Enough superlatives
Fruity at Gelateria dei Neri
Bandying superlatives about ought not be done in Florence, I think, for no sooner do you put up a post about the best pistachio gelato you’ve ever had than off you are taken by a disgruntled Tuscan to a gelateria which will surely challenge such an erroneously misguided opinion. I ought to have learnt this lesson months ago, it has happened before…
Unwilling to accept defeat of the Il Tucano best, I stood my ground against both the implicit pressure from F to, go on, just have a little taste, and the one more demanding from the pistachio gelato frozen in a creamy swirl in a gleaming silver tub, and pointed a wavering finger at the chocolate and stracciatella, eyeing the mango and the melon all the while and calculating the walking distance from my place to Gelateria dei Neri (10 minutes), at Via dei Neri, 20/22r, and yes, (one of) the best gelateria in Florence.
Gelateria stand-off
Gelateria dei Neri
My eyes pop – yes, pop – when I get a lick of the chocolate, and am only vaguely aware of a tour group swirling around us with umbrellas and cameras as I go seriously internal. ‘A genius’, F says of Maurizio, the gelato maker. ‘Mm hm”, I mumble, distractedly collocating flavours for another cone, which I must say is the test: the smallest cone is usually more than enough unless the gelateria truly lives up to its superlative tag.
But I’m sticking to my guns about the pistachio.
Three bests
In Fiesole
Was today really the best teaching day I’ve ever had in Florence?
How is it possible to beat my Friday morning class, for example, with my 3-strong group of 11-year-old girls, who had made me exceedingly nervous on that oh-so-long-ago Monday last week when I faced them, my first class of children ever, for the first time: intelligent, lively and too adorable for words. Cut to eight hours later on Friday for our last lesson, and Teresa, Camilla and Elena had filled the blackboard with some beautiful chalk drawings and some stunning phrases in English, such as “I had hiccough yesterday!” and in Italian: TVB for “Ti voglio bene”. I had already asked the DOS the day before to leave some time free to look after them while I ran down Via dei Mille for gelato – stracciatella, mint, cream and chocolate – affirmed wide-eyed as their favourite flavours in the previous class – and if you haven’t seen three ethereal little girls devour a bowl of gelato that really ought to be remedied: spoons and hair flying everywhere, mint and stracciatella streaked cheeks, globs of chocolate on pretty dresses: fabulous! I had already gotten a bounty of kisses and hugs, sharp attention to grammar, spot-on wild animal memory, creative kangaroo colouring, and by the end of the class had added: a divine turtle eraser, which we christened Balu and created a history for, ie his favourite gelato and what he keeps inside his house; Cecità by the Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago; and some precious time with a pink sequinned hat – yeah!!!
Today was really quite special, however, starting with a panino and wine at a hole-in-the-wall eatery called I Due Fratellini in the centre of Florence, strictly on the sidewalk eating, then a meander around taking in the usual suspects while encouraging R, my student, in preparation for his trip to London to visit his girlfriend, to just hang with the language. Then a coffee at Caffe Florian, quite beloved in Florence and a must for the little chocolatey things one nibbles on, and the coffee of course, then surprise surprise, the rest of the time in beautiful, airy, light-flushed Fiesole – hence the reason for the phone call early on in the day asking me to bring my camera – wandering around the quiet, narrow streets taking in different panoramic views of Florence, a walk through a pine and oak forest, a drive through and around the area, including the long, narrow road that cuts through the valley and connects La Lastra to Fiesole.
Il Tucano, Via Antonio Gramsci, Fiesole
And the pistachio gelato at Il Tucano on Via Antonio Gramsci was the best I’ve had in Florence. A small cone is usually more than enough for me, but considering how good it was, I was seriously tempted to have another…
R, the law student
But what do I really need to say about R, who I’ve been teaching since February, in great hilarity usually, with independent bursts of laughter interspersed with great seriousness. The day – lunch, wandering around Florence, coffee and chocolate, Fiesole, gelato, a thoughtful travel book to end our time together – speaks for itself. Off he goes, to try and follow my instructions on how to get from Stansted to Liverpool Street to Holland Park, complete with tube maps, web shots, and an old Oyster card. Should his language skills fail him he has promised to call me from London to put whoever it is that’s making life difficult for him on to his teacher…
Nothing for it but a gelato
A steamy slow-moving Sunday afternoon in San Gimignano, with a lunch light enough to keep the senses alert – despite the glass of wine – among pots of red and pink oleander, shrubs of rosemary, a diffuse light filtering through the apricot trees, and lizards darting across the stone walls, glossing the edges of your vision with a flickering green. By this time, around 3, I think, a cool delicious wind occasionally.
While the cafe crowd around Piazza della Cisterna got somewhat agitated watching the World Cup, I enjoyed a pistachio gelato from the Gelato World Champion, 2006 to 2009, and was therefore on Sunday treated to, as promised, the best gelato not just in Tuscany or Italy but in The World. Crikey. How do they judge these things?
Vernaccia, Santa Fina, saffron, Etruscan and medieval history – things one ought to pay attention to in San Gimignano tussled with the easy tempo of the afternoon, but briefly, as the Tuscan I was with was as disinclined to do the historicultural tour thing as I was, and we were quite happy to simply gaze up at the towers and wander along the streets, which had a quality of magic to them somehow.
And on the walk trail outside the walls: stone steps descending onto a path strewn with pine needles, red poppies and pale yellow flowers I can’t name, cool shadows under the cypresses and pines, a bench, and views of Tuscany.
