"Gelateria La Pergola"

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This small, family-run "ice-cream shop" serves up the very best Strawberry gelato in all of Italy. Angelo, his wife, and their daughter serve gelato, espresso, and other Sicilian Specialties from 7:30AM until 10:30PM, 6 days a week. "La Pergola" was easily my favorite business to frequent in Florence and Angelo's receipts certainly attest to it. Most every night, I would stop by to pick up a small cup of heaven on Earth.

I first visited the gelateria one afternoon while trying to find an orange during the city-wide naptime. "La Pergola" was the only place that I could find which was open. I asked Angelo if I could buy one of the oranges he uses to squeeze spremuta d'aranciata (fresh-squeezed orange juice) to bring to Rina, my girlfriend, who was feeling ill. Angelo told me to take the orange and a friendship was born. From the moment I tasted the perfect combination of flavor, texture, and temperature found in the now-famous fragola (strawberry) gelato I desired it every evening.

The gelateria was the topic of many of my Italian teme essays. I also became known as something of a gelato connoisseur by the students in my Italian class. Wherever I traveled in Italy I sampled a cup of fragola e limone from the local gelateria, just to see how it compared to the "Little Man's", as we affectionately called Angelo. Many memories were made at "Gelateria La Pergola," and I only hope that someday soon I will be able to return to taste the sweet, sweet flavor of. . . fragola!

Go on to Albergo Firenze