Story: Food Fire and Florence

Travelling can be stressful enough, but when you are going on holiday with your ‘future mother-in-law’, as she insists on calling herself, things are different. This woman is beyond all rationality. When we arrive at Luton Louise is verbally assaulting everyone she can get her hands on. In the car park she phones some poor bloke and complains that there are not enough buses to the airport (the buses come every 10 minutes). She finds someone to attack at every stage of the check-in process, until one security guard has to take me to the side and warn me that “…if she doesn’t behave herself she’s not getting on the plane”. From then on it’s smooth-sailing. We hop on the plane and looking out the window I notice that we are leaving behind a sunny England.

Arriving in Pisa the weather is fantastically gloomy. We go to the Avis depot and rent a car that smells like feet. Sleeping all the way there, I am woken when we get into Florence and it smells even worse; the aroma has now evolved into a cross between wet dog and strong cheese. Normally forbidden from smoking around others, I am encouraged to light up so as to mask the stench.

We get lost trying to find the hotel and end up on an impossibly narrow street. We get stuck in a tricky spot in the face of approaching traffic and an Italian gent, called Mario, offers to get in and reverse the car out; I can only assume that it was his brother Luigi who expertly guided the oncoming transit van past.

As we arrive at our hotel, Villa San Michelle, which I have read somewhere is ‘the most extravagant hotel in Florence’, the car finally decides it’s had enough and sets itself on fire. Having just turned up at our posh hotel, admiring a fantastic view of the whole of Florence, all I can smell is burning Volkswagen.

They weren’t wrong about the hotel. We are given a guided tour before being shown to our huge room: two sinks, a massive bath, a TV that rises out of the dresser, Bulgari and Penhaligon’s wash kit; the list goes on. The bed is so vast that you can roll over 1.75 times before falling off. We decide to relax and have an amazing bath after the somewhat explosive trip.

Florence is very busy. I am not particularly fond of crowds or tourists, but unfortunately I can’t seem to get away from either- especially the latter, as I am one. The stress of crowds is further provoked by running out of cigarettes and only being able to find jewellery shops and souvenir stands.

Having arrived with no money I soon discover that Florence has no cash machines, and when the 99c store proves too expensive for shopping it is time to get a drink. I persuade someone to sponsor me and we kick back and enjoy a real Italian coffee.

After the trauma of tourism has passed and the nicotine and caffeine start to kick in, I can start to appreciate my surroundings. Florence is beautiful. It is exactly as I imagined- the narrow roads are full of small cars and there are Italians everywhere. The elegant Florentine architecture gives the city a curious artistic feel, and there is plenty to keep even the keenest culture-vulture content.

One day of our short visit was spent on a drive to Sienna. With hangovers all round, it was doomed from the start. Dave couldn’t handle the drive and stopped to be sick; this was particularly problematic as he has a phobia of vomit.

Rumour has it that Sienna is beautiful, but I couldn’t really tell you myself. The vast quantity of water pouring from the sky hampered any pre-lunch attempts at tourism, and after, when we found that the Torre Del Mangia (big cathedral tower) was closed, we called it a day. Consequently anything I could tell you about Sienna would simply be quoted from Wikipedia, so I won’t bother.

The hangovers stemmed from the night before. After dinner we decided to go exploring. We found the noisiest bar we could, which turned out to have the worst music- there was a man on a synthesizer doing his best to butcher the past 50 years of popular music. When we refused to pay for table service (having served ourselves) we were asked to leave.

Disheartened but quite merry, we were not to be defeated. Even in Florence we manage to find an Irish bar, and chatting to the barman I convinced him that we should get free shots for being Irish. This was to the contrary of what I later told the owner of the English bar, who gave us free shots for being English.

We then ventured down to Club Yab; all I can advise is DO NOT GO. My girlfriend got harassed while I was at the bar being over-charged for drinks, the music was terrible and when we decided we’d had enough we were told that we would have to pay €10 to leave the club. Apparently this is common practice in Italy, but by this point I was not a happy bunny and threw a bit of a strop.

To be honest though, I didn’t go to Florence for the clubbing. Food has got to have been the main reason I agreed to go to Italy, and is certainly the main reason I’d go back.

Pizza, as far as I’m concerned, is the food of the Gods and I promised myself that I would be eating it every day for breakfast. Oddly enough it was included in our hotel’s extravagant buffet; I would not, however, recommend dubious-looking cold buffet pizza for breakfast when hung-over. Not at Villa San Michelle anyway- 3/10.

For lunch in Florence there is no shortage of pizzerias. One such place we visited really brought a whole new meaning to the word cosy- our heads were getting knocked as the waiters walked by. Seeing that Florence is such a hot-spot for tourism we were careful when choosing where to lunch. We made a point of finding restaurants full of locals and although we succeeded we were never blown away. Save the proper gorging for dinner.

On the first night we went to a small family run restaurant, Trattoria Le Cave Di Maiano, up on the hill near to the hotel. We consumed an immense amount of food, with free tasters of almost the whole menu, all of which was very good. This bout of gluttony was followed by a gallon of complementary Limóncello and a few free bottles of wine.

The gastric highlight however had to be Trattoria 4 Leoni. We were told that the steak was particularly good here, so not wanting to be rude, we ordered 4 kilos of meat between eight of us. Absolutely obscene. And the rumours were true- it was spectacular.

It wasn’t until the journey home, having bickered with Avis over the problems with the car, that I discovered the best pizza of the trip and I’m sad to say it was from the airport- 8/10.

After a relatively hassle-free stroll onto the plane, looking out the window I noticed that we were leaving behind a sunny Italy. I slept all the way home, safe in the knowledge that I would never run out of Penhaligon’s shower gel or Bulgari soap.

Getting back to Clapham once we had landed proved harder than expected, mainly because Louise was in charge again. For some reason she refused to listen to the sat nav and decided to follow signs for Swiss Cottage instead. I have no idea why, apparently it had something to do with Chinese dumplings though.