Pigeons and Church Bells

We spent the last two days getting settled into our new flat and neighborhood in Firenze (Florence), located just two blocks from the Basilica of Santa Croce. We step out our front door on Via dell’ Acqua, walk straight down two florentine alleys and arrive facing the piazza of the church. People are strolling about, birds cruise around looking for crumbs, and people fill their water bottles, wash their hands, and splash in the water fountain in the corner of the piazza. Our first morning we grabbed a Cafe Americano for Taylor and a Cafe Latte for me, and let Logan run wild. There were puddles throughout the piazza from the overnight rain and Logan screamed in delight as he jumped from puddle to puddle only to be distracted by the need to chase the pigeons.

According to Italians, our flat is on the 3rd floor of our building. What I didn’t realize was that Italians call the ground floor “0” which means that we are actually on the “4th” floor according to Americans. Our building has no lift (elevator), so the three of us are going to have some strong, healthy legs by the time we leave here! This situation pleasantly makes me feel less guilty about all the delicious gelato, wine, pasta, pesto, and bread that I plan to enjoy while in Italy! (The picture below shows Logan on the bottom step of our building entryway.)

We have a two-bedroom, one-bath flat on the top floor. The front of the flat faces the alley/street, and our master bedroom in the back faces where all the flats come together. We can see the top of the Palazzo Vecchio from our bedroom window. Sitting in our room we hear pigeons fluttering and cooing, and church bells ringing at all hours of the day and night. The bells ring until about midnight on the hour, possibly later, but I’m not certain how late…you can imagine my first night of sleep wasn’t very restful. I’m sure I will get used to it and eventually sleep right through it. At 7am there is a very loud church bell that I believe rings about 30 times before it tapers off and stops. Ah, good morning, Firenze! Rise and shine!

There is a nice entry room when you first come into the flat. We told Logan this is his “play room” and we put all his toys on the shelf in there. Logan’s room is to the left of the entry, it has a single bed and a desk and it faces the front of the alley. Our room is to the right of the entry, and includes the only bathroom. The bathroom is small, has a toilet, shower in the middle of the room, and a bidet. There are no shelves to put any toiletries, and since neither of us has any desire to use the bidet we repurposed a plastic kitchen tray by placing it over the top of the bidet and now it is a handy shelf for all our toiletries! 

The kitchen is small with a table that comfortably seats the three of us. The pans and dishes are terrible, old, chipped, dented and in relatively poor shape. We went out today and bought a new pan and two wine glasses! I may even invest in some plates from the local 99 cent store as these ones are pretty terrible. We had to do some safety measures to make sure that the windows are secure. They don’t have screens and they open wide. People literally hang out the windows and speak to each other from the street up to the top floor. For a family with a 2-year-old, these windows are terrifying. With a little 550 cord and some carabiners, Taylor was able to rig them all so that there is no way that Logan can open the shutters (which let fresh air through but keep Logan safe). We have a tiny front-loader washer in the kitchen, and we dry our clothes on a rack that was provided by our landlord. With the warm weather, the clothes dry relatively quickly. We’ve had gorgeous weather since we arrived. Warm but with patchy clouds and a little bit of drizzle today.

Laundry

View towards front.

Today we took Logan on a carriage ride, since all he’s been talking about since he saw the horse carriages was “horsey ride.” We also did some grocery shopping, which was a whole experience in itself! The local store is about a ten minute walk away, and it’s as big as a Trader Joe’s. It has a fresh deli/bakery. We had to figure out all the new brands and choices of the things we normally have in the house. We found the basics and seem to be doing just fine. While they don’t have Logan’s normal snacks, he seems happy with taralli caserecci (homemade bagels) which are small crackers that look like mini-bagels but are a nice soft crunchy texture. They are only made with wheat flour, white wine, olive oil and salt. They’re pretty amazing. We’ve been making lunches at home (sandwiches/salads), and dinners too (steak, risotto out of the bag, tortellini, salad). We found a bottle of wine for 3 euro at the grocery store that was actually very good. I watched an old man pick out two bottles of it, and just trusted his judgement. Thanks, old man!

We have to separate our trash: plastic/glass, organic (food), paper, and everything else. The paper you can put in a bag and leave out front each Wednesday evening. But the rest of the bags you have to carry two blocks to these big bins that dump down into the ground. So we are doing daily trash runs so that we don’t get over piled with trash to carry. It really makes you aware of how much food you waste, and how much trash you make.

We are getting acquainted with our new home and neighborhood. While I make it sound like our flat isn't the most luxurious place to live, it's a small price to pay to live in the historic city center of Florence surrounded by streets and alleyways where the likes of Dante, Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci walked and helped shape the Renaissance! 

For the past two days we have been strolling these same streets. We let logan run around when it’s safe. He loves to drive his little cars on the steps of the churches. We haven’t found any typical parks or playgrounds, however he seems happy strolling the streets, riding carriages, chasing birds, and jumping in puddles. We are taking Florence slowly. It is beautiful. There are breathtaking buildings and sculptures around every turn. The Duomo literally took my breath away as we came around a turn and ran into it. It’s absolutely stunning. Green, pink and white marble cover every surface. I cannot wait to go inside and climb the dome! But that is for later. For now, we are getting lost in the alleys and finding our way home by looking for the top of the Palazzo Vecchio to guide us in the right direction. We both can’t believe that for the next few months we are living in Italy!