Florentine journal

July 28, 2022

It's 8:40 a.m. and so far today I have:

 

*Written in my journal

*Jogged along the Arno

*Fatto la moka con biscotti (made coffee with the moka coffee pot plus breakfast cookies -- my preferred breakfast any day of the year)

*Visited una pietra d’inciampo in Piazza Santo Spirito (stones that mark the homes of Jewish Italians deported by the Nazis during WWII)

*Had a cappuccino (at Caffe Ricchi on the piazza – old haunts)

*Watched rowers along the Arno

*Found a new place for ciambelline (Pasticceria Balletti on Borgo Ognissanti)

*Took inventory of what’s new in my old old neighborhood (=Oltrarno/Santo Spirito section. The restaurant Borgo Antico still there, also Trattoria Casalinga still there, Residenza Sorelle Bandini where Daddy stayed in 1996 when he came to visit me, gone – or in any event existing under a new name; morning market on, Caffe Cabiria still there, I Raddi at the corner now has picnic tables outside; opposite my old apartment on Via dei Serragli, the fiaschetteria is still there but now I see they have a warehouse across the street where they store all the wine).

I see Ballerini, the tiny bakery on the street of our rental apartment, also has homemade cantuccini for dunking in vin santo – duly noted for later.

In other news: Half of Spain is visiting Italy!

From yesterday’s journal: I can now say I have seen Galileo’s finger! (at the Museo del Galileo in Florence, which is a science museum). Jealous yet?

This morning’s marathon walk took me from Borgo Ognissanti to:

Via del Melagrano – Lungarno Vespucci – Piazza Goldoni (at foot of my old bridge, Ponte alla Carraia; I used to pass the statue of Goldoni every morning as I hurried to get the bus just beyond Piazza Santa Maria Novella) – via della Vigna Nuova – via del Purgatorio – back to Via della Vigna Nuova – then via degli Strozzi – Piazza della Repubblica (where I visit the newsstand) – Via Orsanmichele -- Via Calzaiuoli – all culminating in Piazza della Signoria (Florence’s living room) where I swoon, turning the corner into the square and seeing the tower of Palazzo Vecchio (largely mine for the ogling at this hour).

From there, I make a stop on Via Georgofili, behind the Uffizi, for my ritual visit to the monuments marking where the Mafia detonated bombs in 1993 in an effort to deter criminal investigations and reassert its iron hand (oddly, I was in Sicily at the time it happened – and yes I am that old, but don’t tell Leo).

This morning, I see paddleboarders in addition to rowers on the Arno. I would say rowing on the Arno would be perfection. 

(Writing in your journal while gazing across the Arno to Chiesa di San Frediano in Cestello? Also perfection).

I stop in to pray at Chiesa Ognissanti on my way back and ethereal choral music fills the sanctuary, a perfect accompaniment to prayer & contemplation. 

Later, when we all go back, Mike gives money to Leo to light a candle and I tell him to say a prayer for Grandma. At this rate, Pat has been prayed for in half the churches in Italy. I am mindful of their trips to Italy both to visit me and on their own, including the trip to Milan where Mommy left a message that began, "Buongiorno Jeanne!" 

I have mentioned it before on this blog but I am not sure you -- I! -- could ever sufficiently savor my mother's heavy Brooklyn accent wrapping itself around 'good morning' in Italian. The intertwining, as it were, of my two lives, as if there weren't already overwhelming evidence of how very lucky I am.

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