If you feel like leaving the crowded centre of Florence and having a 30-35-minute walk in a South-East direction in order to see how a tourist-free part of Florence looks like, visiting Cantina Pacini might enrich your cultural experience (you can also take bus 23, stop Gualfredotto).

This wine & oil shop has existed since 1935 and is situated on a beautiful round square. It supplies the neighbourhood with good wine and oil which the owner personally purchases from trusted local (or national) producers. The owner knows almost every person who lives in the area and spending some time in his shop makes you feel as if the gentle old times when people’s lives were actually social (in its original meaning) never went by.

I happen to visit Cantina Pacini from time to time and I like to buy both wine & oil bottles there at a good quality/price ratio while listening to some endless story told by the owner.

If you are so lucky to bump into the place on a Saturday evening in mid-Autumn, when it’s new oil season, you’ll be invited for free to try fettunta (Tuscan name for a slice of roasted bread with a generous brush of garlic & fresh oil and salt on top) or fagiolata (Tuscan withe beans with fresh oil, salt and pepper).

If you’ve never tried the taste of oil coming directly from the mill, I can definitely recommend you do so, because it’s not even comparable to the bottled olive oils you find in supermarkets!