Dave & Meredith’s Travel Blog

It’s kind of bumming me out.  I would like to practice the little Italian I’ve learned and also try to learn more by actually speaking it.  But almost every time I say “Buongiorno!” or “Due bigletti, per favore,” (two tickets, please), the person I’m speaking to recognizes that I’m English-speaking and starts speaking to me in English right away.  We’ve had few exceptions, and we definitely have more fun when that rare exception comes up.

For example, we went to dinner at a trattoria in Florence and our waitress spoke to us only in Italian.  She knew we were struggling a little (I think she actually enjoyed watching it), but she let us struggle.  And that was more fun.  We kept taking out the Italian phrasebook to look up words and then when our waitress came back to the table, we’d make a joke or tell her that the fagioli (beans) reminded me of my grandma’s pasta fagioli (pasta fazool).

We ordered bistecca fiorentina (grilled T-bone steak with olive oil and lemon), which is the thing to do once while you’re in Florence.  It’s obscenely large.  We asked our waitress before we ordered how large it would be (in Italiano!) because it’s priced by the KILO.  She said it would be more or less 1 kilo, but that includes the bone and it’s for two people.  Now, for those of you who are challenged by the metric system, 1 kilo is 2.2 pounds.  Anyhoo, when our bistecca arrived, it was enormous.  We looked up the Italian word for cow (”mucca”), and then when our waitress came back to ask how we were doing, we told her that she gave us a half cow (”mezza mucca”).  She laughed.  Obviously after all that food (we also split pasta with pesto, ribollito and a side dish of beans with tomatoes), we were stuffed.  But we still had room for tiramisu for dessert. Of course.

- Meredith

It hasn’t been difficult finding Internet access here, but Wi-Fi has been a little tougher to come by, so we’ve been somewhat challenged to post pictures to the blog. So, to get you somewhat caught up, here is a list of things we did in Florence:

• Accademia (Michelangelo’s David)
• Duomo (Santa Maria del Fiore - church with 3rd longest nave in the world); we also went below the church to see the foundations of earlier churches
• Giotto’s Campanile (13th c. bell tower climb for beautiful views over the city)
• Bargello Museum (lots of renaissance sculpture)
• Ponte Vecchio (only window shopping)
• Santa Croce (church where lots of famous Florentines are buried, including Gallileo and Michelangelo)
• The Science Museum (small and mostly about the evolution of the telescope, but also included some mechanical devices and musical instruments from the 14th - 18th centuries)
• Piazza della Signoria and the Loggia dei Lanzi with wonderful statues

While walking around, we saw the Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi Gallery and the Pitti Palace. We couldn’t get tickets for the Uffizi Gallery while we were in town (there was a holiday in Italy and apparently they were sold out long in advance), so we’re going to go back to Florence for a half day while we’re staying in Tuscany (next week) so we can see all the artwork there.

On top of the bell tower near the Duomo

- Meredith

Here is the view from our window in our B&B in Florence. We were in a sweet location, less than one block from Florence’s Duomo. We’ve also added a picture of the view from the roof terrace that all the guests could use.

View from our Window #4

View from B&B Roof Terrace (toward Duomo)

- Meredith