Today Lindsey and I have booked a pasta making class.  The location is straight across the Ponte Vecchio, about 15 minutes walk.  The morning is lovely as we start out towards our cooking venue.  The shops on the bridge are just starting to open up. 

As we approach our destination we see our Chef Vary standing outside waiting for her students.  We are the first to arrive.  There will be 10 of us for this class.  We are the only Canadians among 8 Americans.  A couple from Chicago and a family (sister Moms each with their 2 daughters) from South Carolina.  Dad’s are off doing some other activity this morning.

At the work surface we each choose a station.  Each station has a bowl with 100 grams of flour.  Some have an egg, others some water and olive oil.  Once has a mix of flours, one with a whole grain.  Each one will make a different pasta.  The one with the egg will make ravioli, the one with the flour, water and oil will make a short spiral pasta and the one with the multiple flours will make a long noodle pasta, square in shape.

We mix our ingredients to make a dough.  Once this step is done, Chef Vary wraps each ball of dough in plastic wrap and puts them into the fridge to “rest”.  While our dough rests, we get busy cutting and chopping the rest of the ingredients we will need.  Tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, onions and most importantly basil.  We also mix ricotta cheese with lemon zest for the filling for the ravioli. Today we will be making pesto again.  This time using walnuts instead of pine nuts and also a bit of sun dried tomatoes.  The onions are coated with olive oil and sautéed to caramelize them. This will top the ravioli.  The tomatoes are mixed with olive oil and a rosemary, garlic, spicy pepper along with olive oil.  This sauce will top our long pasta.  The short spiral pasta is cooked with diced potatoes and the green beans.  Later to be topped with the pesto sauce.  Our creations complete so we sit down for our lunch with some tasty wines, of course.  We enjoyed meeting our classmates and hearing of their experiences in Italy and where they are off to next. 

Our bellies full of good food and good wine, we leave this lovely little wine bar in Florence and head towards Bardini Gardens.  It is also on this side of the Arno River.

We walk past a parking garage that has Ferrari products in it’s windows.  I am interested in some of the items so we go in to enquire about them.  This is no regular garage.  Look at how tightly parked these vehicles are!!  We ask the fellow looking after us how they do this, as there is no way they can open a door once the car is in place.  He doesn’t have the English to describe it to us, but pulls on the bumper of one of the cars and it slowly rolls out towards us.  It seems that they are in neutral and somehow they maneuver them into place.  Not sure, they are magicians!!

Continuing along the way we stop to look for a Geocache.  There are many nooks and crannies in the walls along the way that used to be the anchors for marble slabs that once decorated the walls.  Now they are great places for birds to build nests and for some people to stash trash.  While hunting for this cache Lindsey finds this note tucked into one of the holes.  How romantic!!  Here is another parking masterpiece.

We climb the hill to reach the Bardini Gardens the views of Florence are stunning.  We find a lovely spot with beautiful views to take some photos of Stu, The Travelling Fish.  We wait for the discreet moment to leave some of him to enjoy the view of the Duomo and it’s bell tower.  Feeling glad and grateful for this spot.

The sunshine is fading away and the wind is picking up.  We move to the little bar here.  We order some wine and enjoy the views as thunder rumbles above us and the rain begins to fall.  We finish our glasses of wine and the rain is still falling, so we order more!!  What else could we do??  It would be rude not to.

The rain does start to ease, so we head back to our home away from home.  Looking back on the lovely staircase to the garden bar and along the river as we go.  We notice now that the shops have their umbrellas at the doors of their shops to entice those who might make an impulse buy.  Very clever!!

After some R&R in our place the aromas coming from our next door new favourite restaurant are too much for us to resist.  Back we go.  More yummy food!!  Brenda we are enjoying each mouthful!!