Travelling when it's cold can be a burden more than a pleasure to someone, definitely not for me. Though I prefer the warmer weather, sometimes putting on my prettiest set of hat and gloves and getting on a train makes me feel like a girl from one of those black&white movies with those long emotional goodbyes at the train station. And that's exactly how I feel everytime I go to Florence.
Last tuesday I got on the train pretty early, trying to avoid the rush hours and I found a little spot just for me, where I could take a short nap between the pages of a book that I just can't seem to get through.
Once in Florence, I struggled for a minute to find the right bus to the square where I had planned to meet two family friends, a lovely couple born and raised in Florence, who wanted to show me around their neighbourhood. After a couple of failed attempts I was off to San Frediano.
I loved the neighbourhood right as I arrived. Even though the sky was grey, the place seemed peaceful and definitely far from the chaos of the center. As I enjoyed the cold breeze and the silence, broken only by two friends trying to communicate from two opposite buildings, my friends arrived. Their smile is definitely one of the main attraction of Florence, take note tourists!
Alessandro looks enthusiast to show me their favourite streets and corners of a place they knows so well, so I follow in silence, letting him be my tourist guide for the day.
First stop? The Filofficina, a bike-shop where a young historical-bikes enthusiast fixes them and brings these beauties back to life.
Walking through San Frediano, it's easy to see that the passion for these bikes is a neighbourhood thing. Every corner hosts laboratories of painters, sculptors or antiques dealers and each one has a bike parked in front of its windows.
As we walk I can't stop thinking that Florence is too often seen as an open air museum, with its churches and statues perfectly placed in the centre just to be admired by tourists but the true beauty of this city and its citizens is what lies behind the closed doors of a cloister, in the backyards, in the narrow streets where you could easily get lost.
As we walk we start to feel a little hungry and we head to the beautiful trattoria I saw right in front of my bus stop, in a corner that looked like an old postcard from the 1960s, Alla Vecchia Bettola.
For those of you who speak Italian, the name of the restaurant will not seem attractive at all but that has nothing to do with the rustic charme of the place.
When we get inside, the cooks are still cutting and peeling veggies around the table, laughing and joking and I realize the restaurant is managed all by family members.
While the staff is finishing their chores, the owner sits with us at the table and offers us a glass of local red wine and the intention of telling us stories about the place.
This used to be a poor neighbourhood, where people made their best to get by, building up cooperatives that helped hundreds of people to live recycling the waste or selling the fruits rejected in the big stores, just like the owner's mother did. His father, instead, owned a boat that he used to carry people frome one bank of the Arno river to the other before they built the Vespucci bridge.
He told us that even when he got a job as a postman he continued to help her, not only to save some more money, but to continue to partecipate to the amazing life of San Frediano.
Then he had the oportunity to manage a post-work recreational club of the Postal Service and so he started his family adventure in the catering field, untill few years later when they were forced to move but luckily one of his most loyal clients proposed him to buy and renovate a fruit shop he owned and that was the restaurant in which we were talking and drinking in that exact moment.
As we spoke I understood that his first concern is to continue the great tradition of the simple, rustic but high quality local cuisine, as a way to preserve the history of Florence and, consequently, of his family. I couldn't agree more.
Also I couldn't be more hungry and eager to taste some of the delicious dishes my friends recommended me.
Less talking, more chewing, much more happiness for me and my palat with an amazing leek soup and the "Penne alla Bettola", invented by the chef.
With our belly full and a smile on our faces we say goodbye to our wonderful hosts and we sail to other adventures around Florence, knowing that one of the next tuesdays, maybe, we will be back to have lunch and listen to another story.
Last tuesday I got on the train pretty early, trying to avoid the rush hours and I found a little spot just for me, where I could take a short nap between the pages of a book that I just can't seem to get through.
Once in Florence, I struggled for a minute to find the right bus to the square where I had planned to meet two family friends, a lovely couple born and raised in Florence, who wanted to show me around their neighbourhood. After a couple of failed attempts I was off to San Frediano.
I loved the neighbourhood right as I arrived. Even though the sky was grey, the place seemed peaceful and definitely far from the chaos of the center. As I enjoyed the cold breeze and the silence, broken only by two friends trying to communicate from two opposite buildings, my friends arrived. Their smile is definitely one of the main attraction of Florence, take note tourists!
Alessandro looks enthusiast to show me their favourite streets and corners of a place they knows so well, so I follow in silence, letting him be my tourist guide for the day.
First stop? The Filofficina, a bike-shop where a young historical-bikes enthusiast fixes them and brings these beauties back to life.
Walking through San Frediano, it's easy to see that the passion for these bikes is a neighbourhood thing. Every corner hosts laboratories of painters, sculptors or antiques dealers and each one has a bike parked in front of its windows.
As we walk I can't stop thinking that Florence is too often seen as an open air museum, with its churches and statues perfectly placed in the centre just to be admired by tourists but the true beauty of this city and its citizens is what lies behind the closed doors of a cloister, in the backyards, in the narrow streets where you could easily get lost.
As we walk we start to feel a little hungry and we head to the beautiful trattoria I saw right in front of my bus stop, in a corner that looked like an old postcard from the 1960s, Alla Vecchia Bettola.
For those of you who speak Italian, the name of the restaurant will not seem attractive at all but that has nothing to do with the rustic charme of the place.
When we get inside, the cooks are still cutting and peeling veggies around the table, laughing and joking and I realize the restaurant is managed all by family members.
While the staff is finishing their chores, the owner sits with us at the table and offers us a glass of local red wine and the intention of telling us stories about the place.
This used to be a poor neighbourhood, where people made their best to get by, building up cooperatives that helped hundreds of people to live recycling the waste or selling the fruits rejected in the big stores, just like the owner's mother did. His father, instead, owned a boat that he used to carry people frome one bank of the Arno river to the other before they built the Vespucci bridge.
He told us that even when he got a job as a postman he continued to help her, not only to save some more money, but to continue to partecipate to the amazing life of San Frediano.
Then he had the oportunity to manage a post-work recreational club of the Postal Service and so he started his family adventure in the catering field, untill few years later when they were forced to move but luckily one of his most loyal clients proposed him to buy and renovate a fruit shop he owned and that was the restaurant in which we were talking and drinking in that exact moment.
As we spoke I understood that his first concern is to continue the great tradition of the simple, rustic but high quality local cuisine, as a way to preserve the history of Florence and, consequently, of his family. I couldn't agree more.
Also I couldn't be more hungry and eager to taste some of the delicious dishes my friends recommended me.
Less talking, more chewing, much more happiness for me and my palat with an amazing leek soup and the "Penne alla Bettola", invented by the chef.
With our belly full and a smile on our faces we say goodbye to our wonderful hosts and we sail to other adventures around Florence, knowing that one of the next tuesdays, maybe, we will be back to have lunch and listen to another story.
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