My new little terrace garden seems to love the sun and heat of Florence! It’s doing better than I am!!
Month: June 2017
A sign of good things to come.
Pretty much every morning, on my way to language school, I pass my favorite pasticceria in Florence: Rivoire. When they are open (which is mostly every day, but not always), I stop in for a pasta da portare via, a pastry to go. You pay at the cassa, about 1.5 Euro, and then walk over and choose your poison. The cameriera wraps the pasta in a napkin and places it in a pretty little bag, as here:
My favorite pasta, or pastry, is a ciambella. A ciambella is a doughnut, but at Rivoire “a doughnut” hardly does justice to the confection. At Rivoire a ciambella is a yeasty circle of fried dough, covered in a granular sugar that covers your lips and cheeks when you’ve finished. Trust me, it’s worth the trouble of wiping your face! It is very much vale la pena.
Today Rivoire had no more ciambelle, so I got an apple strudel. OMG. This picture comes no where near how good it tasted!
Buon appetito!
Pretty windows, pretty sweets.
Summer candies at Mignone. Always a delight!
A beggar and a man of god.
In the staggering heat of today (90+ degrees F.), two people are overdressed for the weather. One is a beggar and the other a Franciscan monk.
As I watched this encounter take place between the two of them, I wondered: will the man of god give money to the beggar? Or, is he as poor as she?
He did not give her money, but I caught the encouragement and gentleness he shared with her. A passing moment of beauty.
And P.S., neither of them seem bothered by today’s heat. :-))
It grows on you.
I love this approach to the Duomo. I walk this path every day. It never grows old.
I love this angle of the Duomo as well. The thousands of tourists gather everyday at the facade of the cathedral, which is clean and polished. I prefer the gritty side view. It seems more authentic.
The side view is actually more authentic, because the fancy facade of the church is a 19th-century confection. The side is the original building.
Gritty and real and I love it. How lucky I feel to see it daily!
Gilli’s windows, glowing with summertime colors and treats!
A new red!
I’m barely literate when it comes to wine, so take this with a grain of…grapes. But last Sunday I had the great pleasure of taking an al fresco yoga class at an aguritismo in Chianti.
This being Italy, after yoga we shared a beautiful aperitivo (wine and snacks). I was drawn like a magnet to this beautiful young red wine, which is best served chilled!! Who knew!!
Which is nice, because I don’t know if you know this, but Italy is very warm. As in hot. Non mi piace! And a bracing, chilled red is mighty nice after a yoga session, after which one is molto relassato!
I managed to come home with a couple of bottles! Woo hoo!
I’m planning to return to this farm in the fall to help harvest grapes and olives to make wine and oil. I’m told they stomp grapes as in I Love Lucy!!
Fun product of the week
Who could resist this packaging? And then a whiff of the detergent said, “buy me!” A soap for textiles that has millions of emollient particulants! I’ll let you know if it lives up to its hype!
Horses and bulls in Tuscany
Made of terra cotta again. Garden ornaments, I presume. I believe a living artist created the model for these two odd works, and they may have been created for a commission. Chi sa?
But, as strange to me as the horse sculptures above are, the work below is arresting!
It is a human-sized statue in terra cotta of a matador, but the head is replaced with the head of a toro! I love the switch. I personally am not a fan of bull-fighting; I might be if they didn’t injure the animal and then provoke it until it dies.
I guess you can find just about anything in Italy!!
I found Snow White in Tuscany!
And she’s made of terra cotta! I was so surprised to find her in the midst of all the fabulous garden containers!
get back, lauretta! 
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