What would grab my attention more than the words “Festival of Sweets”? Well, I just don’t know. That is why we took the 20 minute train ride to "Dolcemente Prato." We went to Prato last year to see the frescos in the cathedral and enjoyed ourselves. I already mentioned that I was reading the book about the 14th century merchant from Prato. But really, this trip was all about the sweets. You've got to love a city, with a population of 180,674, that throws a festival celebrating 37 pastry chefs, mostly from that city! It is very simple to negotiating the train to Prato. One buys the ticket from a self-serve kiosk in 3 easy steps, pays 1.80 euro, validates the ticket, and off you go. The train was relatively empty, not like the train to the Chocolate Festival in Perugia a few years ago with standing room only crowds. It being a Sunday, and Italy, the information desk at the train station was closed and we couldn't get a map of the city. We took a taxi because we didn’t know where we were going. We would have taken a taxi even if we did have a map because the festival was outside of the city center and not remotely within walking distance. I have not yet become ambi-photographic so I just used my little camcorder and don’t have still photos of the treats. You’ll have to watch the video to see the highlights. Chocolate was big, as were the Easter cakes. Tons of samples later we decided to go to lunch. I asked the nice young women at the information desk to call us a taxi to pick us up in the front of the festival venue. Then I realized that we missed half of the festival, the most fun part: chocolate Easter egg competition! We found this as we were leaving and ran past so as not to miss our taxi. We went to the city center in hopes of stumbling onto a good restaurant. We did. Fortunately, the information office in the center of town was open and the nice young women gave us a map and recommended a restaurant just around the block.
It was a small trattoria with a limited menu that was, not surprisingly, excellent. We were lucky to get the last 2 tables. We started by sharing the pasta with duck sauce
Arnie had the wild boar stew. It was very intense, like it had been cooked down for days, and meltingly delicious.
I had the rabbit stuffed with mortadella and other wonderfulness. It was a pretty light dish, all things considered. Olive oil doesn’t count in making something filled with calories does it?
After lunch we went into the Cathedral to see the newly restored frescoes (that we saw last year). The little (like 4 feet tall) man at the desk told us, in Italian, that they were only open for groups. He was very apologetic. Then, as we stood in the front of the altar, he came to me, took my hand and lead us to the left side of the altar. He said, all this in Italian, that we could come to the side chapel to pray. Then he pointed to the view of the best of the frescoes, and asked if I understood. Yeah, pray for free and see the frescoes as an added bonus.
After leaving the church we miss-read the newly obtained map and ended up on the opposite end of the town from the train station. I asked another nice man standing in a doorway how to get to the train station. He told us to turn around and back track quite a bit. When I asked him how long it would take, he said, “You’re a tourist, take your time.” He was right. We missed the 4:00 train but were at the station in plenty of time to get the 4:28 train and get back to Florence for the end of the little food festival in our own Piazza.
Here’s the link to YouTube video of the dessert festival : http://www.youtube.com/user/alaguar1
It was a small trattoria with a limited menu that was, not surprisingly, excellent. We were lucky to get the last 2 tables. We started by sharing the pasta with duck sauce
Arnie had the wild boar stew. It was very intense, like it had been cooked down for days, and meltingly delicious.
I had the rabbit stuffed with mortadella and other wonderfulness. It was a pretty light dish, all things considered. Olive oil doesn’t count in making something filled with calories does it?
After lunch we went into the Cathedral to see the newly restored frescoes (that we saw last year). The little (like 4 feet tall) man at the desk told us, in Italian, that they were only open for groups. He was very apologetic. Then, as we stood in the front of the altar, he came to me, took my hand and lead us to the left side of the altar. He said, all this in Italian, that we could come to the side chapel to pray. Then he pointed to the view of the best of the frescoes, and asked if I understood. Yeah, pray for free and see the frescoes as an added bonus.
After leaving the church we miss-read the newly obtained map and ended up on the opposite end of the town from the train station. I asked another nice man standing in a doorway how to get to the train station. He told us to turn around and back track quite a bit. When I asked him how long it would take, he said, “You’re a tourist, take your time.” He was right. We missed the 4:00 train but were at the station in plenty of time to get the 4:28 train and get back to Florence for the end of the little food festival in our own Piazza.
Here’s the link to YouTube video of the dessert festival : http://www.youtube.com/user/alaguar1
Here’s the link to the few remaining Prato food pictures: http://flickr.com/gp/susanarnietravel/Sz7z70
