Back! After Two Years

Florence! My favorite city in the world! It’s been almost two years since we last sat in Donnini, on the Piazza De la Repubblica and watched the world wander past. If you sit there long enough, you’ll see someone you know go by.

We found an Internet café, just a block from the train station and an hour-and-twenty minutes later we had a hotel. Not near the Duomo, there was no hope, they were all full. Well west of the river, near the university district; an old palazzo that’s been renovated into a hotel. A good walk to the historical district but not too bad. High, frescoed ceilings, faded, but still impressive; air-conditioning, hard Italian beds, but not as bad as Sicily’s.

We had a drink at Donnini and watched the world wander past.

After, we strolled past the Savoy, on the Via Roma, to the Borgio San Lorenzo then south, past the Basilica di San Lorenzo and on to the Piazza del Mercado Centrale, where one of our favorite restaurants is located. It was way too early to eat, but we checked the menu. No wild boar yet, next month (I guess we’ll have to come back; damn!); but there is rabbit! We’ll eat there tonight.

Florence is an old city filled with young people. Like Boston, it’s a college town. But the resemblance ends there. There are buildings, still in existence, that were built before Columbus was born. Founded in 59 BC, by Julius Caesar, it was called Florentia and almost immediately became an important commercial center. Under the influence of the Medici family, Florence became a center of commerce and wealth and its 400,000 residents still enjoy a high standard of living.

The evidence of the city’s youthful population careens past you, continuously. There are thousands upon thousands of scooters, motorbikes and motorcycles. With the exorbitant price of gas in Italy, they are the most economical form of motorized transportation; and they’re easy to park! In some areas of the city you’ll see fifty, or more, parked in a row; front wheels all turned in the same direction. But the young aren’t the only two-wheel riders in Florence. We passed an apartment building entrance, on the Via Roma and just inside, talking on her pink cell phone, was a woman who looked well into her seventies, with her scooter helmet hooked on her arm.

Once again, the Italians aren’t about form, they’re about function!

The next morning, after breakfast, we took a cab to the Piazza de la Reppublica and window-shopped our way to the Ponte Vecchio. The shops on the bridge were just beginning to open and we watched the display windows fill with gold. Gold dealers took over the shops after the Medici family banned the butchers, who originally controlled the bridge’s shops and they remain to this day.

The day was beautiful; sunny, warm, but low humidity. By ten-thirty, the streets were filled with strolling people. Not just tourists, residents as well. There are places, like the Ponte Vecchio, where tourists are much in evidence, but they don’t dominate the city, as they do in many other tourist oriented locales. In the morning, the clientele at Donnini, which has been in operation since 1894, is largely locals, reading the paper and having their cappuccino and sweet roll. And Donnini is just one of the five cafés around the Piazza de la Repubblica. Tourists fill the Savoy’s café, because they are the only people who will to pay the Savoy’s prices.