Florence.

I love Florence in the wintertime!

And then we’re off to Florence for a few days - because we can, because it’s fairly close, because we’re so lucky to be living in Italy for now. It’s a taxi ride, a bus and a train and then we’re walking the streets that Michelangelo once walked, in the city where Leonardo lived for a few years and painted the Mona Lisa, where the Medicis ruled mercilessly but basically funded the Renaissance. I’ve never been here in the cooler months, I’ve sweated through the hot summers with hoards of tourists like myself but autumn here is another world. The light is luminous, the famous Duomo gleams pearl-like, jade and coral pink against an azure blue sky. Tourists are less and more scattered. Painters are everywhere, watercolouring Florence for us at bargain prices, so much so that I buy three paintings from artists that had no income during the pandemic.

Our cheap hotel is amazing, it’s right near the Duomo and when I open up my window and look out, to my right is the Duomo, which was wonderful until the next morning when the bells started at 6.45 am, the noise seeming to make the building shake but all the more incredible.

I walk the streets until dusk, finding quaint shops like Bizzarri that sells floral waters for your face, chemicals to clean old paintings and photo developing chemicals, I buy an orange flower water; I pass ancient doors studded with beautiful nails, I find a shop that has been making biscuits since 1858, Antonio Mattei. The family still owns it and they still use the original tin designs and packaging.

We’re meeting up with the daughter’s friend who lives here on the other side of the Arno river. I walk across the bridge that looks back towards the famed Ponte Vecchio, the lights of Florence beginning to turn on and reflect, people rowing long thin boats, people sitting on the bridges and along the river, admiring, talking, reading. We have a drink at a cute bar, La Cite and another Aussie joins us and then head back into town for a trattoria that we’ve been to before, where you eat underground and talk, it’s a Florence appreciation group. Walking home, the Duomo is ghost-like against the black sky with an almost full moon strung in between the various buildings.

We eat breakfast together and then separate. The daughter tries cycling on her friends bike as she may study Italian here next year and a bike would make her look Florentine and also provide cheap transport. I’m off to Santa Croce, another beautiful church, only to find it closed but find frescoed buildings instead, shops of beautiful Florentine painted woodwork; a whole street of shops selling pork goods and sandwiches. As I look into one, watching the production line of one person cutting the pork, another cutting the focaccia and slathering it with various toppings and another packaging it, the focaccia man hands me a slice of bread, still warm. But I need to sit down to eat so I find another beautiful street of old restaurants and choose Verrazzano and order up a glass of their own wine and a pear, pecorino, walnut and honey dish served with a bread studded with raisins and fennel.

And then it was time for my time slot at the Pitti Palace, how things change over the years, 15 years ago you lined up in a smallish line, bought your ticket and went on in. I think I somehow this time picked the right time, it was almost empty. I think it’s the more beautiful gallery and even though some of the rooms were closed, still worth it. I see quite a few of my late husband’s ancestor, Titian’s paintings, Napoleon's bathroom and some beautiful bowls and jugs carved from lapis lazuli and crystal and jewellery boxes carved from amber. Towards the end I am done, exhausted by so much beauty. I walk back and find a wine bar where a glass of wine costs 1 euro (about$1.60).

And then I discover an amazing shop with chocolates and alcohol. The labels are so beautiful!

Then I'm off to meet the girls at La Menagere, a cool bar. We have Negronis and even though it’s not quite the aperitivo hour of 6 pm, the waitress said she’d bring us some tapas. We’re not quite sure what she means and we’re a bit worried about the price especially when she brings us a plate of the most beautiful tapas with chips on the side as well. We shrug and think it’ll be worth it. There is tiny parmesan pastry tarts filled with a savoury cream filling; tiny burgers with pancetta with mayonnaise; chilli olives and the piece di resistance - truffle macaroons filled with goats cheese cream, amazing! When we go to pay, they were free!

The next day, I am woken early by the 6.45 bells and head off alone for a breakfast in another cute retro cafe and then I’m off to see my friend for a coffee in a part I’ve never been to before, full of antique shops. We go to a ritzy place where my caffe macchiato comes with a lid! we talk of plans for writing, photography etc. And I come away inspired.

Starving, I make my way towards the big market and on the way I find a little van parked in the street selling seafood. People are sitting on benches drinking whilst awaiting their panini. I order a spicy tomato octopus one, the bun is amazing, the lemon rind flavour through the spicy octopus perfect, the spicy olive oil sinking into the bread and is perfect with a rustic Italian rosato. I feel very Florentine, not a tourist sitting around, just a few Italian ladies enjoying the autumn sun at Fratelli di Mare.

That night on the way to meet up with girls and their friend at a bar, I pass by a merry go round and walk through a beautiful archway as a Japanese couple in their wedding regalia kiss each other for photos. We have truffle Negronis in Manifattura that serves only Italian spirits and wines and then we cross onto the other side of the river. The river is twinkling with orange coloured lights and we find a restaurant and feast on truffle flavoured dishes (Burrata with shaved truffle, chicken in a pecorino sauce topped with truffles) served by a waiter who looks like a modern day David, Michelangelo’s famous sculpture. Returning home, the moon has arisen and the world is just perfect.

Next morning we leave and meet an American couple on the train going to Venice. They’ve lived in Florence for 22 years! The husband never stops talking, the wife keeps on saying that we don’t want to listen to him (she says all her friends ask her if he ever shuts up). The are happy because they are sitting on opposite sides of the train. They have been married for 52 years so I don’t blame them. He tells us he’s worked in India, Malaysia, Brussels and now Florence and he would never consider going back to America as it's not the America he left.

She tells us that she only recently found she had a half brother. Her father was a Polish furrier in Paris who met her Dutch mother when she was on holiday. She went back to Holland and they wrote to each other for a year. Meanwhile, her father had an affair with a married woman, ended it and married the Dutch woman. Then it was war time and it was getting difficult for Jews to stay in Paris so they got to New York via Portugal. Twenty years ago, a man arrived in New York to this ladie's father to say that he had had DNA done and that his father wasn’t his father and that his mother had revealed who it was. The American woman had acquired a French speaking brother whom she adores and they travel together! I’d just read a book with a similar story!

As we were about to leave she asks us to her 80th birthday that she’s planning for next year at the famous rowing club on the river in Florence. I think we’ll have to go. You never know who you are going to meet and the stories you come across whilst travelling.