Florence Food and Sightseeing Tour

FLORENCE FOOD AND SIGHTSEEING TOUR

The Florence Street Food Tour is a mix of history, art and food. Get to know the flavors of the city and its traditions through the eyes of a local guide! Are you tired of visiting museums and seeing Renaissance art? This is a funny tour of Florence for foodies. You will find out everything about the history of Florence, seeing the most iconic places (such as the Cathedral, Ponte Vecchio, the Renaissance palaces, etc), getting to know about the culinary traditions of Tuscany. Nevertheless, we won’t forget to delight our palates eating a good bruschetta, drinking Chianti wine glass and, last but not least, having the best gelato of your life! We will also see some of the now famed buchette del vino (wine windows) and we will eat a delicious schiacciata (not at the famous panini place you’re thinking of!). If you’re curious to see an archeological evidence of me showing the wine windows and THAT sandwich shop way before all the commercial mania started… take a look at this! (and don’t laugh at my hair!).

SIGHTSEEING TOUR OF FLORENCE

With the Florence street food tour we will get to know Florence highlights:

-Piazza della Repubblica: we’ll step back into a Florence of street merchants, groceries, marketplaces and brothels, where selling meat without paying duty or revealing to foreign merchants the undisclosed secrets of silk dyeing could earn you a public flogging in the Old Market…
-Piglet’s Market: dishonest merchants and debtors were punished here with the so-called “acculata” (I’ll explain to you what it literary means in Italian, but nothing pleasant at all!).
–San Lorenzo Central Market: dried mushrooms, smoked cheese, hand-made pasta, fresh fruit. An explosion of flavors and smells! You’ll learn how to buy bread and you’ll taste our baked delicacies.
-Piazza della Signoria: here we’ll stop for a gottino of wine (local measure glass) and eat a crostino or bruschetta.
-Piazza del Duomo: on Giotto’s bell tower all the history of mankind is depicted in its many phases. Ready for another for another glass of wine?

THE FLORENCE STREET FOOD TOUR: FOR FOODIES ONLY!

Meanwhile, we’ll look for some “buchette del vino” (wine windows). They were special places where wine in the past was sold directly. Small doors were opened at the top of the cellars just large enough to place a small glass or a flask of wine. And we’ll drink some glass of wine too! Chianti Classico, Prosecco, Vernaccia di San Gimignano, Brunello di Montalcino, Morellino di Scansano are amongst the most famous wines of Tuscany. Do you want to try the best gelato in Florence? My favorite flavors are croccantino, a crunchy cream with nuts, and Modica chocolate, a grainy and aromatic chocolate cream. Bernardo Buontalenti, mechanic, artist and architect in the court of Cosimo I de’Medici, invented a new dessert: a sorbet made with ice, sal, lemon, sugar, egg, honey, milk and a drop of wine. His cold cream was flavored with bergamot and orange and was the forerunner of modern gelato!

Fantastic Florence tours are nevertheless all private and completely customizable. So contact me to create together your own tour!

Itinerary

• San Lorenzo Central Market
  Built in the XX century, it’s the perfect place to soak up the Florentine atmosphere. Let’s try some truffle, EVO oil, fried delis and some prosciutto!
• Duomo Square
  Famous for the Baptistery’s Paradise Gates, Brunelleschi’s dome and Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral.
• Signoria Square
  Famous for its statues and Palazzo Vecchio (city hall). Here we’ll have some charcuterie and focaccia bread.
• Piglet’s Market
  Ancient silk market, then famous for its straw hats, today it’s the market of leather. Ready to taste the very famous panino con il lampredotto?
• Republic Square
  Once a market and Jewish ghetto, today it’s a cozy square full of old-fashion cafes (and an Apple store). Not too far from here w’ll have the chance to eat the original gelato!