A Weekend in Firenze

Battling to tear ourselves away from remarkable Verona, we eventually managed to depart and launched ourselves head first into the picture-perfect countryside of Tuscany.

Tuscany is truly something to behold – the definition of Italy’s dolce vita or ‘the sweet life’.

However, with Shabbat on the horizon we headed straight for our weekend stop – a place that surpasses all the clichés and incessant praise. The cradle of the Renaissance, the home of Michelangelo and the Medici family and a unique concentration of humanity’s masterpieces – it could only be Firenze.

Overwhelmed by all the incredible places to visit and art to absorb, my favourite memory of Florence was the view from our hotel window – overlooking Santa Croce (I felt like I had been transposed onto a page of A Room With A view) with the bells tolling and the dusty pink sun sinking behind the blue and lavender sky.

We did it all, don’t you doubt us for a second: window shopping along the jewellery stores of the ancient Ponte Vecchio; running through the deserted alleyways and turning a corner to be literally bowled over by the scale, magnificence and the sheer detail of the Duomo (AND catching a free tour in English, to boot); walking between the statues of the great in the Uffizi; gate-crashing yet ANOTHER wedding shoot in the grand Piazza Della Signoria; taking a seat and catching our breath in the Palazzo Strozzi and gaping at the beauty of the Chiesa di Orsanmichele. We also rubbed the legendary snout of the piglet statue at Mercato Nuovo, with its leather market enarby, and clapped with encouragement for random buskers outside the Basillica di Santa Maria Novella, whilst walking ever so slowly so as not to miss a glimpse in the Basilica di Santa Croce (where Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Galileo and Dante amongst others, have all taken their earthly rest).

We also visited the impressive shul of Florence, and had a most interesting, open and inclusive Shabbat dinner with the Chabad there (housed in an Evangelical building with many of the guests being non-Jewish). Of course, we brought a little of our own entertainment to the Friday night by getting absolutely, completely and hopelessly lost in the back streets of Florence for ages until some poor young guy in a yarmulke happened to walk past us and we literally accosted him for directions (he, in good turn, sent us on a wild goose chase but we got there eventually).

My only word of caution for this great city is to the picnickers – armed with our Shabbos lunch, we thought we would find a manicured and cultivated part of Florence’s parks to have a lunch together in the sunshine. Surprisingly, all of the green spaces we came across in our 2 hour walk of the city needed an entrance fee and ticket, so just keep this in mind! We also saw quite a few young tourists being reprimanded by the Carabineri for taking their shoes off in public spaces - proper ‘decorum’ is highly valued and policed here.