Lights, camera, action! The Vinaino Tour on TV…
The original “Vinain
o Tour” got famous. And I went on tv! Saturday 21st of January, the Italian channel Rai 2 broadcasted Sereno Variabile, one of the most popular programs in Italy that deals with travel and tourism. The Sereno Variabile troupe came to Florence in November to shoot the documentary and interview some “native”. I had my 5 minutes of fame! The video was made in front of the “Antico Vinaio”, a winery in via de’Neri, really close to Piazza della Signoria. I talked about the “Vinaino Tour”, i.g. the tour of the wineries of Florence, together with Andrea Buzzegoli, member of the De Gustibus Network Association. With a glass of red wine in one hand (I just drunk it at the end of the interview!), I explained what the tour is about: a pleasant walk, that aims to show the most popular and local life of Florence, discovering the curiosities and the anecdotes of the city, disclosing some hidden corner, such as the Buonomini Oratoy (the first seat of the Winemakers’ Guild which houses some unique Renaissance frescos, really worthseeing…) and the wine hatches, the old street wine vendors, as big as a mail boxes!
I was asked to tell a funny story and I told the origin of the Italian common saying “a tutto spiano”, that is used to indicate the 
action of making something at full stretch, like working at full stretch, as hard as possible. Under the “Loggia del grano”, i.g. the grain market (just in front of the Uffizi Gallery exit and few steps away from where the interview was done), worked the so-called “Magistrato della Grescia”, a magistrate in charge of controlling the purity of the grains sold in the market and responsible for giving to the bakers the meal necessary to make the bread, issue managed by the Florentine government. The unit of measurement for the corn was the “spiano”. In rich periods, without any wars or famines, the magistrates allotted big quantities of wheat , using the hole “spiano” unit. So the bakers could make the bread like there was no tomorrow, “a tutto spiano”!
Unfortunately, the video is in Italian, but you can have fun watching me talking with the anchor Osvaldo Bevilacqua without knowing in which camera I had to look into…completely lost!
So, lights, camera, action!
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