“Hey lady, Do you have plans next week?”. That was the WhatsApp message I sent to my friend Danielle on Tuesday morning. Her reply, “nope” and me, “Lets go to Italy”.
I booked the flights for 100 euros a person from Paris to Florence and found an Airbnb in the city center that afternoon. It was a done deal and one that couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. I think Florence was an excellent choice in the first city to visit on what was both of our debut trips to Italy.
We arrive at 11:30pm on Monday night. Danielle researched and booked us a three hour walking tour of the city the following morning. I recommend doing a tour first thing to cover the history and give yourself a better of idea of what it is you personally want to explore more it. There is so much to see and with only a few days we wanted to have a good balance of seeing the site while giving ourselves the space we wanted to decompress and enjoy the WINE.
First stop was the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. Construction begun in 1296 in the Gothic style designed by Arnolfo di Cambio and was structurally completed by 1436, with the dome designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. 600 years to complete! The exterior of the basilica is faced with polychrome marble panels in green, red and white which each having a significant meaning. White for faith, green for charity and red for hope. We had a fantastic view of the cathedral from the bathroom and kitchen windows inside our airbnb. This was especially nice for me on Wednesday morning as I was forced to celebrate my re-entry back into the world of late night wine drinking after taking almost two months off to train and take an aerial performance contract in Seattle. The view provided a lovely bathroom backdrop in addition to the tiny blue Italian toilette I spend more time that I’d care to admit leaning over for the great part of that morning.
Was the wine worth it? Yes and so were the 8 sober weeks during which I created a new aerial fabric for the Bohemia show. Training in wine and in aerial don’t mix well sometimes.
