Secret Bakeries, Cathedrals & Aperitivos in Florence
Our trip to the glorious city of Florence got off to a bumpy start when we realized that our bus, which we thought left at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon, was in fact scheduled to depart at 2am!
Luckily, Izzy pointed out our mistake in the nick of time. After a quick beer with some of our dear friends, we started on the four-mile hike to the bus station from downtown. Despite the midnight hour, the beach was packed with late-night fisherman and the Promenade des Anglais overflowed with boisterous tourists. In a surprising move for me and Lauren, we made it to the bus stop with an hour to spare! We panicked slightly when the bus didn’t arrive early, but at 2am on the dot the Eurolines coach pulled up and we took the last two seats available, directly behind the drivers.
It was incredibly difficult to sleep since the bus was freezing and the windshield focused the passing streetlamps and headlights on our closed eyelids. I was just about to curse the passengers with shaded seats, but I held my tongue as I watched the sunrise over the Tuscan hills on Easter morning. For any of you that haven’t traveled in Tuscany, it’s a region where everything the sun touches is tinted rose gold, where everything shimmers and shines. I took a quiet moment of reflection as I watched that pink orb cast daylight over the countryside and thanked the universe for providing such a profound experience.
We arrived in Florence at 7:30am exhausted and hungry. We sat at a caffè and nibbled on pastries and the chocolate bunnies sent all the way from America. After a little relaxation in the early morning sunshine, we embarked on the two-mile trek to our hostel. Due to a lack of sleep and our previous hike to the bus stop, we were starving by 10am so we stopped to snack on baguette, tapenade, and veggies outside of a church along the way. We got many smiles from Firenze natives headed to church and the atmosphere of the city was immediately friendly and safe. On the way to the hostel, we found an empty park with a swing set, so we stopped to play for a moment. There was something so comforting about reliving my childhood memories of Easter morning, often spent swinging in the park outside of the church, in a whole new country.
On Wednesday night, we met up with family friends for an aperitivo. The aperitivo is a lovely Italian tradition where you pay for a cocktail drink and get unlimited helpings of a “snack buffet,” usually piled high with pizza squares, pasta, rice dishes, meat dishes and bread! It’s a great way to save money on a filling and delicious meal, especially in a city where pretty much everything is expensive, from food to museum entrance fees. In fact, Lauren, Izzy and I liked it so much that we went to a different on one Thursday afternoon! Freddy and Nic showed us some of the haunts they frequented while living in Florence, and then they introduced us to Florence’s greatest hidden treasure: secret bakeries.
Apparently, certain bakeries bake pastries for large stores or restaurants and aren’t allowed to sell their delicious, fragrant, airy delicacies to people on the street…unless you go between the hours of 2 and 4am, are very quiet, and pay in cash. Freddy led us to one not far from one of the bars and bought us each a Nutella pastry hot from the oven. I swear to you, nothing in my entire life has tasted as good as that pastry from the secret bakery. The melted Nutella. The buttery crust. The dusted sugar. I mean, sure, maybe part of it was so delicious because it tasted of sneakiness and technically illegally purchased goods, but I’m pretty sure most of it was just Nutella.