Florence, day two - the romance deepens



I’m losing track of days. I think it’s Friday - Good Friday, meaning a public holiday? Will the shops and galleries even be open?


Phil wakes with cold symptoms. She battles through breakfast (again, a triumph of fresh fruit and vegetables and darling dollops of mozzarella, so cute they belong in the Easter egg hunts that are soon to take place around the world in various forms - more on that later).


We purchase some ibuprofen and head up the hill to get the views. It’s a popular tourist trek through tended gardens with bronze sculptures that would not be out of place in Wellington’s botanical gardens. At the top, the views are pretty incredible. Phillippa remarks that I’ve come to the other side of the world for this, and she’s right. It’s a bit of a moment as I take in the views and know it will likely be the only time I see it.







Around lunchtime, we hit the galleries again to use up the value of our tickets, but more-so, to try and recover our appreciation of art galleries after yesterday’s slightly disappointing experience. We again have to climb three flights of stairs before entry, and walk through corridors and rooms of old art, but there are some real sweeteners. To start - there is a ballroom full of chandeliers, where girls of about 16 would have had their debut dance with the suitable men in their social order. Imagine waltzing around this room with your potential partner? 



Then, towards the end, we observe a real break with the traditional style of art and start to see some smiling faces, social scenes, farming scenes and art that I could possibly live with on my wall. But that’s enough about art, for now.











In the streets, our hunger is met with a window scene of roasted suckling pig, or as the Italian call it - porchetta. A sandwich costs £6.50 and it is the perfect amount for me and Phil when halved.





We later find a hot chocolate shop, with an ancient stuffed giraffe, from 1487, that was once a celebrity in the area. 





At the hotel we find our cutest going out clothes and put on some make up. I think we doll-up okay, but the crowd we encounter is early and young. It’s not really our scene so we don’t stay out late.




On the way home we walk past the square where the main Basillica is. In the darkness, with the lighting, it comes into its own. I feel so much like an outsider, amongst the Italians and the busking artists, making renditions of the Mona Lisa in chalk on the stone pavements, for example, but at the same time I feel like I am everybody.



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