Unfortunately it rained when we were in Sorrento, so that really put a damper on things (plus, the train ride there from Naples was terrible; more on that in another post). But of course when life gives you lemons, make limoncello!
Limoncello was EVERYWHERE. We also enjoyed it in Rome, but Sorrento is all about lemon everything. Not only were there orchards everywhere and several shops downtown to try limoncello (which was first invented by the monks of Benedict in the 16th or 17th century), but there were lemon souvenirs anywhere you looked: tea towels, ornaments, ceramics, T-shirts, scarves (I bought one)... If you wanted something lemon, they had it.
This was a pretty mosaic near some of the lemon trees we saw.
Traditional limoncello is made with three kinds of lemons: Capri lemons are smaller and more acidic, while the lemons from Sorrento and Amalfi are much larger and taste sweeter. Since it's the rind that is used to make limoncello, not the juice, all the lemons are grown organically so there are no pesticides on the peel.
We mostly hunkered down inside due to the rain. We made sure to visit the Museo Correale, (which was celebrating its 100th anniversary), and to kill time we actually walked through most of it twice (you always notice something new the second time around!). There was a whole exhibit on still life paintings, and I enjoyed reading about how these pieces (also called "silent life") revolutionized art: artists no longer had to paint only people or religious figures, but instead could paint anything, even as banal as fruit, to show their artful skills.
One of my favorite pieces at the Museo Correale was an old board game which was used for gambling (similar to roulette). The game was eventually banned!
We did end up taking a walking tour when things had mostly cleared up. We learned a lot about Sorrento, and I'm always one for soaking up the knowledge! Sorrento was a Greek colony 2,500 years ago before becoming a Roman colony (the emperors would take their holidays on the coast). It used to be just two kilometers long, but now it's seven kilometers long. Geographically there are two valleys in the historical center of the town, which were created after a huge volcanic eruption 35,000 years ago; throughout Sorrento you can see that the walls, buildings, etc. are made of a particular gray stone that was created during that explosion.
We stopped inside a church to see some beautiful wood inlay artwork. Some of the pieces use 20 kinds of wood and can take months to create by hand. All of the pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle (a jig saw is used to cut the wood!).
This mill inside one of the valleys in Sorrento was built in the 15th century, but in the late 1800's, the main square and street were created, filling up some of the valley. This made the area by the mill too humid, so people no longer lived or worked there.
Down by the water we stood outside a 17th century church for Santa Anna (protector of women and the city's port), where they still hold services every day twice a day. The bells were loud!
We saw the Cloister of San Francisco, which is the oldest building in Sorrento. It is a cloister, church, and monastery all in one. Originally a Roman pagan temple had been in its place, and one of those original pillars still exists today.
While there were those museums and churches, I would say most of Sorrento is just shops and restaurants. And while it is fun to walk around and peek in at new shoes or buy some gelato, I didn't travel halfway across the world to go shopping and eat; I can do that at home! So I think one day in Sorrento is plenty of time to visit if you are planning to go to the Amalfi Coast. There are several cute towns along the water, so if we were to go back, I think we would try Positano instead.
We saw the gardens of the Palazzo Pitti from afar.
It rained our last full day in Florence, so we figured it was the perfect time to stay indoors and visit a museum. We had walked past the Palazzo Pitti when we walked across the Ponte Vecchio, so we bought tickets so we could explore what was inside. We didn't pay to get access to the gardens, but with the poor weather, we figured that was okay. This was a palace where the Medici family lived when they ruled Tuscany, and after that other powerful families stayed there, too. Now it is an art museum.
This is the inside atrium.
There is a grand ballroom that has been renovated to have carpet. Why?!
This was another place that had SO much artwork that you didn't know where to look!
There were several marble tabletops that had the most beautiful colors!
There were many painted ceilings that told stories of the Roman gods. I loved learning about Roman mythology in middle school, and it was fun pointing out the gods, goddesses, and heroes I recognized. This is Mount Olympus, home of the gods.
Some of the columns, angles, and arches on the walls and ceilings were not real, just painted to look 3D.
Everything was just SO ornate and over-the-top beautiful!
I wonder if royalty ever used these plates or if they were always just for show.
Within the palace, there is also the Museum of Fashion and Costume. The exhibit takes you along women's fashion throughout the decades. I'd say the main thing that changes are hemlines and waistlines. I was mostly inspired by all the different fabrics. So pretty!
If only we had more opportunities today to get dressed up like that! At least I'm planning a gala this year for work; that will give me a chance to wear a long, fancy dress!
My next post will be about our time in Sorrento. Check it out soon!
We had a lot of fun food experiences in Florence. Our travel agent booked us a pasta making class with Towns of Italy Cooking School, a walking food tour with Eating Europe, and a wine tasting and dinner experience that was also with Towns of Italy. All of them were really fun, and I'd highly recommend them. And while we didn't take a pizza making class, I bet that would have been fun, too!
Pasta Making Class
While we had a little bit of a tricky time finding the place, once we saw the line of people waiting on the sidewalk, that was a hint we were getting close. There were probably about 20 people in our group, and we all sat at a long table wearing aprons to prepare for class.
The teacher, Tomas, was AWESOME. He was the best part of the experience! He was knowledgeable, happy to answer questions, and so funny. That evening he taught us how to make two kinds of pasta, two sauces, and chocolate gelato; he also taught us the difference between "pecorino" and "pecorina" (look it up).
The tagliatelle was the easier pasta to make, since we were just making long strips; for the ravioli, there were more steps, and it was hard to know how much ricotta to use to fill each one. And neither Steve nor I like pesto, but the way we made it in class, it was delicious! It was less oily, and maybe didn't have as many pine nuts. It just seemed so light and fresh. I doubt we will make our own actual pasta, but the sauce we might do. We later watched a video on how to pick the best pasta in the store; good tips!
And since we don't have an ice cream maker at home, we probably won't be making our own gelato, either (and there are so many ice cream and Italian ice places near us in Florida). But it was very yummy! We learned that the best gelato places cover the gelato (don't be fooled by the HUGE piles you see to entice you to come in; it's all air!), only offer maybe a dozen flavors, and make unique flavors, too.
Martina was our walking food tour guide, and she was so sweet. Loved her!
Walking Food Tour
The day unfortunately did not start off great because 1. it was raining and 2. we were given two different meeting locations for our outing and we didn't know which was right. Eventually we did find the right place, but we clearly were the last ones there and were a little late. But once the tour was underway, we had a great time! Note that this was a Tuscan food tour, so we did not eat pizza, risotto, cannoli, pasta carbonara, etc., all of which came from somewhere else in Italy.
The hanging meat looks gray because it is aged with salt and pepper to preserve it. Sometimes the meat will also be aged with fennel to cover the funky meat smell. And remember: it's salame, not salami!
We walked over to the Mercato Centrale to visit several of the food stands inside. The downstairs is the original market that is only open until about 3pm each day, while the upstairs is more like a food court with restaurants that stays open all night, so we stayed downstairs for this part (we had actually explored the upstairs on our own a previous day anyway). We tried some charcuterie, and since I don't eat meat, I got more cheese to taste, which I thought was a better deal anyway; we loved the pear pecorino cheese, and even though I don't normally like blue cheese, the one we tried was really good.
Steve was brave and tried tripe at Bambi while I had warm carrots on bread (it sounds weird, but it was yummy!); the seasoned tomatoes were also delicious. At another stand we tried several olive oils flavored with white and black truffle (and they had a truffle gin, too, but we couldn't try it). From the market we all got vegetarian cannelloni for lunch, and we took it over to the Zanobini, a wine shop that had a table in the back; we ate there and enjoyed some Chianti classico wine (look for the black rooster!). Chianti is made with san giovese grapes, which are everywhere in this area, and is aged for at least one year. Chianti is not only the name of the wine but also of the region, kind of like Napa Valley.
At Bambi I didn't try the meatballs (which were filled with potato), but the bread with carrots and tomatoes were good!
After lunch we went to a little coffee shop that had a whole room in the back; I'm not even sure how you would have known it was there! We enjoyed coffee with true almond milk from southern Italy (it's more syrupy and sweeter than what we have here in the States), and it was delicious! We also tried two kinds of ammazzacaffè, or "coffee killer," which is an alcoholic shot that acts as a digestive after you drink coffee. I liked it, but Steve not so much, so I finished his, too.
For dessert we had biscotti (which translates as "cookie" in Italian), but they call them cantucci there because that means "wedge." We dipped the cookies into sweet wine; the wine was sweet not because of added sugars, but because the grapes were harvested later in the season, which means sweeter grapes. And of course we had to have some gelato! We went to the only shop where I saw peanut gelato, and since I love peanut butter, I was in heaven. Gelato was actually invented in Florence during the Medici era, and it's been popular ever since!
Winery Tour and Tasting
The Diadema winery is beautiful!
Of course Tuscany (the area that Florence is in) is known for its wine, and we would have loved to explore more wineries and vineyards. But we didn't have a car, and most of those places are pretty far from the city. But the tasting we did at the Diadema winery was only about a half hour away, so that was perfect. We took a bus with three other couples; one pair were young newlyweds from Australia, and the other two couples were from Florida, and they were ready to PARTY. They even got beers to go from a nearby bar so they could take the drinks on the bus!
Gratzia was both our tour guide and bus driver, and she was awesome! I like to think she had fun with our wild group 😜
After the Diadema tasting, then we got to have another tasting experience. We tried three different red wines and had to guess what they were based on smell, taste, body, and finish. In the end, they were merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and san giovese; I only got the last one right because it has such a distinct taste. THEN we got to mix the three together in our chosen proportions to make our very own wine. Steve did our mixture, and it was really good! We called it "Stella di Magnifico"after his dog, and we drank it over the next two nights to enjoy with Italian bread and cheese. Yum!
After Rome, we took a train back to Florence to stay there for real this time. We stayed at the Casa del Garbo, which had a much different feel from our hotel in Rome. The building was originally built in the 1300's, and now it's a cute hotel with suites named after famous people (we stayed in the "Lorenzo il Magnifico" room). We liked the quaint feel of it, with older art on the walls, actual wooden shutters across the windows, and a little nook where we could enjoy our breakfast every morning, delivered right to our door!
The hotel looks RIGHT onto the Piazza della Signoria, and we could see the Palazzo Vecchio, a statue of the leader Cosimo of the Medici family, and the Fountain of Neptune from our window. Such a great location! And there is a fountain right across the square, so we could fill up our water bottles to take on our wanderings. We were so close to the Uffizi Gallery and the Ponte Vecchio, so doing all the touristy things was easy!
This is the Palazzo Vecchio with the full moon behind it.
Speaking of those touristy things, we had to check them out! Our travel agent booked us tickets for the Uffizi Gallery and the Galleria dell'Accademia, so we did those back-to-back.
At the Uffizi, I was mostly overwhelmed by the ornately decorated ceilings. I couldn't help but look up the whole time!
But everything was lavishly decked-out, even the floors!
This was the view from the rooftop of the Ufizzi. You can see the Duomo right there!
When we left the Uffizi, we walked about 15 minutes to the Accademia to see more art, but mainly to see Michelangelo's David:
Pictures don't do him justice, but the David is enormous. He is 14 feet tall, and the space where he stands now was built specifically for the statue to be admired under a skylight. He really is absolutely beautiful. Even though Michelangelo was only 26 when he started carving the statue, he was already well-known for his skill and admiration of the male human body.
There was a room where we could see models and the final products. There were also videos showing the process of creating the cast to making the finished statue. You could see dots, even nails, on each version for the artists to keep the correct proportions.
There is also a musical instrument museum within the Accademia. I didn't even know upright pianos were a thing!
We walked across the Ponte Vecchio numerous times during our trip. It's the oldest bridge in Italy, and it was the last remaining bridge across the Arno River in World War II. It used to connect the Palazzo Pitti, the palace of the Medicis (more on that in a future post) and the administrative offices of the Uffizi (which means "office"); the Medicis and other important people would walk in an elevated tunnel that was on top of the bridge, and there were butchers on the bridge itself. But once the higher-ups thought the meat smelled bad, jewelers replaced the butchers, and there are lots of jewelry stores on the bridge to this day. I didn't buy anything, but there were many pretty things to look at!
The Ponte Vecchio looks very different from day to night! (These photos are taken on opposite sides of the river, mind you.)
