The Morning Florence Flirted With Snow
- Angela Fowler
- Jan 7
- 3 min read
I woke from my cocooned slumber to the sound of light rain tapping on the window set into my ceiling. Winter mornings are dark until just before 8am, but the glow of streetlights and the moon filters through the skylight with ease, prying my eyelids open earlier than I’d like.
Today is a public holiday in Italy for the Epiphany, though it’s better known as La Befana. Rooted in old Italian folklore, the Befana is a witch-like old woman who visits children on Epiphany Eve, delivering either a lump of coal, candy or a small gift. She’s Italy’s answer to Santa Claus, just with a little more humour, a little less polish, and far better stories.
Public holidays in Florence are treated the way we’ve mostly forgotten how to treat them in Australia. Cafés, bars and retail shops close. Properly. People respect the expectation of a public holiday, a day of rest. Public transport still runs, and the occasional bar opens because mid-morning coffee and a cornetto are non-negotiable here, but even then they open later and shut by midday. Time slows. Family time is protected. Traditions continue, unbothered by the noise of modern life.
Outside, it’s quiet. Even a whisper feels capable of waking the neighbourhood. There’s a stillness to the silence, comforting rather than eerie. It suggests the palazzi are still full of dreams, or that someone is taking their first sip of coffee in the privacy that only closed shutters and darkness can provide.
Slow starts to the day are my favourite. I love the ritual of boiling water on the stove for my first cup of tea, switching on lamps to flood the room with warm yellow light, and opening the shutters to greet the hills with a softly spoken Buongiorno. Most mornings begin this way, but this one felt different. The weather forecast had been teasing us with the promise of snow for a week now, each day inching closer to the 6th of January and building anticipation like a child on Christmas morning, or a man at his first burlesque show, if that’s the more accurate description of nervous excitement.
The light rain eventually surrendered, morphing into cascading white flurries that looked like Maldon sea salt flakes drifting through the air. My soul filled instantly. I’ve only experienced snow twice in my life, so any chance to witness it again sends me into a state of unfiltered joy.
The snow, however, never committed. Unlike other parts of Tuscany, it melted the moment it touched the ground, dissolving into dark stone and damp pavement as if it had second thoughts. No thick blanket of white. No postcard ending. Just fleeting kisses on rooftops and windowsills before disappearing entirely. And somehow, that felt exactly right.
It meant you had to pay attention. Look up. Stay present. Miss a moment and it was gone. The ground remained unchanged, but the air told a different story. When I cracked the window open, I could feel it on my skin, sharp, clean, alive. The kind of cold that wakes you gently, not rudely.
Florence wore the snow like a passing mood rather than a costume. A suggestion, not a transformation. The streets stayed their familiar worn grey, but above them the flakes performed anyway, unconcerned with permanence. I liked that about them. They didn’t ask to be remembered. They just arrived, did their thing, and left quietly.
I stayed by the window longer than necessary, because where else would I go? The city was still resting, La Befana having done her rounds. Families lingered in pyjamas. Kettles boiled slowly across neighbourhood kitchens. Outside, life paused just long enough for the snow to exist without expectation.
By the time my tea had cooled, the flurries had thinned into nothing more than damp air and memory. But the feeling stayed. That lightness. That ridiculous happiness over something that barely even happened. Proof, perhaps, that joy doesn’t need to leave evidence. Sometimes it’s enough just to witness it, to know you were there when the sky briefly decided to play.
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