In the streets of Florence

Florence, the flower of Italy and its hidden beauty

The city which I decided to write about is Florence, one of the well-known diamonds of Tuscany in Italy. I found myself there last spring with some of my dearest friends and I simply fell in love with this magical place. Even before my arrival I was extremely impatient to admire some of the most astonishing works of art that are located in this city, but Florence early enough proved to me that there were more than what one initially expects.

We stayed in a beautiful house of a local person in the centre of the city. It was a high building with a typical facade. Even from the very beginning we could feel the positive vibes of the city. What caught our attention already from the first walk was the cathedral. This masterpiece, that dominates the piazza del Duomo, is a gothic style church, part of the cathedral complex and with the colourful on the exterior captures the eye at every moment of the day.

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Also, it stands out in the panoramic view of the city that the piazzale Michelangelo offers. Florence has its own light other than the brown colour which dominates the rooftops. It is the light of Art, the light of the gelato flavours, the light of pasta, the light of the people’s smile who do not hesitate to greet you on every occasion.

While walking in Florence by night, among those streets-museums, our gaze got magnetised by the splendid ponte vecchio, a bridge over the river Arno which is a real gem full of romance under the night- starry or not- sky. We were lucky enough to come across a musician there. Many people, whom we hardly hesitated to join, were enjoying this great view accompanied by the sound of the violin. ‘You who are as I have always dreamed of, sometimes I think I have made you up’ has been written on a wall in that bridge and it is not the only wall of the city that has something to ‘say’ to us. Florence was not an important cultural centre just in the Renaissance. However until today it continues to inspire new generations of artists.

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Modern art is alive and evolves in the streets of Florence, making it a city with an artistic heartbeat. The movement for the emancipation of poetry (Movimento per l'Emancipazione della Poesia- MeP) started in Florence and expanded to many Italian and other cities.

These anonymous poets of our times try to bring people and poetry closer and to re-establish between them a stronger bond by filling the cities’ walls with poems. I have to admit that they have succeeded: people pass by and read what is written on these papers on the walls- even driven by curiosity in the beginning, just like us. We would have missed this magical discovery without our friend who was patiently and joyfully translating the poems to us. ‘[there is] nothing to point the way to the lost stars and nobody’ whispered an anonymous poet one night in Florence and continued: ‘there is nothing higher than the great horizon’. These unexpected meetings with poetry made Florence of Botticelli and Michelangelo a breathing city and let us taste the water of the place’s inexhaustible fountain of spirituality.

Next to the History who is present in literally every corner of this city, new seeds of art flourish making Florence the place where you need to get lost to truly find it.

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