The best pizza in Florence

Wednesday June 1^st

I can’t believe that it is June already!  We left home in March, and here it is June.  It has been a long interesting trip.  Today was very exciting because Paul joined us for the last legs of the trip – Florence and Rome.  We have a lot of fun things planned for the next few days, including one of Katie’s picks – going to see the leaning Tower of Pisa.   Florence has only a small airport, so Paul had connect from Newark to Munich and then Munich to Rome.  He left home on Tuesday at 12:30 pm to drive to Newark and pulled up outside our apartment here in Florence at 1pm on Wednesday.

But no rest for the weary, it was too late in the day to let him take a nap.  Literally five minutes after he arrived, I was telling him, “If we leave right now, we can make it to the best pizzeria in Florence before they end their lunch hours.  They close at 2:30, so we need to get there by 1:30!!!!”  He looked at me quite dazed and asked, “OK, but can I at least go the bathroom first?”  Necessities taken care of, we were out the door by 1:10 and on the bus at 1:12.  We jumped off at a nearby stop and pulled him through the streets of Florence to Il Pizzaiuolo.

How did I know this has the best pizza in Florence?  Well of course, each person has their own opinions, but I am relying on the opinion of an art history professor who is a friend of a friend of mine, and has been living here in Florence for a year.  We are meeting up on Saturday, and in the meantime he recommended a few restaurants for us.  I have to say, this recommendation really lived up to the hype.

Il Pizzaiuolo is a relatively small and not at all fancy restaurant in Florence, and off the beaten track.  You definitely would not just happen upon it by accident.  It has weathered wooden table and paper placemats.  We were lucky enough to get a table right next to the brick pizza oven and the pizza making counter.  We could watch the chef take a piece of dough, stretch it into a dinner plate sized pizza and cover it with toppings. My favorite topping to watch him apply was the mozzarella.  He would take a fresh ball of mozzarella and pull hunks off and put them right on the pizza in big pieces.  He used a big wooden paddle to place the pizzas in the wood burning brick oven where they cooked up quite quickly, all warm and bubbly.

Katie had a pizza with sausage, but it turned out the sausages looked like giant pepperonis, all greasy and delicious.  Paul had a pizza with prosciutto and scrambled egg.  Mine had prosciutto and basil. They were so delicious!!  I can’t even begin to describe how wonderful it was.  Every bite you sunk your teeth into you just wanted to stop and moan, “this is sooooo good.”  We dawdled over our lunch finally managing to eat almost every delicious piece.  Six hours later as I am writing this, I still feel full.   We enjoyed talking and catching up with each other. Finally long done and plates cleared away, Paul asked, “Aren’t they going to bring our bill?” Katie and I told him that would be so rude of the waiter to rush us in our meal.  Bring our bill while the conversation is flowing so freely - that would be unthinkable.  Ready to go, we settled the bill and headed on our way.

We headed into the main historical center of town to show Paul the sights of Florence. We headed first for the Duomo.  Katie and I had not gone t the top of the dome and definitely wanted to do that today. The line was not bad at all and we soon set up the 463 steps.  Amazing, you first come out from the staircase not at the top of the outer dome, but at the inside of the inner dome and circle around the interior of the church itself, pressed up against the interior walls of the dome, allowing a bird’s eye view of the murals on the interior walls. You could see the odd pairing of Jesus and Mary with the father of the Greek gods, Kronos with his hourglass.  It was very interesting, but the longer we stayed on the catwalk the more nervous I became.

I was relived to move off the catwalk and into the open space between the inner and outer domes as we continued our ascent.  We could see the inner dome crowning as we got higher and higher, and next thing we knew, we were literally walking on stair cut into the roof of the inner dome itself. We marched right up the inner dome, up another set of stirs and emerged onto the tip top of the Duomo itself. The views were stunning. Only from up here can you truly appreciate the sprawling beauty of Florence set in its Tuscan hillside location.  It takes your breath away.

The walk down was much easier than up, and too soon we found ourselves on the confusing streets of Florence again.  We strolled down to the river for view of Ponte Vecchio and then back up to the market area.  We did indulge in some leather goods this time.  I bought a wonderful new wallet, Katie bought leather bracelets for herself and her friends that read “Italia”. Paul though about looking for a belt, but by now he was starting to fade and quickly gave up, claiming it was too complicated.

We decided to call it a day and headed back home, but with a quick stop for gelato.  Today’s flavors were: Frutti di Bosco and Strawberry (Katie), Frutti di Bosco and Lemon (Paul) and Strawberry and Canteloupe (Amy). The canteloupe was very canteloupey! Overall we had a great day and are thrilled to have Paul with us again.