Like I said, we really didn’t plan to visit Florence this year. But once we changed our destination from Naples to Firenze, everything fell into place so seamlessly that someone who believed in fate might have described the trip as meant to be.
It wasn’t, of course. But the law of large numbers was on our side. And beyond that, Florence really is the perfect city for any kind of visit. It’s easily accessible, both by plane and train, particularly if you’re already in Europe. It’s big enough to never be dull, but not so large and overwhelming that a two-day visit feels rushed or frantic. And it’s just so pretty. It doesn’t matter where you go, what corner you turn or bridge you cross, everything around you is perfectly picturesque. It’s as if the city was built from the ground up at once based on an immaculate set of plans rather than cobbled together over centuries.
It’s the way that Florence was cobbled together, and continues to be revitalized and renewed rather than reconstructed, that makes it so charming. The attention to detail and appreciation for aesthetics that are emblematic of the city are visible everywhere, even in narrow allies, like the one where we stumbled upon Galleria d’arte Spinetti. It wasn’t clear if the gallery was actually open. All of the signs and cutouts pasted on the wall outside pre-date colour printing, which anywhere else would suggest it wasn’t. But in Florence, that’s no guarantee. Florentine people, in general, appreciate lovely things even when, or perhaps even more when, they get old. They care for them, gently, allowing them to wear naturally and develop a patina that shows character, rather than replacing them. It’s what makes the city so wonderful. It’s part time capsule, part open air museum, and all loveliness.
…all of which is a very long way of saying that I adore it.
This was only our second trip to Florence, and our first time in the city since in four years. But the city feels like our home in Italy. I’ll always love Rome, but Florence is special for me in a way that it never will be. It snuck up on me, and somehow, without even trying, proved to be the city I didn’t know I needed. It isn’t Paris, my first love. But I wouldn’t want it to be. It’s one of the few places that I never compare to the French capital, a trap that I fall into entirely too often when traveling. Too often, I hear sentences like, “It’s nice, but in Paris…” or, “If we were in Paris, it would be better because…” But never in Florence.
(It isn’t Athens, the chaotic mediterranean character I love so much, either. But there’s nowhere like Athens. It defies comparison and, in many ways, it’s the things about it that don’t make sense, that are inefficient and illogical and just plain silly, that charm me the most. They don’t really lend themselves favourably to comparison against other cities, and I would never try to make them. Comparison is the thief of joy, a fact I find easier to remember in certain specific places, the Greek capital among them.)
When we arrived in Florence on this visit, I exhaled a breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding. Our trip from Canada to Italy, mired by avoidable delays, was exhausting. We spent our first days in the city rushing to make up lost time while trying to get over jetlag. But then we got to Tuscany. Suddenly, we were back. How wonderful it was to be in a place we understand and feel, somehow understood. I would have gladly stayed forever.
In reality, we only had two days. But those two days were a wonderfully idyllic pause between Roman adventures. We did all the things we love. I took so many snapshots that I nearly ran out of space in my iCloud storage. And then we made a quick escape back to the sunny south, just as it started to rain. It wasn’t meant to be – but it was special.
