The Arrival
Memories. I was young. It was warm.
Descending the train that brought me from Pisa, I checked my bag in at the station, to be held there until I found a bed for my stay in Florence. Looking at the station clock I realized that the youth hostel wasn’t open yet for the late afternoon check-in. Instead of packing off to wait patiently outside its gates, I decided that what might be better would be a walk through the Florentine streets before going to get my bed for the night.
Firenze. Mia cara. Che bella città !
But that was not known to me then. Not while I was standing in the train station looking up at the clock. Not while I was checking in my bag. Only now do I know that. Only now, now including all days since the day of this story, can I stir up the memories that make me stop breathing.
Leaving the station, my feet walked across the small parking area and on across the street. My feet seemed to know the way to go, walking towards what they intuitively knew was the center of town. The street I walked on was not straight, it wound, it flowed with both people and traffic. The language of the Italian ragazzi walking in front of me drifted through the air like a sweet syrup. As I rounded the last curve the most beautiful thing stood in front of me – a sliver of Brunelleschi’s Dome and a bit of white and green and red marble of the cathedral wall. Il Duomo di Firenze. The sight stopped me in my tracks as my jaw dropped.
I had forgotten. On the way to Florence I had completely forgotten my art history lectures …
It was only a very small slice of Il Duomo – a part of a wall, a part of the dome – the view being cropped by the facades of the buildings going down the street. Seeing it for the first time, even such a small piece of it, left me breathless.
My knees began to buckle and I caught myself on a railing marking the edge of the sidewalk before they had the opportunity to meet the cobblestones of the street. All of the things that I had learned about this place – the footsteps that had come and gone before me, The Slaves and The David of Michelangelo, the work of the Guilds, the prayers and frescoes of Fra Angelico, Ghiberti’s Baptistry Doors, the Goldsmiths of Ponte Vecchio, the Bargello turned from prison to museum, the Uffizi, the Academia, and of course Brunelleschi’s dome that dominates the skyline of the city – scrolled in front of my eyes, overlapping the vision of the slice of the dome in front of me.
I stood up and continued walking. I walked for hours, drinking in every available drop that was Florence. I never did get a bed for the night, but that’s another story.
To this day, many years later I think of my first intimate moments in, my first taste of, Florence as some of the most incredible experiences of my life …
Similar posts that you might like:
- Brunelleschi’s Dome
- On My Way To Tuscany: Part II
- One Evening In Florence
- Photo Of The Day: Palazzo Vecchio
- Galleria dell’Accademia
