Return to Florence: Day One

There’s something about the quiet stillness of sunrise that clears a mind that refuses to be quiet. Neighbours are still asleep, the birds are showing off like it’s a competition, and the last whispers of night air are crisp and oddly comforting, like a hug you didn’t know you needed. Only when daylight slips through the clouds and the church bells from the distant hills of Fiesole announce it’s time to wake up do the stirrings of life begin to make their move.

The view from my dining room window, say hello to the hills of Fiesole.

I’m sitting at the dining table of my Airbnb in Le Cure, about a 35-minute walk from Centro, Florence’s historic heart. Yesterday I discovered that walk is flat, easy, and pleasant (if it weren’t 27 degrees and my thighs weren’t auditioning for a chafing horror story that I would only fully appreciate in a few hours). Jetlag had me pinned to the couch, episodes of Travel Man on loop, and I was seriously considering a permanent residency there, preferably horizontal. The thought of having to move at all seemed… optional.

But I forced myself up. I needed to walk, to shake off the horizontal inertia, and to revisit my old stomping grounds in Sant’Ambrogio, chasing nostalgia like it was a souvenir worth hoarding. Ditta Artigianale in Piazza Sant’Ambrogio used to be my office. Retrobottega was my panino pitstop, porchetta between slices of schiacciata, fuel for wandering or writing. I paused in Piazza della Signoria to check on Neptune, nod to the replica of David, and nearly choked laughing at a new piece of artwork: a looming gold figure of a woman staring at her phone. The irony wasn’t subtle. Tourists were swarming it, taking photos, selfies, mocking it and completely missing the message about being glued to your device in a place of beauty. I wanted to yell, “Yes, that’s exactly the point. No, you still don’t get it. Put the phone down and look around.”

And yet, this time, everything felt different. The streets looked the same, but the energy had shifted. Centro still teems with tourists, TikTok-famous spots now have queues long enough to double as snake exhibits, and Teatro Odeon - the quiet, bookshop-theatre haven I loved - has been transformed into a noisy, Instagrammable hotspot stripped of all calm. People bump into each other, shout into phones, pose awkwardly with books they won’t read, or hover over a cappuccino to “get the light right” for their feed. Nostalgia twisted into irritation. The chaos, the abandon, the seemingly deliberate mission to photograph every square inch of Florence made me ache for Le Cure, where locals live and the streets don’t feel like a reality TV set.

The old Florence tugged at me, but the new Florence made me realise something important. I’ve changed. I want stillness, a calm I can come home to. I want a home, not a front-row seat to the tourist parade. I don’t have that home yet, but now I know exactly what matters, space, quiet, and a little sanity. A piazza where I can sit without someone filming their spritz, streets where I don’t dodge selfie sticks, and a neighbourhood where locals exist and tourists are politely discouraged.

On the bus back to my Airbnb, I let the day settle. The city had shifted, I had shifted, and even though the nostalgia was tinged with frustration, I came away with clarity. I definitely do not want to live near the centre. Calm matters more than the marble, more than Neptune, more than viral gold figures. That need is louder than any memory of past favourite haunts.

The bells chime again, half an hour has passed as I write this. Jetlag still presses on my body, nostalgia and irritation swirl in my mind, but underneath it all there’s hope and curiosity. Day one is done. Florence is still Florence. I’m still me, just a little wiser, a little more selective, a little more aware that chafing can ruin history as effectively as tourists ruining your favourite piazza. And maybe, just maybe, next time I’ll just wear jeans and a t-shirt emblazoned with a loud warning to the Instagrammers: “Look up from your phone. It’s actually beautiful here.”