Biking and Cooking in Florence

With only day to spend in Florence, Les and I decided to do something different in this completely different kind of town. Sure, it had the museums and artwork (which city doesn't in Europe) but we wanted to really make this city memorable. So, we decided to break the monotony and do some cool out-of-the-pamphlet activities we found at our hotel: bike around the city and an evening cooking class. Best decision. Ever. Plus, weather has cleared up and rain is not in the picture...a nice breather after last night's rain scare.

Since the biking thing started in the afternoon, we spent the morning at the huge church in the middle of the city, called the Duomo (as in Domo Arigato). Its significance lies in the fact that it took about 800 years to completely finish or something. It's basically a huge green monstrosity that sits in the middle of town, with a dome that is about 20 stories high. We ended up lining up in some random line that took up the top of the dome through some tiny staircase and steep climbs that sorta resembled cave climbing. Don't go if you're clausterphobic. 463 steps, 2x as many steps as the Arc in Paris. Not a good idea for 10am and without lunch. At least you can see all of Florence from the roof, which is pretty nice.

Side note: it seems that the one thing Italy has a lot of is graffiti...on trains, buildings, churches, Duomos. No one seems to care. I am tempted to sign our names, but something about doing that on a historic church seems wrong. Plus, I don't want to have to worry about traveling back to Florence to remove the curse should something happen.

After the Duomo, we hit the Old Bridge that spans the river...basically a bridge that all these stores and jewelers sit on. It is famous for the statue of a guy on the center with a small iron gate around it. Well, on this gate lies the Wall of Locks, with many many small locks that couples sign their names onto, lock it onto the gate, and throw the key into the river. Supposedly means forever love from a folk tale, but I think it just means big money for the local lock salesman.

Ok, now bike riding time is up and we meet our tour guide at the store front in the middle of town. 4 riders and a guide total. Now this is the actual cool part. For 2 hours, our guide (who actually happens to be from Oakland, CA, went to Cal in 1998 when I graduated, and studied art or something) takes us around the small city of Florence on our pee wee herman bikes to check out and detail some history behind the city. Couple of cool tidbits: 1) 3 main families still run the city (politically, financially, like the Godfather), 2) Ferragamo, Prada, Gucci, are from Florence, and 3) the Old Bridge survived WWII and Hitler's wrath because he liked it and didn't want to bomb it to kingdom come. Bike rides through a town are actually pretty fun...just make sure you don't get into any accidents like the one that Les almost got into.

Finally, the cooking class part is actually the best part of the evening. We rush over to our meet point and find another 20 or so other people waiting for class. We head across the river to a cooking class kitchen where we break into 4 small groups of 6 ppl or so. For 4 hours, we learn how to make meatball zucchini appetizers, potato gnocchi, tomato sauce, and tiramisu. After which, we get to sit down and eat our own meal with some wine. I guess if you want to pay 60 Euro for food, why not make it yourself, right? The cool part are meeting people on your station...2 from England (Nigel and Sally - really typical British names, isn't it?), 2 from Toronto (Rinaldo and Leslie too...who met online, he's the jokester, she's the in-charge one...sounds like a couple we know... but funny thing is that he's also an Accenture guy so we have a tons to talk about).

Night ends, full from dinner, we head back home. I think it's Monday now? Tomorrow morning, off to last stop, Rome.