I had such a meta moment this evening: I watched a movie based in Italy while I am in Italy! A sweet, predictable film called - wait for it - Gelato & Love. It was adorbs. Basically, a heartbroken young woman finds herself in Italia to find herself and instead of picking the boy, she chooses herself. Loved it. Right now, I am listening to the soundtrack because I find myself wanting to be as close as I can get to all things Italian.
I have TEN more days here. I am over halfway through my Italian Adventure and just starting to feel at home. I was doing some work for a client that focused on many quintessential Rhode Island things and I felt this mixture of emotions between homesickness and a pull to never leave.
Today was a 'live like you live here' kind of day. Due to the triple digit temps, we stayed put for the most part. I spent most of the day working in the cool comfort of air conditioning (thanking my lucky stars that our apartment has it, let me tell you). After a yummy breakfast, I did take an early morning walk to stretch the legs and explore before the heat set in with a destination goal to check out Basilica di Santa Croce. Fun fact: I spotted the church in a scene from the movie I watched tonight!
...Santa Croce, the largest Franciscan church in the world, collects the entire history of art and faith of Western culture, and has always represented a fundamental pole of aggregation linked to St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of Italy since 1939...
I wasn't able to enter the church and what I suspect were remnants of the recent Florence holiday of another patron saint - St. John the Baptist - the entire piazza was filled with bleachers and tattered banners. I haven't been inside any other Florence churches except for the duomo because it costs lie $20 euros to go into them but I did stumble into one on my walk back home along with stop-in-my-tracks buildings and beautiful frescoes.
Yesterday on my morning walk, I went in search of the
Villa Fabbricotti and came across a park that offered one heck of a city view.
Per Wikipedia:
...Villa Fabbricotti and its park enjoyed moments of particular fortune especially for having hosted illustrious personalities such as Elisa Baciocchi , Grand Duchess of Tuscany and sister of Napoleon Bonaparte and, in 1894 , Queen Victoria of England . In 1825 Paolina Bonaparte died there. Villa Fabbricotti is also famous for having hosted an illustrious family from Florence at the end of the 20th century, the Diana....
I also discovered that the Botanical Garden is located just around the corner from our apartment so I went to check it out.
Good golly, I do a lot more exploring in the mornings then I thought I did! Tomorrow I will take my morning stroll before setting about to work. We are expecting temps to hit 103+ and I think it will be another day of staying indoors.
This heat is something else. It is 10 pm and it is 90 degrees out there!
Here is
the link to photos for Days 4 & 5
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