Slug Bug and Foodie Tips

I’m not sure if it’s a world-wide game, but in the USA we play slug-bug. The rules are this; whoever sees a Volkswagen Beetle first, slugs the other person. We usually played this on long road-trips, which created havoc in the car and eventually ended in a fight. So, you may be wondering where I’m going with this story? Well, not long after we arrived in Italy we noticed a lot of people wearing Levi t-shirts. A lot of people. We began to joke about it and then we turned it into a slugging game (not really slugging—just a light slap on the arm)… Levi! Whack! We’ve gotten a couple of funny looks because we have to hit each other fairly often. I told Joe we’ll draw a lot of attention if we accidently come to a Levi store :)

We’ve struggled a little to feel settled in Florence. Nobody seems like a local. On Oltrarno it’s a little better. We’ve found a couple of restaurants where they recognize us and seem excited to have us back. Two of them are run by elderly couples with youngsters working for them. Another one is actually a little cooking school with a deli. They have good wine and beer. We struck up a conversation with them the other night and got pulled back into the kitchen to show us where the classes are held. They were closing up for the night, so we stood and visited with them as they wrapped up the cheeses and put everything into the big refrigerator. But most of the places have such a huge turnover, they don’t remember us at all.

Oddly enough one of the places we like to go eat lunch is the Mercato Centrale. Maybe we don’t expect to get to know anyone. Above this massive market place, is a food court. The food court seems to be run by a huge culinary school (different from the one I mentioned earlier). This is where we see the most Italians… especially teens. Because it’s got all the different choices, it draws a lot of groups of friends and small families. My favorite is the pulled pork sandwich.

It’s not easy to find the Mercato. It’s huge, but it’s completely surrounded by merchant carts. This is where you can get leather goods and scarves, but you can’t see the building. So here’s how you do it. Keep looking between the merchant carts until you see stairs. There’s many steps leading into the market… keep looking, you’ll find one. Once inside, with your mask in place, head for the center of the chaos. Past all the meat, truffles, wine, fruit, and veggies. In the middle there’s a set of stairs going up. There’re other ways to get upstairs, like an escalator, but it’s too hard to describe where they are.

Once you order and find a seat you can take off your mask. Within a couple of minutes a security person will ask for your “green pass.” Have your phone ready with the picture of your covid shot open. They understand that Americans don’t have the green pass, but you still have to show you’ve had a shot. They don’t know or care what they’re looking at, but they look anyway (though one time a girl asked about the second shot—I explained it was the J&J and she was fine). This doesn’t make much sense to me, since just as many people get sick whether or not they’ve had the shot. Shrug. Oh well, I guess it means something to someone in the government.

We went to mass at the Duomo… THE Duomo. If you’ve been following me for any length o f time, you know that I like to experience cathedrals for the purpose they were designed for. It’s an incredibly solemn experience to hear the Gregorian chants and then the massive organ vibrating the air. This is the second time we’ve done mass at the Duomo in Florence, though the first time it was in a nave. This time we were right up front and center. During the Latin service I could look up at the fresco designed by Vasari and finished by Zuccari five-hundred years ago.

We hustled straight to a pizza shop we’d seen earlier and had wolfed down a couple of slices. Joe hit me twice because he saw Levi shirts, but then I dominated for the rest of the day… especially because I found the Levi store! The store employees had to pull us apart because we were rolling around on the sidewalk smacking each other… just kidding! It’s humor, people. ;)

Then we did another cool thing. We went to the View on Art Roof Garden. I’m not sure where they got the word “garden,” but it’s a great rooftop bar we discovered on our tour. It’s near the Republic Square (Piazza della Repubblica)—the one with the merry-go-round. Take Via Dei Tosinghi, then right on Via de’ Medici. From the street next to the Robiglio you can see into a hotel lobby. A big lit up sign says View On Art inside the lobby. Go past that sign on the wall and you will find the elevator immediately on your right or six flights of stairs. A little sign says roof garden 6^th floor. 

If you go during peak ours (late afternoon) you may need reservations. We went at about 3:00 and we had plenty of seats to choose from, though a lot of the shady seats were taken. There is indoor seating also. By the time we left at 5:00 it was almost full.

We also like this tiny little café straight off the Ponte Vecchio. It’s called Gino’s Bakery. The cutest old couple own it and they are very enthusiastic about their products. It’s the hottest cappuccino I’ve had anywhere, and they have these amazing little flakey pastries with some sort of cold creamy filling. Joe got the one with chocolate. 

Today Gino talked me into trying the famous one with the orange/cinnamon cream-cheese filling. It was good, but a little too sweet and rich for me. I’ll stick to the tiny ones.

I’ve mentioned it before, but keep this in mind when traveling in Italy; they have a cover charge to sit down. It can be as high as 3 Euro each. So there’s a couple of ways of doing things. You can walk up to the espresso counter, order your coffee, sip it or gulp it, and pay just for the beverage. Or you can pick the exact place where you can get the best view and pay for the privilege… it depends on what you want in that moment.

Another oddity is the curfew for drinking cappuccino. Apparently it’s a mortal sin to order one after 11:30 in the morning. Thank goodness I’m not Italian, so nobody cares when I order my cappuccino. Don’t let this alter your behavior. Italians are very gracious people to everyone—except other Italians.

Tomorrow we head off to Peschiera del Garda. This town is on the southern-most point of Lake Garda. It’s supposed to be raining a bit, but we brought raincoats and umbrellas so no worries.