Florence: I make friends with strangers and then make paper.

I was raised in a family that makes small talk with strangers. Enjoys it even. This terrified me as a child, embarrassed me as a teenager, and delights me as a grown-up.
As it should be.
























I should start by saying that it's probably a stretch to consider talking to a shop owner as "talking to strangers." But it began in my broken Italian and lead to maybe the best restaurant recommendation of our trip and to me getting a special -I only had 100 of these printed- membership card to the store and an invitation to a papermaking demonstration and lesson the next day. And my husband was there, so I wasn't even flirting.

So I went to the store the next day:

for a Florentine marbleized paper-making demo

and I got to try too

Il Papiro is a sweet store and well worth a visit for gifts and to spark your desire to write real letters again.  Their paper is beautiful, though it was really the stationary and personal cards that stole my attention.

We're finally unpacking and I have a some wax and a scrolling letter E calling an envelope's name.

Florence: knockers

My love for cataloging and synchronicity tends to go into overdrive when I'm in a new place. I think it's a subtle way of not going into sensory overload, but also, it's meditative and can tie a trip, a day or an experience together. I like that. I like threads and themes and 'like with like'.

In Florence there are endless things to photograph. Incredible churches, statues, views. We took pictures of these things too. But the best part for me was turning onto the first street.
I saw a door. And so it went:

Was it hard not to knock on these doors? Incredibly. And also, doors remind me of stories, brief moments, possibility. Here's one.

When I was 21 maybe, or 22, I was fixated on liminal spaces, thresholds and what's behind every door. I loved that period of time: my mind overflowing with every paralyzing possibility. It was age appropriate and appropriately exhausting. Smack in the middle of those years, I had an ex-boyfriend say to me: seeing you again is like a thousand doors opening and then there's light and then there's you.

 Before you get all worked up, let me clarify: I'm fairly certain he was drunk and speaking literally (ie: I walked into a dark room). It wasn't mean to woo me and I don't even think it was a compliment. At the time he was not, to put it mildly, my biggest fan.  Regardless, the line stuck with me.

I took my third trip to Italy during those years and after living in Florence for a semester in high school, I distinctly remember it feeling flat and underwhelming. That dull memory is what made this trip thrilling. I've probably passed by these exact doors tens of times (many were on my daily walk to school circa 1995) though I have no memory of them.

Yet here they are waiting, not willing me to knock or walk through them. Just being. Absolutely beautiful and brilliant. I get to scoop them up with the camera and dream, all age-appropriately, of how I can incorporate them into our next home.

Florence: Love Lock

I have a soft spot for displays of affection that border on public nuisance. Like the Montpelier Valentines Day Bandit and John Cusack with that boom-box, so it's only natural that I was pretty into these chains of locks hanging on a Florence street near the Ponte Vecchio.  

Despite having no idea what it was, there seemed to be a romantic undertone which today's search confirms.














This little 'ok' was my favorite. In a sea of weighty symbols of love, I like the nonchalance.

It may be worth noting that we went to Italy with: plane tix, reservations for 10 nights at 6 hotels and a rental car reservation. We had no other plans and no itineary.  No museums, tours, or must-sees. These love locks were between a famous bridge and a famous museum, both of which I think are incredible - I love paintings, statues and frescoes up close and in person, but I just can't shake the feeling that something is lost when you're stuffed in a hot room after a long line with a gazillion other people. So we forwent the plans and focused on the sweet (and savory) stuff in between.

We brought a camera. We forgot our padlock.

Florence: the sweetest things

The 48 hours following our return trip to Vermont included: overnight flight delays, sleeping, overflowing suitcases, napping, celebrating Drew's birthday, napping, eating, snuggling with the kiddos, napping, stocking our kitchen (enter: cured meats, cheeses, nutella, bread and olives), napping, mowing the lawn, a visit from the tooth fairy (reporting in for a double-header of a tooth loss), napping, making espressos, waking from napping and groggily realizing we had to go back to work. Basically in that order.

Yesterday, Drew told me he took a break from work to just look at the photos, and I couldn't blame him. Except I did because he has them all on his computer. I had none. So I began the process of transferring them. This is decidedly less fun than taking photos so I'm starting you off with the best antidote I can think of: a series of some of the sweetest things from Florence.

All you have to do is step outside and cafe doors open to the street with cases of incredible desserts. Row upon row.

 Many (arguably not all) streets in Florence smell amazing, in part because there are waffles being made. On the street. If it were up to me, this would happen far more often.

These popsicles were my favorite. I didn't have one, only because I already had a gelato in one hand and a camera in the other.

And then there's the gelato. Heaping piles of something you may know as icecream in a gazillion flavors, with cones galore exploding from case tops. Oh gelato.

Somehow we don't have a photo of the actual cases, which are literally these swirling lovely piles of flavors garnished with giant chunks of whatever flavor they are (melons, coffeebeans, coconut chunks, etc). Probably because there's no time to photograph when you're in the agonizing process of choosing a flavor. In any event, here's the first, and so certainly not the last, gelato of the trip:

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