I remember reflecting on Rome when we visited years ago, and realising how much I loved it there despite, or perhaps because of, its contrasts and chaos.  In many ways Florence is same, same, but different.  This is a city of extraordinary beauty, history and heritage and, because of that, it drowns in tourists (like us) and tourist culture.  Nevertheless, I’ve really enjoyed it here.  
Despite needing to work around the national rail strike, we arrived on Friday afternoon within a few hours of our original schedule, and settled quickly into our B&B.  We caught up with Jeannie Reid and wandered the city for a few hours, taking in the magnificence of places I had only ever seen in photographs and video.
Prior to leaving home, Michelle and I had heard about the Buon Ricordo (Good Memories) restaurant scheme across Italy.  All participating restaurants have a special regional dish or menu which is commemorated on a hand-decorated plate that is particular to that restaurant.  If you visit and order the special menu, you get to go home with a commemorative plate.  There are 3 Buon Ricordo restaurants within walking distance of our digs, and we tried without success on Friday afternoon to book one of them for that evening, but could not get a response to our emails.  Jeannie proposed a walk to one of them in the hope that we could get a table, and we did.  We dined and were greatly entertained by Adriano and Claudio at Trattoria Il Francescano, in the shadows of the Basilica of Santa Croce.  It was a fabulous evening.
Saturday was a magnificent day full of art, culture, and beers in the shade by the river.  We saw original works by Botticelli, Da Vinci, and Carravaggio; walked along the 460 year old Vasari Corridor which was only opened to the public last year; saw more priceless Renaissance art at the Palazzo Pitti; sat in the shade of trees by the Arno River and drank beer; soaked in the views at the Piazzale Michelangelo and dined at a pizzeria back in the city.
On Sunday morning we made our way to our agreed place of meeting with Jeannie, only to find that her arrival was heralded by a parade of drummers, musicians, and soldiers in brightly coloured historical costumes.  Jeannie will do anything to make an entrance!
We had planned to attend mass at the Duomo and listen to the Gregorian chant, but arrived to find the Duomo closed to the public for the day.  So we regrouped and, building on the lessons of Friday evening, made our way to Ristorante Regina Bistecca to successfully make a booking for our second Buon Ricordo menu feast: the famous Bistecca alla Fiorentina.

It is worth remembering (I think, anyway) that when you travel from Australia to Europe you stretch time.  Each step westward from one time zone to the next takes you back 1 hour, meaning you have spent n hours to advance n-1 in real time.  In those terms, we were stretching time by 9 hours by travelling from eastern Australia to Central European Time.
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We elected to spread that ‘time stretch’ over the course of three full days of travel.  In practical terms, that felt like we had three 27 hour days in airports and planes.  At the time of writing, we have been in Rome for just under a full day, which is enough time I think to gauge the effects of that slow progress on our body clocks.  I feel fine, and completely absent of jet lag.  I woke this morning at around 5am and my body clock feels completely in synch with the movement of the sun across the sky and the rhythm of the city.

Once we left Melbourne we elected to stay ‘airside’ (that is, within the airport transit zones) and to stay in transit hotels within those zones.  At the end of each day’s flight leg (no more than 8 hours flying) we were able to access a shower, a proper bed and a decent meal, and start the next ‘27 hour day’ relatively refreshed.  Rooms in the transit hotels are not cheap, and I reckon the strategy added about $500 each to the cost of our journey from Devonport to Rome.  Thats around 25%-30% of our airfares.  When compared to an upgraded service like Premium Economy (add about 100% to the economy fare), that seems to me to be a pretty good balance.  At least, it worked for our particular circumstances.

I’m a convert to the theory of slowing your travel progress.  Of course, the ‘cost’ of the strategy is that it diminishes the time you have to experience the places you are travelling to.  Everything is a balancing act, and I think we got this one pretty right. 

In my past life as what Sir Humphrey might have called “a mere, humble government functionary, Minister”, every time an event occurred it was always immediately followed by a debrief.  What went well?  What did not go well?  How do we do it better next time? What are the principal learnings? …. Well, it seems that learned habits are hard to shake - which is how we came to conduct such a debrief in the wake of our last family trip overseas.  

The “principal learning” which arose from that trip was that we derived the most satisfaction and enjoyment from those times when we managed to forge some sort of relationship with the folks we met along the way.  Or, put another way, when we stopped ticking a list of visits to “must-see” attractions, and made an effort to immerse ourselves in the place we found ourselves.

It’s that lesson which is the driver of this planned excursion in September and October this year.  We plan to spend about six weeks in Italy, trying as much as possible to be an active participant within the place rather than a passive observer of it.  Four of those weeks will be spent sharing a villa in the hills above the walled city of Lucca in Tuscany with our dear friends Rob & Jeans, and (hopefully) a few visitors for whom we have some space in the villa.  Then, once we depart Tuscany, Michelle and I will spend a couple of weeks in Testaccio in the city of Rome, primarily to wander, sip espresso, dine out and in, and amuse people with our appalling attempts to communicate in Italian.

And that, pretty much, is the extent of our planning.  What occurs will be reflected - as truthfully as I dare - in posts to follow on this blog.  I’m happy for anyone to vicariously join us here.  Feel free to share the link to this blog.  Feel free also to whack a comment below.  I can take criticism (up to a point - at which I think I can figure out how to delete the comment 😉).

Ciao tutti.