Solo Travelers Italy-- Meet Your Friend in Florence! Meet one-on-one with me for an hour and a half, and get my insider advice on making the most out of your stay For the first 45 minutes we will go to the best coffee place near where you are staying, and I will orient you with maps and share dining and sightseeing information, as well as tips about how
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An Australian Opens a Bistrot in Florence
I am pleased to add this interview to my Taking the Plunge series Here is Chloé Guest who opened a bistrot/microbakery in Florence in 2019 Where do you come from and when did you first have a connection with Italy in your life? I was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. My aunt married an Italian-Australian farmer, who raised sugar cane and cattle. His mother, a
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Granita & Gelato Recommendations in Florence
You may think that gelato is the best summer refreshment but in fact it actually gets so hot and uncomfortable here in Florence in the summer that I need something even colder, icier, and in fact lighter than gelato. This is when granita steps into my life. Granita can be considered a cousin of sorbet but it is coarser and icier and it comes in both savory and sweet flavors. It
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Why I Risked Everything to Buy an Apartment in Florence
A personal essay Not long ago I woke up and was fifty years old, with more than half my life already lived. Divorced, and without kids, essentially alone, I decided to follow my lifelong dream of living in Italy, but to do so, I had to “dare greatly” as Dr. Brené Brown calls it. I’d been in love with the city of Florence since age nineteen when I backpacked around
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Florence’s Most Elegant Street
The Via Tornabuoni This article of mine was published originally by Fathom When I first lived in Florence in the 1980s, I should have photographed the historic 19th-century cafes on Via Tornabuoni. Because when I next made Florence my home two decades later, they were gone. Although I was a backpacking waif in the '80s, totally ignorant of Florentine history, if someone had
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