Since I had the morning free (two of my friends also went to Firenze, but they split off to go see David and we met back up for lunch) so I wandered around the leather market and other parts of the city, it was a nice, slow morning. I LOVE the leather market, it has one of the best smells on the planet.
The Piazza della Signiora, with all the sculptures has this gem:
One of my favorite sculptures in Italy by Giambologna. It's titled "The Rape of the Sabine Women" after the story from the beginning of the Roman empire, but the title was added after its creation when a member of the Medici family decided it should be displayed in the piazza. It is beautiful, dramatic. It was quite unique at the time because it had more than one focal point- any direction you look at it from it is dynamic and impressive. Beautiful.
My favorite restaurant in Italy, Il Latini. It is packed daily from the time it opens, if you walk in and there are no tables open, they'll fit you in either at the community table by the bar, or ask patrons with an empty seat if they'll share their table with you.Il Latini is a fiasceria, a traditional Tuscan style of restaurant with the 2 liter bottles of (very good) house wine with wicker bottoms. You drink what you like from the "fiasco" and they charge you for what you consume at the end of the meal. The whole 2 liters is only 12 euro; amazing value, especially for the quality of the wine.
In fact, these kinds of restaurants are where the English term "fiasco" originated. When gambling or playing games back in the olden days, the loser would have to buy the fiasco for the other players, hence a mistake being a "fiasco", it really just means that you're buying, but of course the colloquialism of the term has changed over time!
Procuitto di Parma, a slab of Tuscan salumi, crostini with liver, and a barley salad with cucumbers and tomatoes. The owner walks around and smiles at you as you're eating, directing the super friendly waiters to bring you something else to try, gratis. Hence, we ordered the salumi and ended up with all of this!
Clockwise from top: ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta in tomato sauce, a rustic vegetable soup with potatoes and zucchini, penne with ragu, and tomato soup. Tuscan soups are thick- you eat them with a fork if you really want, because they thicken them with leftover bread crumbs. Top it off with a liberal drizzle of olive oil and some grated parmeggiano-reggiano and you have an awesome thing going.
Prime rib. It's about 2" thick, perfectly cooked, grass-fed of course, with jus. This... was the best piece of beef I have ever had. The texture... the flavor... the yellow fat! everything about this simple slab of meat is pure, unadulterated delicious steer. I'm pretty sure its Chianina, the traditional breed from Tuscany and Umbria. They're very proud of these cattle, they're renowned for their incredible flavor.
Tender fried lamb chops, needs nothing more than a squeeze of fresh lemon to be tasty perfection.
Gratis, Vin Santo and biscotti, which is in the process of tying with tiramisu for my favorite dessert.
And just to make sure we were sloshed at lunch, (we did a number on that fiasco) they insisted that we try glasses of our waiter's favorite Moscato D'Asti. Seriously, everything I have had from this place is perfection, simple food at its finest!
After that, we grabbed some beers (shh! I don't need to hear your admonitions!) and hopped on a train to Pisa.
Strictly for these pictures, and nothing else.
From lunch on, I'm not sure any of us went for more than a few minutes without a beer in our hands, (oops) so we, er, accidentally missed the last train to Orvieto. It turned out okay- we found a hotel and drank in a my favorite Florentine dive bar, the Joshua Tree Pub. It's nice to know the good spots, we all had an excellent time, even if my brain didn't appreciate it this morning!Ciao!
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