey cheese. This dish had no sauce just fresh Parmesan over the top.the pears and cheese were so succulent, a sauce wasn't required. This restaurant is famous for this dish. Great place to go.
Off to bed and some shopping and packing tomorrow and then heading to the island of Elba- an island off the coast of Tuscany. We are still experiencing temperatures around mid to late
Twenties so may get some swimming and sun baking in!!!!!
Ciao ciao
Kelly &Siobhan xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment