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One of my favourite places. I could go on about Renaissance art and le mal de Stendhal, but that's what all those stacks of tourist guidebooks in your bookshop are for.

Firenze

Gaby
2004-01-25 13:26:36

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My recollection of most other works of art is rather vague. All three of us ended up with a "museum overdose" that lasted for years.

In the mornings we would be woken up by the sounds of Vespas riding over the cobblestones.

One evening, the three of us went for a meal in a place only visited by Italians and the menu was so unusual that we had no idea what to order. A friendly gay couple helped us, took the picture below and recommended the fried courgette flower as a starter.

1992

A COUPLE OF YEARS LATER, I WENT BACK ON MY OWN, TO LEARN ITALIAN: corso di lingua e cucina italiana at Centro Fiorenza. Most of my co-students were German, Swiss or Austrian.

Centro Fiorenza was exactly how a school in Italy should be: an old building with lots of character, white walls and teachers who looked as if they had spent the evening over a delicious meal washed down with a good bottle of Chianti. I picked up quite a bit of Italian.

I had a room in the apartment of Alba Forzoni, one of the teachers, about the same age as myself, who in the evening had long conversations with me, over a good bottle of Chianti, about what we were going to do with our lives once we would have figured out what we wanted.

1998

In 1998 I went back with Jack.

Too many people wanted to go to Florence that day and Sabena had overbooked. We were put on standby for a while and the crew was trying to figure out how to solve the problem. A small toddler was put in the cockpit, Jack was given a seat in the back of the plane, I was put in the front. If the kid flew the plane, he did a very good job.

Our hotel Pendini was on the Piazza della Repubblica. The room was large and comfortable and had the colour of Chianti, with brass beds.

As the nicest restaurants were Oltr'Arno (the other ...