Last week, as the news warned about imminent lockdown, I started to freak out a little.  I know our holidays will be spent at home this year, but I knew that Italy was still OPEN.  So I scooped up the kids and drove them to Florence!  I haven’t been there before, but I know it is usually crowded with tourists.  This time, it was very empty.  At 6pm when all the restaurants closed, so did everything else in the historic center, leaving empty streets aside from the few folks (like me) who walked outside.  It is so weird and sad to be in Italy while it is so NOT itself, and yet I feel grateful for the opportunity to see this place without all the people.  It seems like a gift, in a way.

The kids and I walked and walked, rented bikes, ate the “best” gelato, ate meat and potatoes and ragu, and went to some great stores that we haven’t found here in Naples.  There is beauty and art all over this city.  I loved it there.  It seems like the perfect city to me— at least while there were no tourists!