Florence and I met 10 years ago, so I think it’s safe to say that we know each other pretty well by now. We first made eye contact from the small plane window, when I was visiting my mother who lived and worked here. I remember she took me for a walk the evening of my arrival and she was talking to me about what was going on in her life, but my brain couldn’t process a single word she was saying as it was fascinated with everything that I was passing by. I remember when I saw Palazzo Vecchio that I interrupted her screaming: “This is it! The palace from my childhood! This is the palace I always envisioned when reading books with princesses and princes. It’s mine, this palace is mine!!!”. She smiled and said that I should first see the whole city and then make an opinion.
Ten years later and Palazzo Vecchio still is “my palace” and every friend and relative who visited us have heard those two words when I joined them on their tourist cruise around Florence. That palace, where Dr. Lecter dangled Inspector Pazzi off the edge of the balcony, has been and still is my unending inspiration for my stories.
After seeing that “monster” of culture and history, we walked by The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore or otherwise known as The Duomo and I remember an itchy sensation in my eyes. I spent the entire month staring at this other “monster” and every time, a new, undiscovered before detail revealed itself to me. It was like a never ending story.
That same night of my arrival, while walking to my mother’s place, we came across Palazzo Pitti and it’s rocky beach, that whispered to me that we will see each other very often and it awaits me with my pen ready; and so it was. I was simply fascinated, so I made a pact that my entire month there I will explore as much as I can, inside and out.
The day I left Florence was one of false happiness, thinking that I am completely satisfied and I can brag to my friends about every little detail of my trip. What I didn’t know at the time was that I will madly fall in love with this city and that its charm will sew me to it as a button to a blouse. Months went by and I noticed that every once in a while, if I closed my eyes I could see “my palace”, until one day I heard myself say out loud: “I wish I could live there.” It took me 6 years of going back and forth to get my wish and move to Florence to live a new life; but that’s another story for another night.
How Florence and I met
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[…] I was saying here, when I first laid my eyes on Palazzo Vecchio I just felt at home; so I’ve spent almost every […]
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[…] a special place in my heart. We have a history of sharing experiences and feelings together and the story of how we’ve met… well, that just adds more spices to our […]