Florence 🚆 Venice
Espresso and Cold Brew
La Marzocco brews with chrome interiors.
Ditta Artinginale, Via dei Neri 32/r aperto nel 2014
Today was our last full day in Florence, and we still had a few more museums to get out of the way before we felt like we had seen it all. First on the list was the San Lorenzo church, which was located not too far away from our hotel. The Church was the home church of the Medicis, and as such is the burial place of most of the principal members. This also contains the tomb of Donatello. Attached to the church was also a beautiful library with a lovely wood ceiling. The marble stairwell entryway and general architecture was designed by Michelangelo, which makes this a 2/4 on the Renaissance museum Ninja Turtle scale.
From here we decided to visit the Pitti Palace, located just south of the river. The palace was easily one of the largest museums we had seen in all of Europe and contained a elaborate garden. We felt like we had been transported to some kind of fairy tale as we walked along the hundreds of yards of dirt roads leading into trimmed hedges and sculpted fountains. There was also a substantial Treasury contains hundreds of gemstones, but we had little time or interest to go through them all.
Heading back to the train station, we ended up visiting another Ditta Artinginale. This one was one for the books. Yennie mentioned that this was perhaps her favorite coffee shop of all the ones we had been to on our trip. The interior was expertly designed, with two floors to sit. SF cafes want to be this cool. Their espressos were tasty, and their cold-brew used tonic instead of still water to add a little dimension, as well as a slice of orange for aromatics. We realized, probably too late, that south of the river in Florence is clearly where all the cool locals hang out, propping up their bikes against the curb to grab a quick bite, chat, and go on their day.
At the train station to Venice, we met up our friends from the Bay area, Isabelle and Wei-Wei, who were also traveling throughout Europe this summer, at Reale. We had some passable sandwiches and salads, and found it a great place to hang out while waiting for the train.
The train to Venice was uneventful, and after getting there, took a too-expensive bus boat to our new lodging, a convent on the south side of the city. We set our stuff aside and immediately went out to get some booze – Negronis again, but this time at a divey institution called Cantine del Vino già Schiavi. We had just enough cash to order two drinks and a few bites of tasty bruschetta.
At this point, we had only a few hours left in the day, and chose to walk through to St. Mark’s Square, known for its eager pigeon population (and Yennie’s personal nightmare). From there we got tasty Italian dinner at a cafe near the hotel and called it a night.
Strong Negroni
Strongest and cheapest Negroni in Italy, or at least Venice.
Cantine del Vino già Schiavi, Dorsoduro 992 fondamenta Nani
