Off to Florence!

After three days in Rome, we left for Florence today. Rome was wonderful, and it was hard to b elieve that it was time for us to leave, but we are excited to get to Florence! It is hard to believe that we have already been in Italy for four days now (unless you ask our feet, in which case, it feels like we have been here for four weeks).

Anyway, we arrived in Florence about noon today and found that the room at our B&B overlooks a cool outdoor market (Leah may post a picture later that shows our view). It is right in the middle of almost everything we want to see here, so we should be in much better shape than in Rome (If we were to change one thing about our stay in Rome, we would probably stay closer to the center of town. We stayed near the main train station so that we would have easy access to most everything, but it was a little further away from most of the sites than we would of liked. Also, it was in a chinatown-type area of Rome, so when we went out to look for good Italian food & culture, we found a lot of Asian influence, which is not bad, but not necessarily what we were looking for during our three days in Rome). Florence has a much more small town-type feel than Rome, and that is a nice change of pace. Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of people out in the streets here, but it seems a little more laid-back.

Once we got checked in, we took in a couple of sites. We first went to the Pitti Palace, which used to be the main residence/compound for the Medici family that ruled Florence for many years. This was fairly interesting, as it housed many paintings from several prominent Italian artists, and also had a few rooms decorated closely to how they would have been at the height of the Medici family's power. After the Pitti Palace, we took a whirlwind look at the Science Museum. We had to get through the whole museum in an hour because we took a little longer than expected at the Pitti Palace. The museum had many different types of scientific instruments used by the people of the 17th & 18th century, which were all very interesting, but probably the highlight of the museum was the stuff they had from Galileo. They had some of his instruments, including a couple of his telescopes, adn amazingly enough, they even had the preserved middle finger from his right hand. I have no idea who thought to preserve that, or even why, but it is right there for everyone to look at.

Tomorrow, we have a couple different art galleries (including the one that houses Michelangelo's David), and the main church here in Florence, so we are trying to rest our feet as much as possible until we have to leave in the morning.

For those of you interested in only our day's events, this is the end of the post for the day. For those of you interested in hearing about the food (and a quick NFL comment at the very end), read on...

I didn't say a whole lot about the food in the first couple of posts because I was basically following the rule that says: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all". For the first couple of days, almost all of our meals were made of either espresso & pastries or pizza, or panini sandwiches. All of these were fairly good, but nothing really worthy of note. The one meal we did decide to take the time to enjoy was horrible. Several people told us just to look for hole-in-the-wall-type places to eat, and it turns out that our first choice was not good at all. I had a chef's special (which turned out to be risotto and cheese, as in the kraft macaroni and cheese except with risotto), and Leah had some gnocchi that was covered in what tasted like chef boyardee sauce and a salad that didn't come with any dressing. All of that and two glasses of the house wine cost a little over 45 euro (60 dollars). Also, keep in mind that teh portions are quite a bit smaller here, so when I talk about all of these multi-course meals, we are not bursting at the seams (or at least any more than normal) trying to choke them down.

Yesterday, instead of taking our chances with guessing, we followed the advice of the guidebook we have been using, and things got a lot better. For lunch, I had a pasta carbonara dish and Leah had a plate of melted scamorza cheese (like a stronger version of mozzerella) with Proscuitto ham draped over the top, and both were wonderful. Everything was so fresh that you could just taste the difference from the night before.

Last night, we had a fairly elaborate meal that will be difficult to top the rest of the trip. We started out with canteloupe wrapped in Prosciutto ham (which I am guessing that we will be serving to our own guests the next time we have the occassion), and that was followed with gnocchi in a black truffle sauce. Neither of us had tasted truffles before, so we thought it would be fun to try. While it was not our favorite dish, I can definitely see the allure - it was so rich and tasty that it was tough to put down. After the gnocchi, they brought us some canelloni stuffed with a type of mild sausage, and followed that with the most delicious filet of beef in a balsamic vinegar reduction with a little garlic mixed in. I am definitely going to have to figure out how to put this together - I don't think it should be that hard, but it may take a few tries to get it just right. All of that paired with a pretty decent house wine was about as good as you could ask for.

Tonight, we had a meal that was similarly great. We started out with a standard caprese salad, which tasted just a little bit better because we were in Florence, followed by a spinach & ricotta ravioli dish with a walnut sauce. The walnut sauce sounded kind of weird on the menu, but it was really good. I can't imagine that it would be good with everything, but I am going to have to learn how to make it because it was great with the ravioli tonight, and it was so different from anything else I have tasted before that it was a cool surprise. The main course was a chicken milano, and it was very good, but not spectacular - pretty standard stuff. However, we had what they call "Panna Cotta", which is a cooked cream dessert covered in a homemade chocolate sauce. I have no idea how they make this, but it tasted like whipped heavy cream that is the consistency of a light custard. It is very difficult to describe, but very easy to eat - it was fantastic!

That is about it so far when it comes to food. I think we just had bad luck with the first place because everything else has been very good. It is amazing to taste how fresh everything is here - it definitely makes a difference. If you are really still reading and want to hear me talk about the NFL for a quick moment (Carsten, I hope that is you), please read on. Otherwise, we will post again tomorrow - see you then!

As dor the NFL, is there really a more boring and predictable sports league right now? At least the NBA allows you to wonder if the game is being fixed by a referee. I have now gone the first two weeks of the season (the most exciting part of the season, IMHO) without watching a single game, and I don't miss is one bit. I never realized how much following Jake was keeping me interested in the league, but I think that was the only thing (along with fantasy football, which I have already proven that you don't really have to follow the NFL as long as you don't mind not winning each year). I have checked the Broncos scores, and it looks like after a decisive 15-14 victory over the powerhouse Bills team, they followed up with a 23-20 annihilation of the juggernaut that is the Oakland Raiders at home. That just screams "Super Bowl Champions" to me. I initially said that they would go 9-7 this year, but judging from those scores, they will be lucky to make it to .500 this year - they must be absolutely horrific. They have just been lucky enough to have two of the worst 5 teams in the league the first two weeks of the season. I also like how their "revamped" defense gave up 20 points to a team that was last in the league in offense last year, lost one of the best receivers in the league in teh offseason, and neglected to sign the very first pick in the draft until it was too late for him to make a difference this year. That is embarassing.