In a hotel room in Florence, I woke up late and 35. I was there on a press trip, along with Barbra Austin, and it just happened to be my birthday. The sun was shining, the church bells were ringing, and I was about to cancel our morning plans.
“Right or left?” I asked as we set off on an unscripted post-breakfast wander. Barbra’s choice led us to the Arno, where we stood gazing at the river, the Ponte Vecchio, and a strolling Brangelina brood.
We celebrated this “holy grail of celebrity sightings” (B’s words) with a second breakfast at I Due Fratellini. Still giggling like school girls, we washed down our porchetta sandwiches with glasses of white wine.
We then wandered eastward, past the Duomo and the Bargello, before encountering our third breakfast. I showed some restraint at Vivoli and ordered only a large cup of coffee (gelato).
This left me with some semblance of an appetite for our Four Seasons brunch. Rejoining our group, we settled down to a final breakfast that featured a perfect Paolo Parisi egg (poached with olive oil and bottarga), Cinta Senese salamis, and lashings of Prosecco.
It was, all things considered, a good breakfast.
5 Responses to A Good Breakfast
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What a wonderful birthday story. That sounds like a fabulous – and filling – breakfast crawl, with the Brangelina sighting as an excellent accent to what looked like a lovely morning.
Happy birthday. Wine for breakfast – way to go!
Your photos are always excellent by the way.
Cool. Bit surprised you went all papparazzi on us though …
Yeah, I was as surprised as you to learn that there’s a squealing teenage fan-girl still living inside me!
We can’t all have the cool detachment of the 5-star concierge.
Happy belated birthday. Brangelina sighting on your birthday in Florence with lots of good food…can anything beat that?
Somehow I had always doubted that the little multi-culti brood was real; might just have been the product of a creative press agent. I guess you can attest to it now.