Florence

Ponte Vecchio

If there is a city I love more in this world than Florence, I haven't found it.  There's just something about this place.  I've been here in rain or shine, and in both it just seems to have its own glow.  It's modern, but there's a history that just eminates from the stones.  Then, there's the art.  It's just there.  Art where is was meant to be, tucked into the niche on a church, painted unassumingly on the wall, standing proud in a piazza.  It's in the arches on the buildings, the rondells over the windows.  Your eyes will never get bored or tired in Florence, and your soul will never cease to be marvelled.

Statues on Orsanmichele

I'm glad Anne gets this.  When we got to Florence, most people were tired, but Anne and I were just itching to get out into the city.  We walked down, across the Ponte Vecchio and it's tempting gold displays.  Once in the city, it was past the Uffizi and the street performers entertaining those in LONG lines to get it, into the Piazza della Signoria.  Then there's David, ok, a copy, but he's there, announcing that yes, you are here, you have entered what was the center of the cultural world half a millenium ago.  There's amazing art in the loggia, and tourists snapping pictures, and I wonder if any of them feel like I do, like it was here that the modern world errupted from darkness and then called us back to bear witness to its creation.  I know, I'm being incredibly over profound, but it's FLORENCE and it's just that amazing to be there. 

But the Piazza isn't the end, or even the center, because you have to keep walking, keep plugging onward to the Dome, and then you're in the narrow streets connecting the two, in the shadows of the greatness you can't see yet, but you know it's coming.  Then, when you arrive, it looms larger than imaginable.  It looks like a special effect, because nothing could be that big, or that stark against the blue sky.  It won't fit into a one picture, it's that huge, and to stand in its shadow and imagine Brunelleschi designed that, without cranes or drills, with just oxen and pulleys and men climbing up the 400 steps every day to lay bricks.  I could stare for hours at the Dome, and still not see it all. 

Il Duomo

And you're still not done, because there in the shadow of the Dome are the doors, with their Gold panels and throngs of tourists who are just in the way, and won't let you see no matter how long you patiently wait your turn.  The original panels are gone, thanks to the flood of 1966, but the copies mark their place and you wonder how many eyes have lingered here, how many great popes or leaders learned their Bible stories from the bronze reliefs. 

San Lorenzo

Anne lived here, looking out at this, and I'm incredibly jealous.  We quickly ran to her old apartment and marvelled at the proximity.  Then we continued on, up to the markets of San Lorenzo with their leathers and purses.  I was so happy to see that the knock-offs are gone, replaced with original designs in all colors and sizes in a shopper's paradise. 

Florence could be home for me, and it is for my friend Laryssa, who moved their after college.  I met her for dinner at an amazing restaurant called the 4 cats, which also had my favorite meal in all 30 years I've been alive.  It's a pasta stuffed with pears and marscapone, served in a creamy sauce.  I had it in Rome in 2005, and have craved it ever since.  I found it two places in Florence, here and at a little cafe near our hotel, and it remains my favorite food ever.  This restaurant had the recipe on the website, so I will be making this when I get home!