When you have the pleasure of traveling with your parents, you get to enjoy a lot of things you wouldn't normally be able to as a poor twenty-something. My parents were excited to have unique experiences while they were here with me and I was happy to be apart of them - though obviously I was just happy they were here at all!
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| My parents and the Ponte Vecchio! |
The next full day we were in Florence we had plans to go visit some museums, but were bummed to find out that all of the state run museums were closed because of a strike. Only in Italy, right? Oh well, we were ready to go shopping and our first stop was getting my mom an Italian leather coat! After trying on a ton of coats with a very helpful saleslady she finally found a gorgeous one that both dad and I approved of. In fact, my dad couldn't stop commenting on how good she looked in it the whole trip...gack. They also did some shopping for leather gloves for gifts and almost bought out this little stand outside of San Lorenzo. We then headed to check out the Basilica of San Lorenzo, which claims to be the oldest church in Florence. It was also the parish church of the Medici family and is the burial place for the principal members of the Medici family - my dad was very excited! It was freezing in the church though so we grabbed some kebabs from my favorite place and then went to check out the Duomo.
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| Pretty Christmas tree outside of the Duomo |
It had been a pretty full day so we went back to get ready for our aperitivo at Cuculia and opera performance at St. Mark's church. My parents were as enamored with Cuculia as I have been since the first time we went and they loved all of the fun dishes we were served (sadly, I can't remember them). We had to rush though to the church to see the performance of La Traviata. They had 4 performers and their voices were absolutely amazing and we loved being able to sit so close. Seriously an experience of a lifetime!! This is the same place I saw La Boheme on Christmas night.
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| This is how close we were to the performers |
The next day we decided to try the whole museum thing again and finally got into the Medici Chapels, which are actually attached to San Lorenzo but have a separate entrance. These chapels were added onto the church to further celebrate the greatness and power of the Medici family. Located within the chapels are the crypt, the New Sacristy (completely designed by Michelangelo), and the Chapel of the Princes. The New Sacristy contains gorgeous sculptures by Michelangelo for the tombs of two lesser known Medici men; however, he abruptly left for Rome before the chapel was finished and he wasn't able to create just as beautiful tombs for two Medici of great importance: Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano. After the chapels we did some more shopping and had lunch before heading to Santa Brigida for a wine tasting at a castle!!
We opted to try a new wine tasting venue and hopped on a bus to a castle for our tasting. It was raining and a large group of American girls hopped on the bus so I wasn't so thrilled to start off with, but we were excited to get out into the countryside. We first stopped at a town called Pontassieve where we could see the church of Santa Brigida. It is supposedly built on the cave used by the Saint in the 10th century for meditation. We slopped through the rain to see the cave and I guess it was pretty interesting...kind of odd.
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| the cave... |
After our stop we went to the castle. I really looooved the history behind this castle and was so excited when I heard where we were. This castle used to belong to the Pazzi family. For those of you who haven't heard of them, they are of the infamous Pazzi conspiracy that conspired to murder Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano. The Pazzi family were wealthy bankers in Tuscany, but were less powerful and rivals to the Medici. They, and Pope Sixtus IV who was also an enemy to Lorenzo, conspired against the brothers. They had their meeting inside one of the rooms of this castle, aptly named "The Conspiracy Room". At high mass in April 1478, in front of 10,000 people, the brothers were accosted with Giuliano losing his life and a wounded Lorenzo being able to escape. After this happened apparently no Pazzi was left unscathed and they were all hunted down by the many supporters of the Medici. The Medici also confiscated this castle and took down anything showing the Pazzi lived there except for one Pazzi coat of arms that was created by Donatello. Oh and a side note: Pazzi is Italian for "crazy people".
Our tour started with all these interesting details about the family and continued down in the wine and olive oil cellars. We learned some scary stuff about olive oil that has convinced me to never get anything other than Extra Virgin Olive Oil, or EVOO as Rachel Ray likes to say. Just a little taste of what we learned: for olive oil to add the word "Extra" to their title it must have less than .08% of acidity, and actually good Extra is supposed to be between .01-.03%, so .08% is still a little high. When olive oil has higher acidity it means that the olives weren't pressed right away and were set out for a longer period of time, thus developing higher acidity and bacteria...not good! The word "Virgin" denotes that the oil comes just from olives, nothing else. So you are getting pure oil from the olives and no mixture, which is good. The words our guide used were a little more disconcerting, but this is mainly the gist of it in a less scary way. :o)
After the fabulous tour the actual tasting was a little less than fabulous. I was expecting something big and elaborate, but what we got was less than elaborate. We were served only 3 wines (in the same glass no less) and just a small paper plate with a couple hors d'oeuvres. The wine was pretty good, but compared to the other tastings I have been to in Tuscany it was just ok. It was still a fabulous tour and the history of the castle itself made up for the lackluster wine tasting, and of course I got to spend all this time with my wonderful parents so I was golden!
Ok off to spend a night out with my fantastic roommates and I'll finish off this entry tomorrow! Have a fantastic weekend!!
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