Tuscany: Florence, San Gimignano and an early morning

On Tuesday, we drove to Empoli. We hadn't originally intended to stay in Empoli, our first reservation had been in a smaller, and probably more picturesque town. However, that reservation fell through (earning us a complementary $50 credit from AirBnb along the way) and when we rebooked we decided to instead stay in a town that was a short train ride from Florence, so that we wouldn't have to worry about parking in Florence. Jay and I live in fear of the notorious ZTLs of Italy (Zona Trafica Limite), where you need to have a particular permit in order to drive. They're a good idea, meant to keep traffic down in central areas, but we'd heard that they have a tendency to pop up out of nowhere and if you're not careful you'll find yourself in one with an expensive fine to look forward to once you get home. Any opportunity to avoid a ZTL was worth it. We decided to stay in Empoli, which is a suburb (sort of?) of Florence. We were staying in a huge house that could hold up to 7 people, but since it was new on AirBnb (though the host was not, I checked) it was pretty cheap for us to get.

Before getting to Empoli we drove through some of the more picturesque regions of Tuscany and stopped in the small down of San Gimignano, which is about as picturesque as they come. Unfortunately, this is not a new discovery, so it was pretty packed with tourists and we didn't stop for long. On the way to Empoli there were multiple places where I desperately wanted to stop and take pictures, but Jay was worried about us making it to our reservation in time, so I didn't. We got to our place, walked around  Empoli a little bit (Empoli is home to not one, but two gluten free grocery stores), bought groceries and returned home to cook. I decided to make something resembling my mom's pasta sauce: take the casing off some italian sausage (Which, no surprise, is way better in Italy than the Italian sausage we get in the US) and break it up into chunks in the pan while you brown it, then set the meat aside. Cook chopped garlic, onions and mushrooms until the mushrooms have lost most of their water, add back the meat, add crushed canned tomatoes, and a glug or two of red wine, let simmer for as long as you can stand it.  This is the stuff of my childhood and it never fails to make me smile. Add that to the fact that we found some really good GF pasta and it was a pretty great dinner. And we had leftovers!

A tower in Florence

On Wednesday we took the train in to Florence. We enjoyed walking around a bit, but it was hot. Possibly the hottest day of our entire trip (the only potential competitor would have been in the Mosel), and the place was packed. We went to the Uffizi, which involved a very long line. I got my fill of renaissance art and sculptures and Jay and I headed to lunch at an AIC pizzeria. Honestly, it was the most dissappointing lunch of Italy. It had good reviews, but they were mostly due to celiacs (who weren't spending two weeks hopping around Italy) who were so excited that they had gluten free pizza that they didn't realize they could have better (I think the best GF pizza I had was probably outside Verona). I don't blame them, I get the same way. After that we walked to an area that had a gluten free grocery that I'd had on my to do list since before we left the US. Turns out it was more of a bakery, but it was here that I found it: My unicorn. My holy grail.

A Gluten Free Croissant.

Go figure that the French would never dare sully their precious croissant by making it gluten free. The Italians, however, were happy to give it a shot, and I will confirm that it was delicious. It wasn't at all a perfect croissant, but it was close enough that I now believe such a thing may be possible and I'm excited to get back home and give it a shot in my own labora-I mean, kitchen.

After that we walked around the Duomo so that I could take lots of pictures, but we didn't go inside because it was at least a one hour wait, in the sun, and we weren't feeling Florence any more. On the way back to the train station we stopped at Grom, which was a gelato chain I'd seen before but hadn't had the chance to try. This was when I discovered that Grom is entirely gluten free. All their flavors are gluten free, including a tiramisu that has gluten free cookies in it, and their cones are all gluten free (and you wouldn't know it, they're flawless). So I, excitedly, got myself a big old cone of ice cream and contentedly savored it all the way back to the train station. By this  time on the trip I'd resigned myself to the fact that I was going to eat way too much, simply because there were too many things to pass up on. Judge if you will, but you try loving baked goods and ice cream as much as I do and then being told you can never have them again, only to discover a magical place where, for a brief time, you can consume without consequence. You'd go a little nuts too.

One of many shots of the Duomo in Florence 

After that it was back to Empoli and left over pasta for dinner. We went to be early, because over lunch that day we'd settled on the itinerary for he next day: We were going to wake up before sunrise to take pictures of Tuscany!

It wasn't until it was actually happening that Jay realized that getting up to take pictures of sunrise would mean that we had to be up, and driving, in the dark. We drove back toward San Gimignano, and there were more than a few very large trucks that were very annoyed with me for wanting to go the speed limit on unfamiliar winding roads in the dark. Let them be annoyed. At least we didn’t die.

We were getting close to San Gimignano when the sky started to lighten, so we stopped and got out the tripod.

This picture will be even better once I have a little time to fiddle with the exposure in photoshop. Totally worth getting up early.

We stopped one more time before we got to San Gimignano, and decided to wander the streets while it was a bit more empty. It was lovely, serene, and charming and we even found a place serving espresso. 

A tower at the front gate to San Gimignano

One of the almost empty streets of early morning San Gimignano

San Gimignano in the distance, with it's famous towers. Apparently their used to be over 70. Bickering Guelph and Ghibelline families in the middle ages (~1200-1300 AD)  kept building more and more as a sort of "Mine is bigger" contest until the city finally issued an order that no one was allowed to build a tower taller than the one adjacent to the Palazzo Communale.

After that we returned to Empoli to rest and be lazy. We ventured out for lunch, because we found that Empoli had an AIC Chinese restaurant, which seemed too rare an opportunity to pass up. It was delicious and our waitress was excited that we were American, which was cute. On the way back we got caught in the rain and fairly drenched. Little umbrellas can only do so much. After the rain had let up a little bit we popped over to the store to get groceries for dinner. We improvised a pasta dish with cooked peaches that came out way better than we thought it would. 

Next up: Ravenna!