Ciao Firenze

Before we arrived here this week, Greg and I worked out it had been more than ten years since our last visit to Florence. That’s hard to believe because, as many of you know, Florence is a city that seems to stay with you.

Our last visit had been a wonderful three-day whirlwind – a bit like an intense holiday romance. (Who can forget the jolt of emotion that comes on seeing Michelangelo’s David for the first time?) Now, though, we’re here for a month so we can take it slower, get to know Florence a bit better and see how things develop.

Almost by chance, we’ve ended up in a great part of the city. Our little apartment is located in the historic Santo Spirito district of the Oltrarno. Literally on the other side of the River Arno, Santo Spirito is just a kilometre from the famous Duomo but a world away from the crowded streets and packed Piazzas that surround it. Described as a meeting place for ‘intellectuals, artists and bohemians’, Santo Spirito is lively and lovely.

Just around the corner from us is the spiritual heart of the area, the Church of Santo Spirito; the physical heart is the Piazza it faces. Both date from the late 1200s. On any day you can buy fresh fruit and vegetables from stallholders in Piazza Santo Spirito, and once a month the square becomes a busy marketplace as local farmers and producers come in to sell their wares. A week later the Piazza is transformed again as the Oltrarno’s famed craftsmen and women showcase their skills.

For 500 years the artizans of this area designed and fashioned products for the city’s elite. Many of those workshops remain and a stroll around the local streets reveals bookbinders, tailors, jewellers and milliners still at work, employing traditional tools and skills.

As the sun goes down and the artizans shut up shop, the bars and restaurants around the Piazza come to life. Even now when it’s starting to get dark earlier and cold at night, there are lots of people out eating, drinking, walking and generally just enjoying life in this lovely part of Florence. It would seem, for us, the romance is still very much alive.

Ponte Vecchio in the foreground with Ponte Santa Trinita just behind - that's the bridge leading directly into our street on this side of the river

Via Maggio, our building is just along on the right

Inside our little apartment

View from the bedroom window

And looking the other way from the living room window

A little unexpected visitor arrives from across the rooftops

The Church of Santo Spirito

Market stalls in the Piazza

The milliner's shopfront and workshop

Greg has already made a friend of the 80-year-old master tailor next door who's been tailoring since the age of 11

The shoemaker around the corner

And the woodworker

Shopkeepers waiting for 'trick or treating' children on Halloween

Quick smoke break before the lunch crowd comes in

This beautiful building (just a few doors along from us) was once home to Francesco I de' Medici and his wife Bianca Cappello, a marriage that was never accepted by the Medici family (the two later died in mysterious circumstances ... poison was suspected)