Our Time in Florence, Italy – December 1st 2012 to April 29th 2013

Time for a recap of our first five months as residents in Italy, and our time spent living in the city of Florence:

First and foremost, and beyond any shadow of a doubt, Florence was for us and continues to be an outstanding place for newbies to spend their first winter in Italy.   The city thrives on a strong cosmopolitan vibe, both from the thousands of international college students and the many ex-Pats from all over the world.  This provides opportunities to make friends with English speaking people from many walks of life.  Not surprisingly though, this vibe is often overshadowed by the city’s stupendous offerings of art, architecture, culture, and history that exist on an unimaginable scale – the entire Historic Center of the city is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.  

Shopping options are endless, from the most modest clothing offerings in the piazza bazaars to the highest end designer fashion stores in the world.  Shopping for food is even more fun, since the supermarkets are supplemented with fruit and vegetable stands, both in independent stores and in open air markets.  And you don’t need to speak Italian to enjoy any of this because so many of the merchants, tour guides, and restaurateurs usually speak some English.  There is even a really nice movie theater in Florence offering current popular movies in English.  It is a city of beautiful churches and piazzas, and breathtaking vistas if you climb high enough.  Even a river runs through it. 

Just lace up your best walking shoes and start walking to whatever interests you, because Florence is a walking city like no other – everything is so compact you don’t need to walk very far to get to everything.  Yes you need a coat and gloves for winter, but winters here are much milder than the corresponding U.S. latitude of NYC and New England – far fewer Arctic air blasts, less wind, and no snow (ok, it did rain practically every day from February 1st to March 20th, and that got pretty tiresome). 

And then there is the food.  I said this once before but it’s worth saying again - if you cannot find a great place to eat in Florence, you are blind.  And your nose has stopped working too.  Cooking at home only serves to further prove this point – the fruits, vegetables, meats, pastas, sauces and breads (and olive oil… and wine….) consistently surpass anything Angie and I have been used to in the eastern U.S.  Ok, their pizza is not so great (actually, much of it is surprisingly bad) – but beyond that your walk around the city can easily turn into a movable feast.

That’s not to say Florence doesn’t have its drawbacks because it  does, in fact, we are beginning to experience one of the worst ones right now – tourists.  Easter kicks off the beginning of tourist season for Italy, and in the month of April the population of Florence has seemingly doubled.  Like any other major Italian city, walking around Florence has its hazards – cars and buses that will trample you in an instant, speeding scooters ready to impale you from every direction, even if you are just standing on the sidewalk - even random out of control bicycles that will sneak up behind you and clobber you the moment you drop your guard.  But the massive influx of tourists exacerbate these risks exponentially – more people, drivers, and buses competing for ever diminishing transportation arteries, the narrow sidewalks choked with masses of people seeking whatever limited measure of safety they may afford, and the ever increasing probability that a careless bump or elbow or poorly timed step places you directly in the path of some recklessly driven, fast moving vehicle that will crush you. 

And then there is the incessant, never ending cigarette smoking.  Many Italians are very heavy smokers as it is, but with the Spring arrival of the Asians and other tourists the non-smokers don’t have a chance.  By mid-April every single cubic meter of breathable city atmosphere is tainted with second hand cigarette smoke.

As if this weren't bad enough, you must at all times keep your eyes trained on the sidewalk or path where you are walking.  If not, you are guaranteed to step into something bad, once described in a friend’s blog as the “ubiquitous piles of steaming dog shit” found everywhere because most Florentines cannot be bothered to clean up after their dogs.

This might sound like our time in Florence is ending on a sour note; it is not, but the timing of the change of seasons serves to underscore the need for us to take the next major step in our journey.  On Monday our adventure in Italy takes a bold new direction - we pack up and move to the small town of Impruneta.  We leave Florence behind and move into an apartment in a renovated farmhouse in the Tuscan countryside, surround by olives groves and wine vineyards.  It is symbolic that with the emergence of Spring flowers and sunny weather, we ourselves emerge from the convenient and reassuring confines of Florence to live an unfettered, fuller life on a landscape limited only by our own imaginations.

This will be a dramatic change for us - the leaving behind of the immediate access of friends and familiar Florence resources - but this new chapter of our life in Italy creates opportunities to make new friends and explore new adventures in the rolling hills and vineyards of the Italian countryside that lies under the Tuscan Sun.

Ciao