Villa la Pergola

I realized there had been promise of descriptions of the Villa we stayed in..and I had not delivered.  We stayed at Villa la Pergola, in a town outside of Firenze, San Martino Alla Palma.  It was near the top of a mountain/hill (hard to do in a stick-shift van with little to no power)... about 15 minutes to the electric train in Scandicci that took us into the heart of Firenze.  All in all, it was actually a lot easier to get in and out of Firenze to the villa than I thought it would be.  Between driving down the mountain/hill, and taking the electric train (2 euro one-way I think, very reasonable), it took about 40 minutes or so to get into downtown.

It was a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom villa, with a hot tub, a pool, and a wonderful view from the table you see below.  It was fantastic.  And the chairs, tables, etc were all made by the owner - pretty incredible. 

This is the view of the back of the house, which is actually were our door was.  We were on the bottom level on the left.  Two of the bedrooms were upstairs though.  The kitchen had essentially everything you would need to cook.  We even had a welcome bottle of wine on the table.

The table with the view overlooking Firenze and the surrounding area.  The pool was directly out of this picture to the right.  There were olive trees, and it was just beautiful.  The family business is ceramics, so the table was their own design and make.

This was the view at night.  Under the moon, there is a dome-like light, that's the Duomo in Firenze.  Not too bad. 

I highly recommend staying here.  The owner was very helpful with information and recommendations.  They have a couple of units that they rent, and they live upstairs which means they are available if something comes up. 

Hopefully I will finish up the last of the trip (in much delayed fashion) into Dublin soon!

**FYI, here is the website of the villa -- http://www.villalapergola.com/**

Firenze - Land of meat, pasta, and pizza...

We arrived in Firenze (Florence) on September 14.  It was the longest part of our trip, and supposedly what was to be our most relaxing city.  We rented a villa (more to be posted later with a couple of overall views - it was pretty amazing)... rented a car (I stand corrected, a 9 passenger VAN with a stick shift)... and toured Italy.  That's where our culinary adventure began as well.  Let me introduce you to some of the amazing deliciousness of Italy (albeit - a small flavor)...

Just to provide proof that we were in fact in Firenze.  Here is our first sight of the Duomo as we came in from the train station.

Our villa (sorry to tease, there will be more later on the villa) was situated just up the road from San Martino alla Palma, about 45 minutes outside of Firenze.  When we asked for a supermarket, we were told to go to (phonetically) "ibercompt".... apparently that translates to ipercoop.  It was insane... It was like a Walmart Supercenter, but different.  There were other shops there, outside of the grocery store.  One of the ipercoops that we went to had a shoe store, an electronics store, and a lingerie store.  I mean, what else do you need?  Upon entering though - this is the sight that we saw ---- meat (prosciutto in mass quantities....) and salamis.  It was so weird.  And, you must wear gloves whenever you touch produce lest you be met with angry stares.

Down our street from our villa, there was a pizza place that we went to our first night.  While we all ordered pizza, Katie ordered pesto pasta which was pretty fantastic.  I decided I needed to document the wonders of Italian pasta...

Down in the heart of Firenze, having a bite to eat and a glass of wine.  Sitting on the piazza and watching as people walk by.

Palazzo Vecchio as seen through wine... Yumm!

Again, Katie gets the most exciting and delicious meals.  We didn't quite know what to make of it.

We ended up at the pizza place down the hill more than once.  Here is a sampling of the pizzas we had, and they were amazing.  The crust is the real winner here - and us who ate it of course.