A nice flat for your Tuscan days

I know what you imagine when you think about Tuscany: sweet hills, line of cipress, farmhouse well restored, wineyards, and especially calm...

And that's exactly what you will get if you choose to stay in this cute flat which is available for renting and it's located on the south hills of Florence.

I know the owners, they are a very frienldy couple, huge and experts travellers, that knows exactly the meaning of "confort" and wanted to extend that to their apartment.

Check out the homelidays website....

Santa Maria del Fiore

Santa Maria del Fiore is our main Cathedral in town, religious and economic centre since the Middle Age. It has been consacrated to the St. Mary of the Flower, for many reasons, for example cause the white lily is symbol of Florence, or because of the shape, but mainly cause she was the mum of Jesus.

An ancient church, Santa Reparata, was already there since the IV century a.c. but it was replaced by a new gigantic Cathedral, which was started on September 8th 1296 by the knowledgeable architect Arnolfo di Cambio, who actually at the same time was working on Palazzo Vecchio, Santa Croce and the city wall, so refreshing the style all over Florence!

It took more than 150 years to accomplish this beautiful church - in 1436 Brunelleschi just finished the famous Dome, the largest and biggest dome ever built after the roman Pantheon one.

It took actually even more to finish the Cathedral, if you consider that the façade was made only at the end of 19th century!!!


The Duomo is the 3rd larger church in the world, after St. Peter in Rome and St. Paul in London. Inside, it possible to stand up to 40,000 people!


While the decoration of the outside is super rich, the inside is very plain and great inspiration for prayers - you feel so "small" inside, compared to the bigness of this church.

Entrance is free of charge.

the Beautiful Cupola

Amazing façade, finished at the end of 19th century!

Huge and plain interior

Frescoed Cupola by Giorgio Vasari


Representation of Divine Commedy of Dante


Arnolfo di Cambio - the architect who restyled Florence

Brancacci Chapel

On the right side of the transept of Santa Maria del Carmine church you can find a jewel of first Renaissance painting: Brancacci Chapel, painted by a young Masaccio,his older master/collegue Masolino da Panicale, and some 50 years later additions by Filippino Lippi.

Brancaccis were an important florentine family, connected to the Medici family - Felice Brancacci commissionated the cycle based on Saint Peter, because of his ancestor named Pietro and mostly because at those times depicting St. Peter, being the first Pope of Catholic Church, meant basically being connected, very well connected, to the Papacy.

Two main painters worked on this chapel: Masolino da Panicale, and a 23 years old Masaccio, much younger than Masolino, and recently considered as collegue instead of pupil, because of his outstanding and innovate artistic talent, so different from Masolino.

Brancacci Chapel is the perfect place to understand and appreciate the changing from late Gothic Style to the early Renaissance, that introduce a new body study, basing on classic measures, and a new emotion of the faces, plus a considering skill to represent tridimension and perspective.

Check how differently Adam and Eve are represented. Amazing.

Left side: Masolino right side Masaccio (photo source voxnova)

This chapel miraculously survived to a tragic fire that in 1771 destroyed all the Church. Frescos were all blacken by smoke and soot - it was not possible to see how the real colours were... until behind an altar they discovered an undamaged piece of fresco, and that helped to restore and give new life and brilliance to this incredible masterpiece.

If you have the bad idea to visit by yourself instead that with me :) just kidding of course, then I suggest you to see the dvd that is shown before entering in the Chapel, interesting and impressive, seeing closer the frescos with music in the background.

Brancacci Chapel

Masaccio's Adam and Eve

Two stylish Florentine - by Masolino

My favourite: this body seems so real

Sostanza

Mmmmm, how delicious is the Bistecca alla Fiorentina of Sostanza... It's the second of my list, after the one of Buca Lapi . It's a super simple place, you actually share the big marble table with the other customers, but it's fun and most important good.

On the walls plenty of old postcards, vintage and new photos of celebrities that had dinner here. It's a very warm place, it feels like you go to somebody's house.

The menu it's very short, and it's based on the Tuscan tradition - what you eat here it's similar to what you'd have every day in a tuscan family house: vegetable soup, pasta with meat sauce, butter or tomato sauce, an unforgettable artichokes pie, fried or butter chicken (excellent!), veal, bollito (mixed boiled meat served with parsley sauce) and obviously T-Bone Steak.

This steak has to be eaten almost raw, actually bloody, but you can ask for a medium cooking, as I did. It will be still kind of pinkish, but definitely super good, tasty and soft, feels like butter in your mouth. Yummi!


They don't have a lot of desserts, they don't serve coffee or liquors after that, only Vin Santo and Cantuccini, which is our specialty: almond biscuits that you soak in a sweet wine.

Service is pretty fast but friendly and helpful. It remains a very casual Trattoria, which is good sometimes, you'll have a more real flavour of Florence cuisine.

Prices are similar to a regular Trattoria in Florence, it means so not super cheap, we are talking about 35-40 Euro per person, if you don't get Bistecca.

Very important: they do not accept credit cards! Only cash. And during the dinner they have two turns: 7,30 and 09,00 pm. Reservation is definitely recommended.

They close Saturdays and Sundays. During high season they do stay open on Saturdays night.

Trattoria Sostanza

Via del Porcellana, 25

+ 39 055 212691

Florence

Open Lunch and Dinner

No credit cards

Vintage postcards

Tuscan Crostini - with liver patè - typical and yummi

Artichokes Pie


Bistecca for 1 person!


Bistecca for 2!

Firenze com'era Museum - Florence "as it looked"

It isn't one of the most popular museum in town, but it is the best one to visit for those who are lucky to know the city very well and want to go deepier in our amazing history to find out the roman foundation, the etruscan past, to understand better how the city has grown in the century.
It's very usefull for "beginners" also, and definitely enchanting to admire the "Pianta della Catena", Chain Map, a beautiful wood panel painted in the 1470 with the frame carved as a chain - it's a photo of the city in the Renaissance time.
The lunettes of Justus Ustens, a flamish painter, describe how the opulent Medici Villas were before all the changing they have been through.It is located in the wonderful Loggia of the Oblate nuns ex-convent, in Via dell'Oriuolo 24.

Update: the museum Firenze Com'era is temporary closed, waiting to be restaured and probably moved to a different location

Plastic model of Firenze Romana

One of the lunettes by Justus Utens

I love that: the original keys of the door of the city wall!

The Chain Map - Renaissance Fiorenza

Under snow

Florence is such a beautiful city... in every season... imagine how magic it looked during the 3-days snow we got last week...

Photos Source: Fiorentina.it

More pictures, taken by myself , of the Vecchio and Santa Trinita bridges

Dinner @ Buca Lapi

Buca Lapi is considered one of the best Trattoria in Florence - in my opinion is definitely THE best Trattoria! It's simply excellent.

It is a traditional Trattoria, with casual attire and atmosphere, with careful service and refined cuisine. The menu includes all the best of the Tuscan tradition, using excellent products, light ingredients and giving you big portion!

As the name says, Buca, means "hole", the restaurant is located in the cellar in the basement of the 16th century palace of the Antinori Family, a very famous noble family involved in wine business since centuries.

As soon as you turn the corner you will smell the "bistecca flavour". You step down and you will be welcomed by Luciano, the great owner. The kitchen is full screen visible to the guests.

Among the rich tuscan menu, I had the pleasure to taste:

*Antipasti - Starter*

We skipped those, because we wanted to arrived prepared to the second course...

*First course*

- Ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta with sage and butter cream

- Maltagliati (hand made pasta squared cut) with veal meat sauce
- Pici (hand made pasta similar to spaghetti but thicker and made by cheese) with meat-sausage-fennel sauce

*Second course*

- Cinta senese fillet (little pig from Siena area)

- Beautiful, amazing, tasty, unforgettable, the best of the best BISTECCA alla Fiorentina

*Dessert*

- Creme Caramel
- Chocolate Cake, an original and unique (and secret!) recipe

Prices are pretty high to be a trattoria, but considering the quality of food is denitively well worthed. We might talk about 60-70 Euros per person for a regular dinner.

Buca Lapi

Via del Trebbio 1/r

+39 055 213768

Open only for dinner. Closed on Sundays

Cucina open space

First course

...mmm... bistecca is coming!

Creme Caramel

Secret chocolate cake

Vasari Corridor

An incredible and unique place in Florence: the Vasari Corridor.

Built in only 5 months by Giorgio Vasari, the favourite architect of Grand Duke Cosimo I dé Medici, who commissionated it in honour of his first son Francesco's wedding with Johanna from Austria.

I'ts an aeral walkway that connects the Old Palace (the power head office) with the Pitti Palace (the new residence of the Medici family), almost 1 km long, passing above the Old Bridge, getting through houses, tower houses, a church (Santa Felicita church, where the Medici had a private balcony just stepping outside the Corridor, giving them the chance to assist to the Mass without having to mix with the crowds).

At the south end of the Old Bridge, the Corridor has a deep deviation, having to skip the Mannelli Tower House, a very powerfull family who didn't want to have the corridor passing through their house, and Cosimo had to agree with them...

Symbol of power, cause connecting house and "office", and also because they were walking above the people, Medici used the Corridor not only to show off, but also to walk around the town safely and well protected.

Plus, opening the little oval windows they could hear city rumors, knowing in advance bad or good news.

Second-born of Cosimo, Ferdinand, decided to move away the smelly butchers and fishvendors by the Old Bridge, replacing them with precious gold and silver shops.

Now, Vasari Corridor hosts the most important selfportraits in the world - more than 2,000 paintings, from Titian to Chagall, from Giorgio Vasari himself to Antonio Canova, from Bernini to Jacques-Louise David, passing through centuries of art.

Mostly closed to the public, I am able to organize for you an unforgettable and private visit to this splendid sight of Florence.

The corridor

Spectacular views from the little "oculo" windows

Santa Felicita inside and Medici private stage

Cute balcony on the Ponte Vecchio

Bel San Giovanni

Bel San Giovanni - the Beautiful St. John . This is how Dante used to describe in the Divine Commedy our Baptistry consacrated to St. John the Baptist. One of the oldest building in town and the best example of romanesque art in the old downtown.

Here millions of florentines have been baptized, even Dante!

Since Sunday October 25th 2009 Baptistry and Duomo can get back to breath, cause our new mayor, Matteo Renzi, decided to close the entire square to the traffic - no more buses, cars, taxis, scooters... nothing! Just bikes and people walking around.

Could you believe that before that date 2100 buses passed by every day... 2100.

In terms of art, Baptistry is a real gem - outside incredible marble inlaid, inside spectacular gild mosaiques. A visit is a must. Not mentionning the outstanding doors casted by Ghiberti, well known all around the world.

Amazing mosaiques

Representation of Hell

Paradise Doors, casted by Ghiberti

Who belongs these heads?....