I went to Florence! Or more accurately, I ate my way in and out of the beautiful Italian city. George, being the angel that he is, gifted me a trip to Florence for my 21st birthday! So we packed up our things one Thursday night and flew over Friday morning, for what would become a truly gluttonous trip.
Aside from all of the amazing cafes and trattorias, Florence is home to the Mercato Centrale - a huge food market with some of the freshest and most delicious street food you can get. Now, if you've been here a while, you'll know I love me a market so on our third day we set off in the snow for lunch.
Walking down the Piazza del Mercato Centrale to get the market is a nice build-up for the hustle and bustle of the inside. The stalls of hawkers line the streets leading up the grand entrance of the old building. First built in 1874 by Giuseppe Mengoni, the market had its 140th anniversary in the Spring of 2014 when the first floor was reopened to the public as part of a project launched by Claudio Cardini. The San Lorenzo neighbourhood is now alive with the people rushing in to grab something to eat.
So what was available to eat? Everything! From all the pizza and pasta under the sun to all the wine you could ever want to pair with it. From vegan burgers to stalls that only sold bistecca. There seemed to be panini for days and truffle adorning every other dish. This is my idea of heaven! From this delicious spread, what did we eat? To keep it simple we ate everything! Or we tried to at least... we shared tortelloni, pizza, one massive arencine, and two tiny cannelloni.
I still can't get over how amazing this market was and it's definitely been added to my ever growing list of food markets visited. Thank you, Florence, for being an amazing little city with so much for us to pig out on - we've loved every minute of it!
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Mid Autumn Festival approaches, and the time comes for me to shove an ungodly amount of mooncakes into my mouth. But, before we dive into the cosy autumn months, let's take a quick look at this past summer through the lens of food!