Lovely view of Colchester

Presenting to you a lovely view of Colchester town, I walked past this on my way to town :)
It's really pretty in real life and it leads into Castle Park.
Not been updating much in the last two weeks and have been really busy.
On call this whole week with 13 hours shift. Thank goodness for weekend breaks.
Was on Oxford last weekend and met up with my cousins! very happy! Attended the Oxford beer festival
and also ran and completed the Oxford Half marathon, very proud of myself, but could hardly walk for two days after as was in so much pain.
So now I am completely free this weekend, left on my own and very bored!
Anyway I've put off writing about my holiday for so long that I'm starting to forget what I've done!

Florence Day 3- 17th Settembre 2012- Part 1

By day 3, I was starting to run out of ideas on what to do in Florence!

I've been here last year, so I've visited all the museums etc, and Florence isn't a very big city to explore either.

Woke up late as usual, laze around at home, and decided to go out for a walk around the city, and ended up in a wine shop!! 

Time for some wine tasting! Especially all the famous wines produced in the Chianti region.

I was hanging around chatting to all these Italian in the wine shop, and having a good time drinking.

My first glass of wine was really cheap, and it didn't taste so good.

Decided to try the wine of the day- white wine next, after recommendation from Giuseppe.

Gisueppe runs a restaurant business in the city. 

I also asked them for recommendation on where to have lunch, and the wine shop owner suggested a place called Trattoria Gozzi in nearby San Lorenzo market.

Met some Korean girls who were on vacation and visiting Florence. The girl on my right, she was telling me how her purse got stolen in Milan. Poor girl :( I told her to becareful as my passport was stolen in Barcelona previously. I recommended them the white wine, and we were sitting there chatting about Korea and K-pop bands. They said they were so happy to have met me! hahaha :D

LOL, save me from this overtly amorous old Italian!

After having 1 glass of red house wine, 1 fantastic glass of white house wine of the day, and another prosecco, and much laughter later on, I ended up having someone offer to take me for lunch.

 Walked in and realised most of the customers were Italian! It's a win! The owner of the wine bar recommended this restaurant to me.

Menu all in Italian. Help! I wasn't the one doing the ordering.

Sorry I don't even remember what any of the dishes were called. I think one was pork and the other was beef? and cooked in delicious sauces and rosemary, garlic and sage and the most tender and juiciest meat with all sorts of delicious flavours melting in your mouth and the gnocchi was delicious as well. Tried to replicate the ragu sauce when I got home but not as successful! Food was just simply marvellous. Buenisimo! :D
My mouth just waters thinking of all the marvellous food in Florence.
Traditional Florentine/Tuscan cuisine :)

By they way, this restaurant is run by two brothers,continuing the tradition pass down from their families for generations. It's only open for lunch time and it serves really fresh, authentic Tuscan cuisine. Highly recommended :)

Address: Trattoria Sergio Gozzi
Piazza di San Lorenzo, 8R  50123 Florence, Italy

After a very large meal and too much wine later on, Giuseppe took me on a ride on his motor bike up to Piazzale Michelangelo.

This place is a famous square where you can view and most magnificent panorama of Florence, Italy.
Simply beautiful! :D
Of course being the snap happy tourist that I am, went around snapping countless pictures for memories.

There's a another David statue here :)

I went home and was full of food and wine and collapsed and fell asleep till dinner.

Amazing Alessandro offered to cook pasta carbonara and off the three of us went to the supermarket to get some ingredients.

Mixing the egg yolks and parmesan cheese with pepper in the mixing bowl.
Pan frying the bacon and adding a splash of white wine.
Mixing it all together for a delicious meal! 

Yumm was so delicious! A most fantastic meal. Now I know how to cook carbonara the real Italian way.!  Spent part of the night skypeing as well, having a tour of someone's new apartment. LOL.

I will miss all the jokes of como dino, and of lovely Kasha and cucina, lavi piati, buona sposa :D

Nutelle Cheesecake

I was watching Nigella Lawson's new cooking show- Nigellisma. Where she basically british-fied (is there such a word?) Italian food.Anyway she made this Nutella cheesecake!

She doesn't really give out the recipe during the show, so I was just watching what she was putting in and buying the ingredients. Obviously it's because she wants you to buy her cook book!

So after buying the ingredients for it, I wanted to make it, and I did managed to get my hands on the recipe.
I just bought one packet of cream cheese which was 200 grams and I needed 500 grams!
So my Nutella cheesecake ended up with more Nutella than cream cheese. LOL
I had to add extra cream to thicken the mixture.

Here's the result!

It's delicious, and now I'm sick of Nutella!

I attempted to distribute my cake around :) Everyone though it was delicious as well :P

Recipe as below:

I found it on Nigella's website.

  Ingredients

• 250 gram(s) Digestive biscuits
• 75 gram(s) unsalted butter (soft)
• 400 gram(s) Nutella (at room temperature)
• 100 gram(s) Hazelnuts (toasted and chopped)
• 500 gram(s) cream cheese (at room temperature)
• 60 gram(s) Icing sugar

Method

1. Break the digestives into the bowl of a processor, add the butter and a 15ml tablespoon of Nutella, and blitz until it starts to clump. Add 25g of the hazelnuts and continue to pulse until you have a damp, sandy mixture.
2. Tip into a 23cm round springform and press into the base either using your hands or the back of a spoon. Place in the fridge to chill.
3. Beat the cream cheese and icing sugar until smooth and then add the remaining Nutella to the cream cheese mixture, and continue beating until combined.
4. Take the springform out of the fridge and carefully smooth the Nutella mixture over the base. Scatter the remaining 75g of chopped hazelnuts on top to cover and place the tin in the fridge for at least four hours or overnight. Serve straight from the fridge for best results.

Firenze, Italia, Day 2- September 16th 2012

 Day 2 in Florence :)

 Everyday when I go into city centre aka Duomo, I have to cross this bridge with this lovely view.

 Galleria dell'Accademia, Firenze

 Walking past the galleria Accademia with the long queues!
I walk past this place everyday and feel sorry for all these people queueing.
Everyone comes here just to look at the statue of David by Michelangelo.
There are queues into most of the famous museums in Florence.

One of the tips on going to Florence is if you're there for 3 days, it's definitely worth buying the Firenze card which cost 50 euros, lets you into all the state museums plus transport. Best benefit is you get to skip queues. I know if might sound like a lot of money but I reckon it's worth it, as entry into the museums are nearly 10-11 euros and if you try to book in advance they charge you another 4 euros or so. Therefore even if you were to go into 4-5 museums it would definitely be well worth your money.

It was a Sunday and I wanted to go to some restaurants and all of the places were closed!!!!
So i walked and walked and finally found this place!

  

I Fratellini

Via ghibellina, 50122 Florence, Italy

 

Famous panini shop in Firenze. Located in one of the street between Duomo and Uffizi. It's a hole in wall shop serving all different types of panini you can think of. Also serves very cheap glasses of wine.
Very long queues here as well.
I think I spent a lot of time queuing in Firenze.

Perfect place for having a snack when you're tired from all the walking.

Panino with Porchetta

The bread is delicious, crusty and flavourful :)

Gelateria Venchi Firenze

Vicolo Calimaruzza 18 | Piazza del Mercato Nuovo, Florence, Italy

 

This place is full of people as well, the gelato is actually really good, but the lady serving was so bloody rude!! At first she said I could have 3 different flavours of ice cream but after I ordered 2, she said I was too late to order the third flavour and refused to give me another flavour. What a puttana! Merda.

But the gelato was so delicious, creamy and rich, literally melt in your mouth. Perfect for a sunny day in Firenze :) Venchi is a chocolate producer in Italy.

Da' Vinattieri

Via Santa Margherita 4r, 50100 Florence, Italy

I was wandering around the streets, and came across this hole in the wall shop selling lampredotto.
I've been wanting to eat this for a long long time.

In case you're wondering what lampredotto is, I've copied this from wikipedia.
Lampredotto is a typical Florentine peasant dish, made from the fourth and final stomach of a cow, the abomasum. "Lampredotto" is derived from the Italian word for lamprey eels, lampreda---once very abundant in the waters of the Arno River---as the tripe resembles a cooked lamprey in shape and color. It consists of a thin part, the gala, and a fat part, the spannocchia. The gala is characterized by small, purple ridges (called gate) with a strong flavor. The spannocchia instead has a more subtle color and softer taste.
It is cooked in water along with tomato, onion, parsley and celery, and then seasoned.

 

Lampredotto

The girl asked me if I wanted it piccante (spicy) and I said si! so she added in lots of hot chilli powder for me.
It was delicious! I know a lot of people might find it disgusting to eat cow's stomach, but I can assure you that it's very good. It's so juicy and full of texture and flavourful.
The only thing was I felt it was a bit too salty for my taste. That was one thing I discovered about Italy, there were some places with lovely food, just occasionally being flavoured with too much salt. I don't know, perhaps they have stronger taste buds in comparison to me? 

Lovely owner of the shop I was chatting with in Italian. He doesn't speak English very well.
But I saw all the lovely meat- salami, procusitto in the window display and he was busy making panini.
There was also a very very huge jar of Nutella for making sweet sandwiches.

I was tired after all the endless walking and food eating and decided to go home and I met with Kasha- beautiful Polish girl who does biotechnology and has been working in a lab in Firenze for a couple of weeks involved in cancer research.

She has just been back from an open air market and she asked me if I wanted to visit one.
I was very excited, as I've been researching markets to go to in Firenze.

So here I present you: Mercato Fortezza da Basso

They sell all kinds of antique coins, furniture, jewellery; you name it they have it here.
It is situated in this lovely park with a beautiful pond in the middle surrounded by lush greenery.

Seriously these dolls are the stuff of childhood nightmares. LOL

Seriously I love little doll houses and furniture. Kids are so lucky these days! Look at the little cutlery for the toy house. OMG just too cute!

Fortezza Antique Market

Every 3rd Saturday and Sunday of the month, all day
Viale Filippo Strozzi
Info 055.328.3550

We sat here admiring the views and drinking coffee :)
We were chatting about everything about our life and work.
I don't know how is it I barely know all these people, but it's so easy to talk to them. We just have good chemistry I suppose :)
By the way, this is Basilica de Santa Maria Novella, it's near the train station.

I just love the way the night sky looks...Gorgeous hue of blue.
This city is small but just absolutely beautiful.
As Dostoevsky once wrote in his book the idiot, "Beauty will save the world"
Coincidentally this book was part written in Firenze.

Don't you think the ceiling of the Florentine apartment are just amazing. Sorry the picture doesn't even do it justice. I love the chandelier hanging from the ceiling as well. The apartment has really high ceilings.

The very wonderful Kasha and Alessandro made me dinner!! Sooo nice! After I had all that food for lunch as well! I didn't want to eat anymore, but they insisted on making me dinner. They are so fabulously nice. I don't even know what to say. Alessandro's friend Mattia was over visiting, and 4 of us sat around chatting and drinking white wine and limoncello. I love these people!

Kasha was trying to take pictures of me sleeping!! So I took pictures of her in her pyjamas!

I was so lazy and tired and I ended up falling asleep on the couch outside and getting bitten by a million mosquitoes!