Florence Then and Now

I’m always amazed at “the earnest tourists”. You know them. They are on the go from morning to night, guidebook in hand to make sure they miss nothing, driven by the idea that this will be their only chance. I’ve always been more of an “ambler”. I do what I have the time and energy for and never feel much regret if I don’t see everything. I’ll do it “next time”, I promise myself. This is pure optimism. There has seldom been a “next time” for any given location. Take Florence, which I visited forty years ago on a Christmas tour of Italy. I’ve returned to Italy numerous times but never to Florence. So I was delighted when my friends Maggie and Paul, last visited in London, told me they’d be spending six weeks there this summer. A chance to go back!
I remember Florence as one of my favorite places on that long ago Italian vacation, travelling with three acquaintances who, like me, were not interested in the “I visited 10 countries” type of student trip. But, when I tried to recall the City, I was startled by how few details came to mind. Was it the lack of photos? (My camera had been stolen in Naples at the beginning of our holiday.) Or that we had basically let Marilyn decide everything because she spoke Italian? Or simply the passage of time? In any case, I was ready to update my memory banks.
This trip, instead of taking the train and looking for a cheap pensione upon arrival, I flew in and took a taxi to Maggie and Paul’s one bedroom apartment -- on the other side of the Arno from where the tourists stay.



They had found their “Room with a View”



And soon -- a few streets away --I had found mine.



It was fun to be in the locals’ Florence.
My friends had already discovered the best gelato place.



I decided gelato is better appreciated in May than in December, like the city itself.





Strolling with a three year old leads to a different kind of tourism.





Of course, we visited the Ponte Vecchio just as I had done years before



though the lovers’ locks tradition hadn’t started yet.
About 10 years ago, lovers began fastening padlocks to the Ponte Vecchio and throwing the key in the Arno as a sign of their undying attachment. There is now a 50 euro fine for this as the sheer quantity was not only esthetically offensive to the Florentines but was beginning to cause harm to the medieval bridge. But when did lovers ever put the law above their emotions?



On my first visit, aside from waiting with various degrees of impatience while Marilyn chose just the right gloves, I mostly remember going to art museums. A vivid memory is Giovanni Antonio Bazzi Sodoma’s St Sebastian at the Pitti Palace.
This time I concentrated on churches.
On Sunday, Maggie, Camm and I picknicked in the gardens of 12th century San Minateo


and admired the view



The next day I paid my respects to Santa Croce.



Like Lucy Honeychurch, I had no guidebook (amblers seldom do)though the audio guide I rented explained what I wanted to know.
Like Lucy, I met someone I knew in the church. Paul had brought his students on a visit.



No trip to Florence would be complete without a visit to the Duomo and its Campanile.



Surely I had seen it on my last trip? I couldn’t remember.
Camm knew its name and had already climbed to the top as he told me excitedly (and repeatedly). I had no memory of having done so. And no desire to change that.
I did remember seeing the Gates of Paradise on the doors of the Baptistery on the Square near the Duomo. Who could forget them?



Moses – one of 10 scenes on the east door called Gates of Paradise by Michelangelo.

Home on the bus for one last dinner with my friends – and one last gelato afterwards. And the next day it was off to the airport and back home, glad that, for one beautiful city at least, there had been a “next time” to appreciate it.