The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
Isn't It a Pitti?
Happy Anniversary to us! It's been 26 years since we pulled a surprise wedding on our friends in Colorado Springs and
against all societal odds, we're still together. We thought of last year as an anniversary trip. This year, not so much ...
but December 26th is still the day.
The question of the day was what we should do with two full days in Florence ... and as usual we looked at each other and
shrugged. What passes for the usual plan is just to get out there, get moving and figure something out in the moment. One of
the nicest parts of staying in the middle of the action is that there's no need to start the day with concerns about driving
or parking, so we strolled across the street for capuccino and croissants to ponder our options.
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We are not art buffs, so galleries hold no particular allure. (We'd already been through part of the Uffizi on our first
visit. We are not religious, so while I can appreciate the craftsmanship that went into the decor of the major churches, I
tire of it quickly. We finally settled on seeing at least part of the Pitti Palace, so named because it was started by the
Pitti family (rivals of the Medici) in 1458. But they ran out of money and it sat unfinished for another hundred years until
the Medici bought it and finished the work. (Early house flippers?)
From the mid 1500s to the early 1700s, the Pitti Palace was arguably the cultural center of Europe, setting trends in the
arts, sciences and social standards. Our ticket gave us admission to the royal apartments, lavishly decorated with frescoed
ceilings and floor to ceiling artwork. It was part house tour, part art gallery. My overall impression was that it was very,
very good to be a Medici!
Like most art galleries, they prohibit flash photography and reall are not big on picture taking
at all. (Besides, too often a photo will be mostly of the backs of other tourists as the swarm moves through the place.) So
I borrowed a few photos from the Internet to give you an idea of what it was like and added a few of our own at the end. The
tub is in the bathroom built for Napoleon. There were incredible inlaid tables in every room and, of course, the view from
here wasn't too shabby either!
Margene had wanted to go through the costume gallery but we discovered that wasn't on our ticket. Rather than deal with it
today, we decided to get a pizza and worry about it later.
A day without pizza is like a day without sunshine ... I think ... at least in Italy ... and Gusto Pizza, the shop with the rep as the best pizza in Florence, was just a few blocks from the Pitti Palace. I am told that normally there's a line to get in here, but luckily we arrived just before the lunch rush. They have kept it simple. There are only seven combinations of Neapolitan-style pies coming out of the wood-fired oven, but OMG were they good! My standard of measurement is the basic Margherita, Margene went for their Gustapizza, essentially a Margherita with cherry tomatoes, arugula and Parmesan.
We wandered back across the bridge, made the mandatory stop for gelato, and had a vague notion of walking to the Accademia gallery to check up on Michaelangelo's legendary statue of David. But by the time we had shuffled through the Duomo in the slow-moving crowd of tourists (feeling quite like cattle), we decided that what we really wanted was to get off our feet for awhile, so we made a u-turn and headed back to the room. Here are a few of the sights along the way. The popsicle shop was a first! The Spanish know these as paletas but this is the first time I've seen them in Italy.
Ever the romantic, I had envisioned a quiet anniversary dinner in an intimate little trattoria tucked away on some side street away from the tourist traffic. But Margene wasn't up to going out, so I ended up eating crackers and drinking wine in the hotel room! What's wrong with this picture? Perhaps we can bail things out tomorrow. We have a lunch reservation at that intimate hidden gem trattoria, a place we ate at back in 2000. Since it will likely be our only meal of the day, we can take the time to dine slowly and well -- that's so the Italian way!
© 2014 Restaurant Doctor
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