Room without a View -- Part 5

I almost forgot about the Best Gelato in the World!

Many of you have probably tried gelato, but I'm sure the stuff you get in the grocery store is not like the homemade stuff. In Italy, gelato is everywhere. If they don't have a shop on every corner, they also have it in almost every snack bar or deli store. If it is in metal tins instead of plastic buckets it is a sign that it was homemade on the premises. It is like ice cream, but softer, and comes in every flavor you can think of.I ate it everyday and sometimes twice a day. Here are some of the flavors I had.

Chocolate
Truffle
Hazelnut
Lemon
Pistachio
Strawberry
Pineapple
Kiwi (yes, Kiwi)
Rice (like rice pudding)
Banana
Melon
Chocolate
Orange
Mint
Raspberry

And there were a lot more I didn't even get around to trying. The thing with gelato is that you don't just order 1 flavor (although you can if you want) but to pick a couple of different ones that you think will complement each other. If you do a good job the gelato scooper might complement your selections. You could eat this stuff everyday in a thousand different variations and never repeat them.

So the best Gelato place in the world? Vivoli's in Florence. It is advertised as the best, and I will have to say it is the best place that I tried. Although the kiwi banana combination I had in Rome was good. It tasted just like fresh kiwi, with the seeds still in it.

Now for some art history trivia that I thought was interesting but forgot to mention. I'm sure everyone knows about Michelangelo's David (aka - the most famous statue in the world), but I never thought about what the statue represented or why David stood that way. The first David statue, sculpted by Donatello, was a huge shock because it was the first nude sculpture in the Christian era. Before the Renaissance people viewed the human body as a dirty, disgusting thing. It probably was, considering they never bothered to wash themselves. Yuck! So Donatello's statue was totally inflammatory. The David is shown after his victory over Goliath and standing with one foot on his head, something I never noticed before.

Michelangelo's David, however, is shown before the battle with Goliath, and the reason his hand is on his shoulder like that is because he is holding his slingshot and at the moment before his is ready to get "all medieval" and fight. I've seen this statue so many times and never, ever questioned as to why he is posed like that, and I always find history things much more interesting when I know the story behind it.

Although, if I was standing buck-naked in front of a giant Philistine, with only a slingshot and a couple of rocks, I don't think I would have looked so confident.