Author: Deborah Guber

Andiamo (interj.): let’s go, hurry up, come on already!

Last fall, in the excitement of preparing for another trip to Italy, I decided that it was time, at last, to improve my pitiful Italian. I bought a set of Rosetta Stone CDs and signed up for an “Italian for Travelers” class through CCV, the Community College of Vermont, which offers evening courses for adults. The text we used was a slender volume with the overly ambitious title Conversational Italian in 7 Days. It was an unfortunate book, the kind that prompts you to memorize inane dialogues, including one in which a tourist asks a hotel clerk for the price of a room (Qual è il prezzo della camera?) and receives his answer in lira, an outdated unit of currency that was replaced by the Euro more than a decade and a half ago.

Months later, I’m still struggling with basic vocabulary, but as I stare out the window at the morning sun and feel a familiar rush of adrenaline in my stomach as the plane begins its descent into Paris, there’s one word that bounds back into my sleep-deprived skull:

Andiamo.

Let’s go!

I have just two hours at Charles de Gaulle airport before my connecting flight departs Gate F23 for Florence, but I’m determined to use it wisely. I log in for fifteen minutes of free wifi to send a text message to my family in Pennsylvania, and then grab a quick lunch at an EXKi café, but once I spot a familiar pastel awning on a kiosk nearby, I’m far more interested in dessert. I haven’t been to France since 2009 and I’m craving a Ladurée macaron. I do my best to push the Italian I’ve learned temporarily back into my brain and ask for a trio of delightful flavors, s’il vous plaît: rose petal, peach, and pistachio. Like Proust’s madeleine, the taste sends me tripping back in time, and for a few moments I sit quietly in a crowded row of airport chairs under the glass roof of the terminal, thinking about Paris and a rainy day I spent there once, many years ago, antiquing on the Left Bank of the Seine near the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. It’s nice to be back, if only for a moment in transit.

The small Air France flight that takes me on to Italy is short and uneventful, but when I spy the massive dome of Florence’s cathedral out the window, rising high above the red-tiled roofs of the city, I know that I’ve arrived. Andiamo, andiamo!

Back on the ground, there is some minor housekeeping to be done. I collect my bags and pop a SIM card into my phone so that I can text Cristiana, the “greeter” at my apartment building, to let her know that I’m here, then I wait in line for a taxi, staring down at the business card provided by my rental agency, Italy Perfect. I practice the address over and over in my head before I finally speak it out loud: Lungarno Torrigiani, trenta-tre. Per favore.

It’s half past three in the afternoon, and the airport is just a few kilometers from the city center, but traffic is congested and it’s pushing my driver—a young man with dark brown hair and a relaxed disposition—into fits of causal profanity. Italian culture dictates that he be angered when a motorcycle veers directly in front of his cab while merging lanes, and he seems happy to oblige with a howl of indignation, a pump of the horn, and a rude gesture out the window, but there’s little relish in it. He’s does what he is expected to do, and then leans back and turns up the radio.

The ride is taking far longer than either I or Cristiana expected, so I pass the time by puzzling over a decal on the window of the cab that reads: Scendere lato marciapiede. This is translated helpfully into English as “Please get down on side-walk,” which is either an instruction to passengers on how to safely exit the vehicle, or a commandment to pedestrians to get out of the way of Mario Andretti, who by now is thumping his fingers on the steering wheel, and accelerating like a rocket at the smallest hint of an opening. Florence is a maze of small cobbled streets, and the pavement is choked with tourists walking obliviously down the center of the road.

By the time we reach the address, it’s a quarter past four and Cristiana has been called away on other pressing business. The doorman, an affable gentleman named Mauro, introduces himself and kindly offers to load my luggage into a vintage birdcage elevator, which clicks and clacks charmingly on its way to the fifth floor.

The double doors to my apartment are tall and carved of a deep, rich wood, and there is a polished brass plaque that reads “Bardi 2.” Mauro opens the door and hands me the key, saying that Laura will be by soon to walk me through the particulars on the air conditioning unit and the washing machine and so on, but my brain is hardly paying attention. I am standing on the threshold of a year’s worth of planning and suddenly I’m reminded of that Booking.com commercial on TV, the one where nervous travelers arrive at their destination, their hopes and dreams pinned on a reservation made sight unseen. As the narrator says: “The door opens, you hold your breath, and then you realize: YOU GOT IT RIGHT!”

I step inside, survey my surroundings, and think: “Yes!” Without a doubt, I got it right.

I sprint across the room to a large window, hung with cheerful floral drapes, open the levers, and gaze out. It’s a pleasant city view, with a hodgepodge of stucco buildings and shuttered windows, bathed in a warm afternoon light, and as I lean out and crane my neck to the left, I can see the church of San Miniato al Monte perched high on the hill behind a cluster of trees.

For a fleeting moment, I fancy that I am Lucy Honeychurch, the disappointed heroine in E.M. Forster’s classic novel, A Room with a View: “I want so to see the Arno. The rooms the Signora promised us in her letter would have looked over the Arno. The Signora had no business to do it at all. Oh, it is a shame!”

And I suppose it is.

Throughout the long, dreary winter in Vermont, had I longed to open the shutters on my imaginary windows to see all of Florence at my feet — from the red-tiled dome of the cathedral, to the sturdy and crenellated tower of the Palazzo Vecchio. Alas, the proverbial “Room with a View” is expensive. I’ve paid €1,990 for a four-week stay, but it would have cost €1,190 more to stay in a similar apartment facing the river, which I couldn’t justify to my practical brain and my limited pocketbook. In the end, I opted for a tiny one-bedroom apartment facing Via dei Bardi instead, with lemon yellow walls and lime green trim, tall ceilings, and big, bright windows. By the time I hear a knock at the door and circle back to the entrance to meet Laura, who smiles broadly and greets me with a generous hug, I’ve decided that I love my “Room with(out) a View.” It suits me well, and feels like home.

I relax for a bit, unpacking here and there. I hang my clothes in the walk-in closet, place some maps and brochures in a basket on the living room table, and spread out my toiletries on the glass shelf above the bathroom sink. There is a tall cabinet to explore, filled with cups and plates and pots and pans, and I take stock of what I have at my disposal while making a grocery list. After years of hotel rooms, it feels good to spread out and settle in.

By the time I venture out onto the street in search of a meal, it’s just past seven, and the late day sun feels warm and inviting on my jet-lagged body. After a long day in transit, I’m in the mood for a walk. The Uffizi Gallery is just across the river, and within minutes I could be crossing the Ponte Vecchio and back on Via Porta Rossa near the Hotel Davazanti, which is where I’ve stayed on all of my previous trips here. Those surroundings are familiar and enticing, but for now I’m far more eager to explore my new neighborhood on the Oltrarno.

I turn left and then left again, heading towards the Pitti Palace, but then instinctively veer right on Via dello Sprone, a narrow alley which spills out into the tiny Piazza della Passera. I wandered here once before on a shopping excursion. It was the perfect summer’s night—my last in Florence before moving on to Lucca—and the ceramic plaque I bought that day from a friendly woman named Tiziana, hangs in my library at home, where it gives me great pleasure. Coming back to this little square feels natural, a bit like picking up where I left off.

My stomach is growling for dinner and the menu outside of 5 e Cinque looks inviting. I order a fizzy glass of pignoletto wine, and then dive into a cećina, a flatbread made with chickpea flour, which is followed by a covaccino con capocollo di cinta senese—a thin Tuscan bread heaped with local salami.

Afterwards, I wander to the Ponte Vecchio, where my old friend Claudio Spadi is entertaining the crowd, and then stop for a dish of ice cream at Cantina del Gelato on Via dei Bardi, which has decadent swirls of hazelnut, Nutella, and caramelized almonds. By the time I reach the palazzo and the tiny birdcage elevator takes me back upstairs, my legs are tired, but my stomach is full and my heart is entirely content.

It’s going to be an extraordinary month.

My apartment in Florence

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Note: Although the apartment I rented is no longer offered through Italy Perfect, it is available by contacting the Rinascimento Palace directly, albeit for a higher price.

Additional resources

• Is an Italy Vacation Rental or a Hotel Best for You? (Italy Perfect)
• Vacation Rentals: Right for You? (IndependentTraveler.com)
• Italy Perfect
• Windows on Italy
• Homeaway
• VRBO – Vacation Rentals by Owner
• Airbnb
• Flipkey