Back on the saddle

Chasing cliches in Florence

Date: May 15 2025

The first day back on the newly reassembled bikes and it was surprisingly easy to slip back into riding a destra, trusting the Italian drivers — vigorous but respectful, with no close overtaking, no aggro, and now we feel ready to face the journey ahead.

We’ll be avoiding cities like the plague but we had to collect the essential clichés, like Jill with a few friends at the Duomo (guess why we avoid cities)
and me with the Ponte Vecchio in a brief moment when I was not being hassled by street vendors.

After the best meal ever at Dal Billy a couple of nights ago, and an excellent Napoli pizza — a crispy-based, sublime example of the dish — last night, we took a different approach. Tonight we grazed through the deli section of the local Coop supermarket to eat what regular citizens around here eat. This is our favourite way of getting to know a country. Any restaurant can create awesome food, but it doesn’t really tell you anything about the place — just as visiting the next cathedral, waterfall, or museum won’t either.

A lump of salami, some proper buffalo mozzarella, a wedge of Camembert, eggplant swimming in olive oil, a bit of focaccia, and we were done. Much happier than being fawned over in some restaurant.

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