On My Own in Florence

A tete-a-tete with myself in a city welcoming to solo travelers made dining and reminiscing a treat.

Florence’s Arno.

If you are wondering where Americans are spending their summer, I’ll let you in on a little secret: they are all in Florence. I’ve spent the past week here on my own with my daughter, while she has attended an acting camp at New York Film Academy. To make it through the crowds alive, I’ve often had to shimmy sideways like Flat Stanley throughout the Disneyland masses. I’ve had to pace myself among the overwhelming, and, at times, unbearable crowds. On some days, it has felt like an American campus during fraternity and sorority rush week. On most days, it smells like hot leather in a soccer team’s locker room. The Tour de France begins here on Saturday — in Piazza della Signoria! — and I hope to escape to Rome before being toppled over by the cyclists.

Yesterday, I ran into the ring-leader of this tourist madness: Stanley Tucci was filming his latest episode at a restaurant, Dalla Lola (via della Chiesa, 16r) in the Santo Spirito neighborhood where I am staying. I haven’t eaten at his “discovery” yet — but I’m sure we all will soon once his episode airs. However, I must say that a Florentine friend had already recommended Dalla Lola to me before I spotted The Food Guru there — sorry, Stanley, you’re late to lunch.

Bald Stanley contemplating a plate of pasta seconds before his blonde crew member told me to stop taking photos.

Florence was the very first Italian city in which I lived. The summer after my freshman year in college, I was hosted by an Italian family for a month, and attended classes at Syracuse University’s summer program in Art History, Italian, and Cooking. In reality, it was a glorified shopping trip where I went home with more fine leather goods than I’ll ever need. I became fluent in Bar Italian, specialized in ordering both a cappuccino or a Chianti. I received a D in my cooking classes, and the only thing I remember from the kitchen (aside from eating kilos of pasta) was the power of the mezzaluna (a mincing machete I will always cherish). I earned the nickname “Slush” once my classmates discovered my love for Brunello and Montepulciano. My American roommate was a fashion major at the University of Arizona. When she first admired the musculature of Michelangelo’s David, she sighed and said, “Yea, I’d do the David.”

We had other things on our mind that summer of 1995 in Florence. And, mamma mia, did I have fun. Florence erupted an explosion of my humanist senses: it was like being at an all-you-can-eat buffet of beautiful art, delicious food, outstanding architecture, and gorgeous language. It felt like a small liberal arts college campus of everything I had ever loved in life. I never wanted to leave Italy. So, basically, I never did.

This past week, I have seen this same wonder on the faces of the modern-day versions of myself visiting Florence this summer. Can I blame them? No, because I used to be one of them. And, Italy has given me all that and more since that summer many moons ago.

After initially snubbing the hoards, sighing with the Florentine shopkeepers about the incessant crowds, and listening to them tell me that I now speak Italian with a slight Roman accent, I have decided to change my tune. How wonderful that Americans continue to love Italy with a passion, and yearn to continue to want to learn about its history and culture? Isn’t that what traveling is about? Let’s celebrate those who still want to learn and to travel. Otherwise, we become introverted snobs.

During that first summer of mine in Florence, I ate gelato every day after lunch and dinner, devoured focaccia sandwiches full of tripe and intestines on the steps in front of Ospedale degli Innocenti, ate Florentine steaks like a cannibal, and slurped vino in celebration of being underaged in America and of drinking age in Italy. I wore shorts, tank-tops and espadrilles, and my feet never hurt after hours of walking on cobblestones. I called home on an orange Italian payphone, and extended my precious minutes with lira coins. Relics of these pay phones still litter the street today. I’m inclined to dial someone from one of them but modern-day smart phones have erased my memory of everyone’s phone numbers.

In between hangovers during that summer of 1995, I actually read Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists. Vasari led me to return this week to La Cappella Brancacci, which finally opened to the public again in May 2024 after a long restoration. If you want to see one extraordinary work of art in Florence and avoid the crowds, head straight to this hidden slice of heaven which has been described by some art historians as the Sistine Chapel of the Early Renaissance. I bought an entrance ticket in person a half hour ahead of the entry time, and there were only about a dozen of us gaping at the 15th century fresco cycle created by Masolino, Massaccio and Filippino Lippi.

La Capella Brancacci

Masaccio's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden & Masolino's Temptation of Adam & Eve

I will never forget meeting a noble Florentine who feared for Adam’s health and dignity once he gathered that the biblical figure’s fig leaf was removed in the restoration of Masaccio’s Explusion from the Garden of Eden: “Quel uccellino, tanto freddo, poverino.”

While my daughter has been attending acting classes with kids imported from New York and California during the day, I have succeeded masterfully at procrastinating on finishing the final chapters of my book. As Gustave Flaubert once wrote, “I spent the morning putting in a comma and the afternoon removing it.”

However, I have justified my time away from the computer by taking inspiration from some of the spots that most tourists avoid (like the Brancacci Chapel). Another extraordinary work of art not to miss is the beautiful sliver of Michelangelo’s crucifix in Santo Spirito (he sculpted it when he was 18-years-old!) — I paid two euros to see it completely alone.

And, because my daughter has been dining out for lunch and dinner with her new camp friends, I’ve been on my own all day for meals.

At first, I found great company in my book (I just finished reading Lea Carpenter’s intriguing spy novel, Illium, and just started Gianrico Carofiglio’s Ne’ qui ne’ altrove). But, by about day three, I missed the table banter of my own family, and laughing with my husband and the best of friends of who recently visited me in Rome.

I dined out by myself at night. The more I looked around me, the more I saw numerous solo travelers, both male and female. Waiters working in the Florentine restaurants went out of their way to make me feel at ease. Chefs did the same. Never did I feel I was taking up space or asked to leave early. If anything, they often gave me prime real estate and brought out additional treats from the kitchen. This to me is community. Fret not if you are an American traveling alone in Florence — you will either find company in fellow citizens dining next to you or in the warm Italians often running the restaurant.

The last time I wrote about Florence, a couple of months ago in this newsletter, I shared my passion for Trattoria Camillo, which still remains one of my favorite Florentine restaurants.

But, now, I have to pay homage to my other favorite restaurant in Florence: Cibreo. In the early 2000s, I interviewed its late chef and founder, Fabio Picchi, for The Washington Post. Before he recently passed away, Picchi established a reputation as a culinary, Florentine wizard. His warmth came through his Dali-esque moustache whenever he shared his poetic imagination for and execution of delicious Tuscan food. His memory lives strong in his four restaurants that range from formal to informal: Cibreo Ristorante, Cibreo Trattoria and Cibreo Caffe’ in addition to Cibleo (Tuscan-Asian cuisine: think Ravioli vs. Dumpling).

My delicious antipasto of a variation on an eggplant parmesean and a Greek salad.

Cibreo’s signature dish of tagliolini cacio e burro.

I ended up at Caffe’ Cibreo, the most informal of the foursome, because I love the people-watching in its Sant’Ambrogio neighborhood — even though its inside is just as cozy and warm with its red velvet seats around small tables dotted with cabaret lampshades (recalling the theater across the street, Teatro del Sale, run by Picchi’s wife, actress Maria Cassi, often the lead performer onstage).

I started off drinking a sort of pink spritz of acqua di rosa and prosecco, and an eggplant parmesean meets Greek salad. The combination of the cocktail with the antipasto was the best of Italy, Greece and France all in one. Then, I couldn’t resist Picchi’s signature dish, tagliolini cacio e burro, which is different from our Roman cacio e pepe. Dare I say it’s even better? I paired it with a Vermentino because Slush had to live up to her name.

While eating, I got talking to a lovely couple next to me from Northern California. Given that San Francisco was my home recently for five years, I felt at home with them as we bonded over good food, great dogs, and warm Italians. Waiters fluttered about, bringing out delicious amuse-bouche in addition to what I had ordered. A trio of Florentines who lived in Paris had just gotten off the plane and dashed to Cibreo to feel welcomed home. They burbled on next to me, and talked about how much they missed Cibreo. Anything in particular, I asked. “Tutto,” they said. “Proprio tutto.”

Then, along came Giulio Picchi, Fabio’s son, who greeted me as if I were an abituee’. A spitting image of his late father, Giulio greets new customers and old friends the same way, with a charm, grace, and warmth possessed by few in this world. It came as no surprise when he shared with me that the community of Cibreo restaurants was one of six businesses (and the only restaurant in Italy!) recently awarded the highest prize in excellence for hospitality and community by the Universita’ Bocconi for all that it has done for Florence. I get it: Cibreo cooks and hosts with its collective heart. La famiglia Picchi has created a culinary community that may have become a small empire but still leads with humility, warmth, and kindness. Nowhere else have I felt in compagnia while on my own.

So, there you go: this newsletter is the fruit of my procrastinating on finishing the writing of my book.

If you have one day in Florence (or want to make a day trip from Rome on the Italo speedy train — it’s only 1.5 hours away), this is what I suggest: a visit to the Brancacci Chapel and Santo Spirito followed by a meal at the Cibreo Caffe’. Because they are on opposite ends of town from each other, rent an electric bike off the street with Ridemovi App, and zip around Florence like a local. My daughter and I have been loving our biking adventures all week. Just be sure to have your phone charged and don’t ride this weekend or you’ll bump into the Tour de France!

My daughter in Florence.

I can’t help but shamelessly share a photo of my 15-year-old daughter, who is three years younger now than I was when I first lived in Florence. This week with her has also reminded me the value of spending one-on-one time not only with myself but also with one child. I recognize in her face the same wanderlust I experienced when I first came here.

After a week on my own and time spent with my daughter, I see more of myself in her than ever. She knew no one at camp, and dove into the experience like an enthusiastic Labrador in front of a beach. And, as she joined the masses of people in Florence, she also stood out on her own, and came home to me at the end of the day to talk about it. And I loved listening.

“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd,” Albert Einstein once said. “The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.”