Life, the Universe, and Stuff

Visit Florence and you will see the biggest crowds of tourists one can find outside Disney World. When I first touched foot there, I felt suffocated and overwhelmed in my first couple of days. Then, I left to spend a few days in Siena, San Gimignano, and Assisi. The time away allowed me to digest Florence in my head slowly, to reflect upon what I had learned of the city in peace. When I returned, I was able to place it in the right context, so I learned to appreciate it and eventually came to love it with a passion. One must fight their way into and through crowds around the Duomo, Piazza Signoria, Piazza Reppubblica, Mercato San Lorenzo, and even around the train station, Santa Maria Novella. There you find some of the most amazing art ever produced by manking and it is well worth the effort. You can sit four hours at Rivoire and enjoy a 7 euro cup of hot chocolate while contemplating the Palazzo Vecchio, the reproduction of Michelangelo's David, and the imposing Biancone. The best is perhaps to enjoy the dolce far niente, read the newspaper, and periodically lift up your head to see people go by.

When you get tired of that scene, though, there are places in Florence to which you can escape and experience life the Florentine way. Cross the river into Oltrarno to find some hip bars and delicious restaurants (some of which have menus exclusively in Italian), or better yet take a walk out to the Santa Croce quartiere. That is by far my favorite part of the city, where you can walk around Mercato Santo Ambrogio among the nonne and the mamme shopping for their families, where you find inexpensive and tasty restaurants serving real Florentine food, where you can pick up a coffee and a pastry on the go and hear the locals talk about football, F1, or politics. Take a walk to Cibreo and find the little cart selling tripe and other Tuscan meat delicacies; get a panino di trippa or a vasquetta di lampredotto with salsa verde and some red wine in a plastic cup. Walk over to Gelateria dei Neri and taste the best ice cream in town. Take a night time stroll in Piazza Santa Croce. Follow the devout youngsters into the church on a Saturday evening to hear beautiful, ethereal singing accompanied by a humble guitar, while they go about their Eucharistic Adoration. Allow yourself to be touched by spirituality in the resting place of so many prominent historical figures, where St. Francis clothes hang in a frame hidden away from the main nave. That is the Florence I love and to which I hope to return as often as I can.

Visit this link for a description of the different neighboods in Florence.