The San Lorenzo Mercato Centrale, a.k.a. the Central Market, is a wonder. The structure houses butchers, cheese and fish mongers, green grocers, and delis of all types imaginable (and some unimaginable). Writing about it would take up several pages, so I’ll devote this blog to the butchers. One of the first things about the butchers you’ll notice is that they have all of their meats clearly visible in their display cases. None of it is pre-cut or pre-packaged. It’s all cut to order and priced by the kilo. You’ll notice that the butchers cut everything on huge blocks of wood that have been beaten into saddles over time. You want beef? Chop. Chicken? Chop. Pork, rabbit, or something more exotic? Chop, chop, chop. No issues with sanitary cutting boards here. Wood works just fine.
Well, I thought that would be a humorous title, especially since every day is Friday here in Italy (and come to think of it, back in Florida too). The week flew by. On Monday we toured Santa Croce (a veritable “Who’s Who” of dead Italians), Tuesday found us having drinks in Piazza della Repubblica, Wednesday had us at the Mercato Centrale shopping for porchini to make risotto, Thursday we hit the gelaterias hard, and today we had a wonderful lunch at Zeb Gastronomia in the Oltre Arno section of Florence.
We had a nice weekend in Florence. A cold front moved through the area dropping the temperature a bit and giving us some rain late Sunday afternoon. After Friday night’s dinner at Bistrò Del Mare we spent the rest of the evening at home with me on the couch reading the last of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Cinzia at the table using the computer to put together a couple scrapbook pages. We woke up later than usual on Saturday morning and made our way to San Lorenzo Mercato Centrale, a.k.a. the Central Market. They’re opened Mon-Sat from 7am-2pm, so we would need to shop for Sunday as well.
It’s Friday night and that means dinner out. This week we used our GroupOn to Bistrò del Mare. This is a seafood restaurant located along the Arno. TripAdvisor has it ranked #47 of 795 eateries in Florence. I picked up the GroupOn several months ago for €39 (a €98 value) which included an antipasto of the day, primi of trofie pasta with seafood, secondi of Branzino, and dolce of “The Kremlin”. Cinzia isn’t a big seafood fan, but I knew she’d like the pasta and main course, only the antipasto and the mysterious “Kremlin” were risky.
This week we started to look at our list of museums, galleries, and historic sites we’d like to visit while here in Florence. Many of them are being pushed back into October when the weather will be cooler. This week has been in the low 90's, but anxious to start “seeing”, rather than “eating”, Florence, we decided to visit the Museo Galileo on Monday and the Palazzo Vecchio on Wednesday.
Yesterday morning we got out of the apartment relatively early and made the long walk across the Arno and up to Piazzale Michelangelo. It’s located atop a hill overlooking Florence. Although it started out as a cool morning with temps in the upper 60s, the temperature rose as did the incline of the road heading up the hill. Once we arrived at the top the sun was doing its best to wring every last drop of sweat from us.
Last night we had our first GroupOn dinner. If you’re not familiar with GroupOn, it’s a website that offers discounts from businesses in many towns across the U.S. and in Europe. Back in January I signed up for Florence and Rome. Each day I’d receive 3-4 GroupOn offers via e-mail. When I saw a restaurant deal I’d check out the location (was it within walking distance?), check out the menu (was it something we’d like to eat?), check their website (was it someplace that looked nice?), and then check the reviews on TripAdvisor (what did others have to say about the restaurant?). If everything looked good I bought the deal. Then I printed out the coupon and brought it with me. We stopped by Cuco Cucina Contemporanea earlier in the week to book our reservation. At the time I checked TripAdvisor they were rated #7 of 787 restaurants in Florence.
It’s a cool morning, about 65 degrees, so we decided to head out early (for us that means before 10am) and wander the city. We headed towards the Duomo and then turned right, heading away from the tourist areas. Florence is known as “The City of the Arts” and their best known goods are gold, leather, paper, and fashion. We take our time window shopping and looking at the impressive architecture. There is so much beautiful architecture all around you in Italy that you oftentimes overlook it as it blends into the everyday scenery. We also check out several small eateries along the shaded streets – sandwich shops, bakeries, bars, and sweet shops. Cinzia started her morning with a café latte at the bar on the corner of our block, but we’re now deep into local streets that are off our maps.
Ok, tonight we tried Gelateria dei Neri. This was another top rated place. They offered 45+ flavors. Cinzia had a scoop of white chocolate and a scoop of amaretto peach. I had three scoops. We'll see who can guess even 2 out of 3. Good luck.
We spent another lazy day in Florence today. We left the apartment around 9:30am and, after a cappuccino for Cinzia, we headed towards the Central Market. Along the way we stopped at several outside stands selling the usual lot of tourist goods – leather jackets, bags, belts, scarves, T-shirts, and tapestries. We wondered through the Central Market a bit checking out the multitude of vendors selling, meats, fish, cheeses, pasta, fruits, vegetables, olive oils, and balsamico. Several offered samples. The 15 year old balsamico on chunks of Parmigiano-Reggiano was delicious. Along the way Cinzia stopped for a caffè.
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