Italy 2019-20. Let's go

A thoroughly new adventure has begun. Italy. Florence, actually. Firenze! For a year.

So excited.

I am the co-beneficiary of this adventure, the PI being The Husband. He chose

Florence for his hard-earned well-deserved long-awaited sabbatical from the place he spends most of his life, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Who am I to argue?

So appropriate of Alitalia to get us started at departure gate B4. Because one arc of this story is rooted in a B4 – a long-before…. it begins during World War II when an Italian naval vessel saved the lives of my grandparents, Adele and Israel Perlman, after the derelict boat they were on, The Pentcho, ran aground on a bald rock island in the Aegean Sea - they were ma’apilim [illegal immigrants] attempting a perilous and desperate journey to flee Europe and reach Palestine. The Italians saved and gave haven to all 512 stranded souls, and with that imparted an everlasting wisp of Italy in our family's blood. But that is not the story right now [it will follow some time, because a) it is part of me and b) it will surely colour my planned dolce vita in the months to come].

It's 2 October 2019 and we are getting ready to land.

It was suggested to us that the neighbourhood of Isolotto would be the ideal address for us in Florence - a walk to the office and easy access to town. Having had no luck for several months finding housing for the year, we found a short-term all-included rental for the first weeks, enabling us to figure out where we were and what we wanted. The taxi from the airport pulled up outside the apartment block in a characteristic post-war residential area in a European city. Not yet feeling like "Florence." Rosalba, our landlady, sent us a text message saying she couldn't make it to meet us but would let us in, electronically. She buzzed once; we entered the building and lugged our three suitcases and two computers [not bad for a year, right? Well, there will be shopping...] upstairs. She buzzed again and we were in.

The flat was perfect for us - bright, spacious and with just about everything we would need, right down to the machinetta for coffee. Parquet floors made us start to feel like we were really in Europe. An aerial photo of il Duomo di Firenze and city centre, in several panels, hung on the living room wall were an additional reminder of where we were. Even the toilet paper was pretty - so "Italian"!

Isolotto is in the southwest of the city. Just a hundred years ago it was all rural, and there are social and architectural reminders of this on almost every block. When housing was needed in a hurry for the working classes in the mid-20th century, before but especially after WWII, this was one of the main areas slated for urban development. Yet each street block or apartment complex still today has a significant green area - it might be a courtyard, a park or a community vegetable garden - as well as a daily pop-up-style market, endless cafes and plenty of family-owned small-small businesses, all of which make this a very livable area. And soon we will learn that a tram literally outside our front door will take us downtown in minutes.

We headed out in search of an early dinner. Though it was a Wednesday nothing was open. Perhaps a saint was being commemorated? A strike? Elections?? There's almost no one in the streets to ask.

Nearby a petrol station was open. I approached the woman in charge and asked, "ristorante?" waving in all directions. A steady stream of Italian came back to me. Not a clue what it meant. Then she pointed to a road heading off to the right. "Pesce," she says, smacking her fingers to her lips; fish - good enough. Take it from the petrol station point person. A short distance on we found the restaurant she obviously meant, Trattoria Annarè. Sadly, closed. We kept going and bumped into a person-sized fibreglass ice cream cone. Okay, so gelato would do for for our first in-Italy dinner. The flavour options at Polo Verde told us we should make use of the small bench provided. First research project! The not-so-surprising cioccolato, limone and nocciola [hazelnut] were joined by a palette of Italian colours - ricotta, fiordilatte, zabaglione, ciligia [cherry], cacchi [persimmon!], pistacchio and much more. We learned that Roberta and her husband make the gelato from the milk of their own cows and the wafer cones from the eggs of their own chickens; flavours change according to season, and her sister makes little biscuits to go with it all. Truly delizioso.

Roberta asked where we were from and as soon as she heard the word Jerusalem [we live close by after all], we notice a tremble, a tear even. She adores Jerusalem. She visited during a difficult time in Israel, the 2014 Protective Edge war with Hamas' Gaza and she felt the tension and the pain, but at the same time she was on the heels of Pope Francis and that was her compass.

Heading back towards our new home, the magic of Italy did its stuff - the trattoria was open! Not only that, but the fare made this a fabulous opening evening for this coming year. The neighbourhood was now the yardstick.

Annarè

Tiramisu #1 - test case for empirical research

In the weeks to come we might as well have become shareholders in both Polo Verde and Annarè. They fed us, talked to us, taught us something new every time. I got a "look" from Roberta the first time I took the gelato home in a tub, telling her our kids were coming and we wanted to have it at home, at the ready. "But the texture won't be right. Freezers make it too hard! Bring them here instead, please" - she really did say please.

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Annarè is going to be out of your way, unless you live in Isolotto. If you have the time, find it, it's so worth it [Via Baccio da Montelupo, 20]. Tell Giangi we sent you. And head to Roberta at Polo Verde for dessert before dinner. Also worth mentioning in the 'hood: Pizza Biancaneve [Via Baldassarre Franceschini, 42] - wow! I know I'm going to be saying "wow" a lot over the next year, but it really is. A bunch of guys busily but happily running a hole-in-the-wall place called Snow White Pizza; they were just like the hardworking dwarves, XL. Loved it. [update 3 months later: we are now very experienced on this matter - Biancaneve is one of the best in the city]

Look at the size of those pizza boxes