I am here to say that the morning after the meal of your lifetime is a slow one. If this were a weekend day back home, it would be the kind of day that you stay home and just chill out in your PJs all day and continue to let your food digest. However, we were staring down the barrel of our last day of vacation, which was sobering and a relief at the same time as you are starting to wonder ‘Um, how much weight have I really gained?’ However, you just don’t want to spend your last day of vacation floating around your apartment in Florence in your PJs. Actually, you kind of do – so a good compromise is to make an easy day. On the agenda for the day was just a little shopping for leather goods, packing, and then a dinner at Trattoria 13 Gobbi, one of our favorite restaurants in Florence.
But first coffee! We headed back down the corner Gelato place to try their coffee and pastries. This place had seating right in the shadow of the Duomo – with prices to match. We paid about 2x – 3x the amount for one cappuccino that we paid at any other place on our trip. Which, sadly, is the same amount we pay back home at any Starbuck’s type of coffee place. But here, it is shocking as you are used to being able to put down your 2 Euro coin and have that be more than enough for a most excellent cappuccino.
So after waiting a long time at a non-busy counter while the Barista slowly worked through the other person’s order, we were finally helped. We purchased 2 cappuccinos and 2 pastries and it was something outrageous like 25 Euro. When we sat down with it at our little outdoor table and looked at the bill, we could see they had overcharged us and we also paid for another woman’s order. We flagged someone over to explain this was a problem and he said, ‘Oh, can we offer you a couple of Tiramisu?’ Me in my head: ‘Sure, I was just thinking that I was craving a Tiramisu to go with my morning coffee and pastry. Not.’ Me verbally: ‘Um, no, we just want our money back, thanks.’ So, as we sat there sipping our weak cappuccinos, he went back and brought us refund for the overcharging and a little extra. Because the coffees tasted so weak, we decided to take that money and invest it back in the other coffee shop we had liked from the day before.
We headed in the direction of that coffee shop and it again was feeling muggy, the sky was overcast. It was a fitting end to the trip – just sort of a cloudy, gloomy day that looked like it would finally bring rain to the drought they were having and also relieve some of the humidity in the air.
I was on a mission for leather, so after our second cappuccino at the other coffee shop we headed in the direction of the shop I had been eyeing while we were in Florence. The guy in there was very patient to show me several options and at the same time assure me of his leather quality. You just don’t know – at this point, right? I mean it looks like good quality, it smells like good quality, and it seems to be a good leather shop – so you just have to trust it. Still, it feels like car shopping. At one point he said to me, “I need a smoke and a coffee. You stay here in my shop with the leather and I will bring you a cappuccino.’ Okay, why not, I’ll take a 3rd of the morning. The parallels were similar in a car shop, right? ‘Can I bring you a drink? A coffee?’
He returned with my cappuccino and then he went back outside to have his smoke while I scanned the leather options. I finally decided on my purchases and he was over exaggerated in the way he was assuring me I was not getting ripped off and he was offering me deals, etc. I walked out of there not knowing for sure, but was happy with my purchases and for having that checked off o my list. I am not a ‘shopper’ – so I have little bandwidth for long negotiated shopping processes. We headed back to the apartment as the sky looked like it could break out in rain at any moment and I didn’t want my new leather getting drenched. By now it was around 12:30pm, and we thought it would be a good window to pack while we waited for the rain to pass through.
We got most of our packing done and our clothes laid out for the next morning. With a 3:30am wake-up the next morning, we wanted to do as much in advance as possible. After we got to a good place, we went out again with our umbrellas and shopped some more. By 3:30pm, we were ready for a bite so popped into ‘Eataly’ a fun beautifully laid out Italian marketplace with locations around Italy, Europe, and a few popping up in the U.S. (I just looked on-line and saw they will be opening a Century City location in the fall of 2017. Hooray for a little slice of Italy close to home.)
We grabbed lunch at Eataly – a pizza of sorts for Dana and a big bready pizza bread sandwich for me. It was heaven. Imagine a great pizza crust with good lettuce and meat on it, that was it. Basically the meat and lettuce were just good covering for the fact that I wanted to eat a big piece of bread for lunch on my last day in Italy. After lunch we popped into an Italian card store so that I could pick up an officially Italian thank you card for Jay. It was the least I could do is to write out my gratitude on some fancy Italian note card.
Soon enough it was time to head back and get ready for dinner. Our dinner reservation was for 7:30pm and we wanted to leave the apartment around 7pm. Our last exit out of the apartment had us laughing at the lock system of the apartment which was a little over the top, but I’m sure at the level that would make my mother happy to know how locked in we were each night.
By now the rain had passed through and it was a pleasant early evening to stroll to dinner and to sit with the feeling that this was it, our last evening stroll, our last dinner in Italy. Again you are ready for it to be over and go home and at the same time you don’t want it to end.
We arrived at 13 Gobbi and they put us near the middle of the restaurant – as it seems they seat from the back to the front as the evening progresses and the real Italians start pouring in around 9pm are seated mostly up front. At the 7:30pm hour we were surrounded by other ‘early bird’ travelers who also perhaps had a 3:30am wake-up like us or were eating with lively children (also the case).
Regardless, lots can be solved with a great waiter, good atmosphere, good wine, and delicious authentic Italian food. All of this was offered in spades at 13 Gobbi. We thoroughly enjoyed our last dinner and were looking forward to getting back to the apartment to finish the berry tart from the night before that we had brought home. When the waiter asked if we wanted dessert, we explained no dessert because of our berry tart back at the apartment.
Well, don’t think an Italian waiter who you’ve already told that you are celebrating your 50th birthday on this trip and this is your last night in town is going to let you walk out of there with out a dessert on the house. Within minutes he brought over a huge platter with two desserts, their signature chocolate cake and cheese cake and candles and his version of 50 squirted out from a chocolate sauce bottle penned on the plate.
What could we do? We just went with it and embraced it of course. As I had done the honors the night before with the candles on the tart, I had Dana blow out the candles on this dessert. After she blew out the candles, we both eyed the dessert and said, ‘Wow, we are so full, I don’t think we can eat this.’ Again, we were faced with the after-Italian-dinner-too-full-for-dessert dilemma. And again, somehow we found room.
After the meal, we paused for a few souvenir last pictures out in front of the restaurant and began our walk home. Along the way, we took little detours to enjoy the evening. We even saw a store that only had one big neon ‘Triangle’ in it, and we felt that was a sign of our future headquarters for our two-decade-and-going Triangle (Dana, Lisa, and Louise).
We showered and were in bed by 12:30am and set every alarm we had for 3:30am. You just don’t want to miss your taxi that is coming at 4:20am, as that could set off a string of missed flights and connections. No, we wouldn’t let that happen. We would just hope for sleep on the flight home and at least three hours of rest on this night. I guess you could say, we officially burned the candle to the very end, even beyond the very last birthday wish candles, and were hoping for a power 3-hour rest. Um, not so much….
