Tuscany - Panzano Sunday Market

We flew out on a Friday evening, and landed on Saturday morning. That first Saturday we spent at Pisa, and then in settling into the house in Panzano. In the evening we ventured into town for dinner - we ate at the local pizzeria called Conca d'Oro, it evidently means "Golden Bowl"* and is what the folks in Panzano call their valley.

The hostess, (and I suspect the owner), was incredibly welcoming to us. We ate some seriously excellent food, but the crowning glory was dessert. Jesse ordered the cheesecake, and it was unbelievable. It was light, warm and fluffy. We wanted to eat it forever. So we all agreed that the next night we must come back and order a cheesecake to bring back to Podere Felceto to enjoy with the dinner we'd planned to make.

After dinner we retreated to Podere Felceto and slept the sleep of exhausted, replete travelers.

Sunday morning dawned clear and bright and we set off for the market in the village square, (which is actually a triangle). Jesse, Diana and Aunt Maureen are all Catholic - I was out of my element but agreed to go to Mass that morning in the village. I did warn them that there was a possibility of me bursting into flames at the threshold, but they did not take this seriously. Anyway, Mass wasn't until 11 so we had plenty of time to shop the market before finding a pew.

You can find almost anything in the village market - from shoes to deodorant to fresh vegetables and pre-roasted spit chickens. I picked up pillow cases, table cloths, soaps and other little gifts for my peeps back home. I love shopping overseas; it becomes a sort of charming ritual between the shopkeeper and yourself and I adore the heavy paper-wrapped packages you walk away with.

Fountain in the village triangle...

Aunt Maureen ordering a chicken or four for dinner that evening from the Chicken Truck

Panzano isn't a very big town - it doesn't show up on many maps of the region - you can find it by looking a few miles south of Greve in Chianti. But it is charming, and neat, and welcoming, and I would definitely visit it again!

That evening Aunt Maureen cooked her fingers to the bone, and we ate like kings. And we did return to the Conca d'Oro for a cheesecake. And it was then that we made a pivotal error. But I will cover this in another post.


*There's a lot of translations to be found of this word on the internet and according to the folks who parsed Dante's Divine Comedy, they're basically all wrong. In Tuscany, a Conca is an earthenware vessel for washing things in, a bowl, basin or pot, and that is what the word means. End of story. But for further proof, when our host Roberto of Podere Felceto told us the name of the valley, and attempted to explain it's meaning, he pointed to a gigantic terracotta plant pot.