Lucia and I drove down to the city of Arezzo yesterday for our first real day of sightseeing in Italy. As the title of this post notes, we found it to be a marvelous city. The minute we parked our car and started walking around, Lucia noted, "This is exactly what I pictured Italy to be like!" We wandered around the strade pedonale (pedestrian streets) for several hours just looking at shops, people watching, and of course, having gelato. The only problem with Arezzo, as we had read beforehand, is that the city is built into quite a hill, and everywhere you walked felt like you were walking uphill. Not that we let that dampen our enthusiasm.
Two stores we visited in Arezzo stood out in our mind. The first was a small enoteca and formaggeria (wine and cheese bar - no way to go wrong there!) Eliana, the store owner and seemingly only employee, recommended to us a fantastic Rosso di Montalcino, and brought us the best fresh pecorino cheese. Not a bad way to spend an, afternoon! Since we were the only customers in the store, we got to talking with Eliana, and she was kind enough to write down some of her favorite Tuscan wineries for tasting. We are going to take her up on the recommendations, because after yesterday, we definitely trust her judgment.
The other place we visited was a coffee bar, where a very animated man poured espresso and other refreshments with gusto. He was a sight to watch, a blur of movement behind the bar, with every order seeming to arrive within seconds, and each looking like it had taken an hour to prepare. We couldn't help ourselves and had to ask about a couple of the drinks he was pouring and though his English was minimal, he tried explaining them to us, and seemed happy to inform us on the Italian way of life.
More to come about today's travels in another post, probably tomorrow.
Arrivederci!
Ricardo
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