THANK YOU
A big 'thank you' to my Lj-friends for wishing me Happy Birthday. I was so caught up between work and family that I didn't have much time to celebrate on the day :-(
I made up for it later though..... last week I went to Florence with my family for a day out and it was lovely. There were tourists around but it was not too bad, it was very cold but it was sunny and we just walked around - no time to see exhibitions but Florence is practically an open-air museum. We walked from the station towards the centre and when we suddenly glimpsed, from the street full of shops and modern stuff, the white marble of the "Battistero" and "Santa Maria del Fiore" it was wonderful, they looked as if they had just been dropped from the sky!
Also we found a nice little restaurant/cafè "5 e cinque" in the area around the Chiesa di Santo Spirito, on the other side of the Ponte Vecchio. The place is very small and the food is mainly organic/vegetarian , very clean and with nice people serving (not alwasy the case in Florence and other Italian cities of art, believe me). I had vegetable cous cous and my husband a pasta dish (gnocchi) that was delicious. Another thing that I really liked was a kind of bread made with chickpeas, it's called "cecina" and I had it with artichokes. The whole area around Santo Spirito seems to have quite a few nice places to eat in contrast with the over-expensive, often bad places in the centre, so if you happen to be in Florence and are looking for a break and a bite the area around Santo Spirito is the place to go.
We were back home at about 8.30 and the day would have been perfect if it hadn't been for a little accident, my key broke while I was turning it in the keyhole! So, we spent the next hour and a half trying to get in and if it had not been for my dad we would have had to call the fire brigade!
I made up for it later though..... last week I went to Florence with my family for a day out and it was lovely. There were tourists around but it was not too bad, it was very cold but it was sunny and we just walked around - no time to see exhibitions but Florence is practically an open-air museum. We walked from the station towards the centre and when we suddenly glimpsed, from the street full of shops and modern stuff, the white marble of the "Battistero" and "Santa Maria del Fiore" it was wonderful, they looked as if they had just been dropped from the sky!
Also we found a nice little restaurant/cafè "5 e cinque" in the area around the Chiesa di Santo Spirito, on the other side of the Ponte Vecchio. The place is very small and the food is mainly organic/vegetarian , very clean and with nice people serving (not alwasy the case in Florence and other Italian cities of art, believe me). I had vegetable cous cous and my husband a pasta dish (gnocchi) that was delicious. Another thing that I really liked was a kind of bread made with chickpeas, it's called "cecina" and I had it with artichokes. The whole area around Santo Spirito seems to have quite a few nice places to eat in contrast with the over-expensive, often bad places in the centre, so if you happen to be in Florence and are looking for a break and a bite the area around Santo Spirito is the place to go.
We were back home at about 8.30 and the day would have been perfect if it hadn't been for a little accident, my key broke while I was turning it in the keyhole! So, we spent the next hour and a half trying to get in and if it had not been for my dad we would have had to call the fire brigade!