Two Pointy Sticks: It's all about the Dolce

La Dolce Vita, I mean. You're absolutely right, it was Florence. I see there's no stumping the worldly knitter.

I hadn't planned on being in Italy at all until the Gods of Good Timing slotted it perfectly into my schedule, so the VP of purchasing and I took the time to investigate innovative knitwear in a city that has for centuries held a hallowed place in the history of luxury fibers. What we saw was awe-inspiring. Designers' intellectual property rights preclude us from showing you any photographs, so you'll just have to imagine fall and winter knitwear ingeniously crafted through startling combinations of knitting, crochet, and felting -- by no means limited to scarves or sweaters, but everything ranging from floor-length coats to evening gowns.

When it comes down to it, I suppose design inspiration in Italy -- Florence in particular -- is endless, given the beauty of the city itself, including 'textbook travelguide' sights like the Ponte Vecchio...

and Santo Spirito.

Our hotel, the Continentale, actually at the foot of the Ponte Vecchio, is a design marvel in itself. Everyone has different tastes in hotels; me personally, I like boutique hotels with a mix of modern and retro, and the design team behind the Continentale got it just right.

Portions of the lobby (where instead of a painting over the fireplace, a huge plasma screen plays chic fifties black-and-white films nonstop):

This is not a room. It's an elevator.

That leads to the breakfast room.

There are also, we discovered, a number of relaxation rooms for guests around the hotel, including these:

And of course, a rooftop lounge (with a panoramic view stretching from the Oltarno to Fiesole in the distance to beyond the Duomo) and bar, open from early afternoon to midnight.

Every good hotel also benefits from having a local yarn store just a stone's throw away. In this case, across the Arno.

Beatrice Galli on Borgo San Jacopo was closed at the time, but it was somehow reassuring to know it was there.

Since Florence is also known for its handmade paper, a trip to Il Papiro seemed in order. And along the way there was also plenty of time to take in the usual architectural delights, including the Duomo...

where I decided that what pleases me the most about architecture is really in the details, that craftsmen have taken the extra time and effort to make something of beauty that lasts (it's a pity that hardly anyone takes the trouble to pay this much attention to most modern structures)...

Gigantic doors on the western face of the Duomo (to give you an idea, a person of average height would barely come up to a fifth or fourth of this door's height).

Just look at the detail. This portion of the door alone is a masterpiece. Can you imagine carving it?

Caution: you may find that walking around Florence will result in the almost permanent condition of your mouth hanging open in wonder. The streets all around the Duomo can be just as stunning, artwork both above and beneath your feet.

With only a few days to spend in Florence, multitasking comes in handy. Finding the BEST GELATO in the city, for example, is always a challenge I'm willing to undertake while fighting with my sensible self about whether or not to succumb to the Shopping Bug (because the shopping along certain streets in Florence, if you're partial to clothes and accessories, is excellent).

Here is an important truism: Just like cashmere, not all gelato is created equal. The very best gelato we had was from the stand outside the Caffe Gilli on the Piazza della Repubblica -- if you have a long afternoon to while away, take a table on the terrace where the service is interminably slow, but if you're prepared to lick on the go, get your scoops at the stand by the terrace. There was another, more modest stand, with less fanfare but equally fabulous gelato at the Piazza di San Giovanni. We never knew its name, but it's on the NW corner of the piazza at the corner of via de' Cerrentani.

In the end there was actually very little time for photographs as we wandered these streets whose names I only vaguely remembered from an aria by Puccini. But I did manage to snap a couple of shots of one of my favourite places to idle away some time, which is the Mercato Nuovo, where via Porta Rossa meets via de' Calzaiuoli.

The loggia was built in the 16th century to house a market for gold and silk. Today, the gold you'll find along the Ponte Vecchio (as well as some very high end boutiques along the via de' Tornabuoni, Florence's Madison Avenue/rue du Fbg-St-Honore equivalent), but the market is filled with cashmere and silk stoles and other woven goods, as well as leather and other items all made by local artisans. A vibrant visual feast that's also perfect for filling your Christmas coffers any time of the year.

All these distractions require energy, of course, so we were pretty much obligated to treat ourselves to the local cuisine. Florence is filled with "best restaurants", but the best dining experiences we had were at two completely different places: The first is Borgo San Jacopo, which I highly highly recommend for exquisite food and cosmopolitan chic (and an unbeatable wine list, thanks to an incredibly knowledgeable sommelier). The second, a cozy, off the beaten path place, Club Culinario Toscano da Osvaldo, would not have been my instinctive choice, but, as it turns out, there you will get typical home-cooked meals that your Florentine fairy grandmother might have made you. We were at Osvaldo on the eve of the World Cup Final between France and Italy and ended up being the very very last customers, with our waiter/chef/maitre d' pulling up a chair to talk football and offering us an extra few courses of dessert, dessert wine, coffee, grappa, and drinks at a wine bar on the other side of the city. I can tell you that the food was as delicious as the service was charming, and the wine selection, again, was spot on. If you'd like to go, you'll need at the very least the address -- and even with this it'll be hard to find, but it'll be worth it.
Osvaldo is at Piazza dei Peruzzi, 3r (at the corner of via dei Benci) Telephone: +39 055 217919.

And speaking of good wine, we learned a little sommelier's secret: the wine shop they use is the Millesimi Enoteca, a hidden gem tucked away along the Borgo Tegolaio. I immediately checked my favourite wines and vintages and was astounded at how affordable they were (shipping, however, is costly. Aye, there's the rub!). The owner, a cheerful French woman, even locked up for a moment to give us a tour of the impressive cellar where she hosts private wine tastings.

The selection there alone, accumulated lovingly over years and years, is enough to make the mouth water.

Ahhhh... Florence.

There can never be enough time to take it all in. And too too soon for us, it was time to say arrivederci to the city, glorious in the morning...