Many years ago, if there was a special meal to be had with in my in-laws family, the eaterie of choice was The Pinewood hotel in Handforth. It made mealtimes special because they had things like waiters in tuxedos, they had a separate wine waiter, and a bloke playing the piano in the dining room. And fancy food.
One Sunday we rocked up and surveyed the menu, and there was something I saw which I hadn't noticed before and thought it sounded like it might be nice. Steak Tartare. What's not to like? It's steak, and, er, tartare sauce (isn't that usually what you have with fish and chips).
So I ordered it.
At this point my mum leaned over and asked if I realised I'd just ordered raw meat.
So if she hadn't done that, and this beautifully created Steak Tartare had arrived, how would I have dealt with it? There'd have been nothing wrong with it other than me not knowing what it was. I couldn't send it back because it was faulty could I....? I may have enjoyed it.
Hold that thought.
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On our first night in Florence we had really enjoyed simply wandering around this beautiful medieval city. Knowing that the State Art Galleries and Museums would be open for free on the Sunday (it being the first Sunday in the month) we thought we'd spend the day doing some more meandering.
After a rather splendid breakfast, we went up to have a look at the roof terrace. As you can see the weather looked pretty good. I left my coat and opted to go with a jacket and scarf. I thought I looked very Italian...tweedy jacket, flowery shirt, scarf, brogues......ciao!
Not bad, eh? That's lovely! The view isn't bad either.
We then set out to explore the city. We went to the Duomo but it was packed, we went the New Market - "Mercato Nuovo". Don't you love it when they have a name like that for something is 4 or 500 years old.
In the Mercato Nuovo is a boar - Il Porcellino. It is lucky to touch his snout and drop a coin from his tongue. He's wearing well considering people have been touching him for nearly 400 years.
We then headed towards the river and the Ponte Vecchio. A famous bridge which used to contain craftsmen producing exquisite jewellery, and now is a tourist trap selling expensive watches and jewellery that looks like it's from a christmas cracker.
In the middle of the bridge is a statue and the now ubiquitous love locks attached to the railings. There is some historic tech to see though
A renaissance satellite dish.
We then headed to the artisan quarter which, frankly, was cobblers.
Ha! See what I did there?
We wandered around for quite a while, taking in more meandering streets, and a couple of markets.
The weather was getting a bit poor, so we started back past the Ponte Vecchio towards our hotel. Continuing to enjoy the city.
Ponte Vecchio and Ufiizi with storm clouds brewing.
We picked up some scrummy pizza and took it back to the hotel.
After a rest we headed out for some tea and found another local Trattoria. Full of Americans it turned out. This was where I had my dining event.
The menu had many of the things you'd expect to see in a good Italian eating house, but I thought I'd try something a little, but not too, different. On the menu was something called Spaghetti with a red wine sauce - "Drunkhard spaghetti" it said helpfully. Ok, so it wasn't a wildly left field choice, but given the lasagne, and fettuccini also available I thought I'd give it a go.
Now I don't drink alcohol. This isn't for any sinister reason, I just stopped a few years ago and couldn't be bothered starting again. Even when I did drink I didn't like wine. So when my main meal arrived I was a little surprised to find a pile of spaghetti swimming in what was effectively red wine. What should I do? There was nothing wrong with the meal other than I didn't much care for it. I couldn't really send it back for technical reasons, so I battled through, and while disappointing, didn't ruin the holiday. Gave me something to write about, eh? Anything, no matter how bad, can be used for blog copy.
We left the trattoria and went for another walk. There was a big square close by and there was a deal of noise coming from it so we went to investigate. It turns out it was the start of a 13k night race, so we hung about and watched the start. This was 9pm.
Go!
We hung about for a bit, and then we headed back via our favourite gelateria and a well earned sleep.
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