By the time we boarded our train to Florence, I had been swimming in the Mediterranean, gotten a private tour of the Vatican by an octogenarian priest, made limoncello on a seaside cliff, been pickpocketed (unsuccessfully) by some Roma gals, and eaten gelato twice a day for nearly a week. Italy had snuck into my being and nestled itself into my bones. I felt that being in Italy, a place I previously had no connection to, genetic or otherwise, was like being home. The tastes, the textures, the people, the air itself, all felt like a thing to which I belonged. It was a cloth that parts of me had been cut from many eons ago. 

I adored Rome and Sorrento so much that leaving them felt like parting with a lover. As Maria, Alicia, and I made our way to our seats, a thought popped into my head, “what could this place possibly offer me that I haven’t already seen in the last week?” I was nervous that Florence may be a letdown after the bright, loud, hyperactive, unrelenting thing that was Rome, and the soft, luxurious, lemon-scented, deliciousness that was Sorrento. The trip until that point had been a 20 out of 10, and my Germanic propensity toward foreboding kicked in. It was a scientific impossibility that Florence could match my experience of Italy so far. 

Our northwest bound train pulled out of global-capital-chaos and began to snake its way through the luscious green of Italy’s Umbria region. With each passing minute, Rome’s frenetic energy melted away. It was obvious we were entering brand new territory. I don’t think I had ever seen green quite like Umbria green. The Mediterranean luxury of Sorrento now seemed like a lifetime ago as we crossed over into Tuscany’s rolling hills. Every single glance out the train window felt like it needed to be savored, relished, every view was a postcard in real-time. Vineyard after vineyard passed by my gaze. There was not a powerline, billboard, or even car, in sight. Nothing seemed to be able to pull me out of my dreamy state during that 90-minute train ride. If the view was any indication of the next few days, then perhaps Florence wouldn’t be so bad after all. 

As had been the case with nearly every single moment of the trip thus far, Alicia’s planning was perfection. We stayed at a chic little hotel in Rome, a breathtaking resort in Sorrento, and now Florence would be done apartment-style. Unbeknownst to me, this was something my body needed because the moment we walked into that apartment, everything in me took a sigh. We now had a kitchen, living room, a couple of bedrooms, and, most importantly, space, all at our disposal. 

Standing in the foyer, I involuntarily looked up. The ceilings must have been at least 20-feet high with dark wood trim. Arches and exposed beams crisscrossed above us giving me the feeling that heavenly beings were involved in its construction. The apartment felt incredibly expansive because of those ceilings, though the actual square footage may not have been that much. Every nook and cranny of that apartment felt like it had history behind it. I wanted every fixture and tile and doorway to tell me its story. Real wood, real metal, real brick were everywhere. Nothing in the apartment was faux or false, which would soon be the theme of Florence as a whole. Colossal gothic windows stretched from the floor to the ceiling and looked out into a little shared courtyard. 

No, in fact, Florence would not be a letdown, I decided. We could stay in that apartment for 3 days straight and Florence would still be in a 3-way tie with the other two cities. 

The city of Florence begs to be explored. Its history somehow feels slightly more tangible than that of Rome, though I’m sure that’s just a matter of perspective. At times, Rome felt possibly too ancient. Augustus, Claudius, and Marcus Aurelius may as well be Minerva, Ceres, and Apollo, for all my little 21^st century brain could handle.  But the Medici Family, Michelangelo, and da Vinci felt a little closer, a little more familiar. Those names were reachable. I wanted to reach out and touch them, see things I’d only seen in books.

But, first, naps. 

Then food. 

Once we awoke from our respite (let’s be honest, who doesn’t need a little respite after a 90-minute train ride) the three of us ventured to a nearby grocery store. It was walkable and seeing that we now had a fridge, it only made sense to fill it. After 7 days of eating out nearly every meal, I was ready for some simplicity and maybe even a vegetable. We would do breakfasts at the apartment and maybe a dinner or two. 

Nothing highlights our cultural predispositions like grocery shopping. There are so many mundane things we do in our everyday lives that are done on complete autopilot. That is, until you try to do them in a foreign country. To go to the grocery store in America, you get in your car, go to the store you’ve been to 1000 times before, buy what you need, pick up some things you don’t, check out, and go home. Nowadays you can even Instacart that whole process and get groceries delivered right to your mouth. 

Our process in Italy was a little different, a little more cautious. We had to make sure we knew the route from our apartment. The last thing we wanted was to get lost, which we had done several times on the trip, with our arms full of grocery bags. Our list of ingredients needed translations to make sure we were getting the right thing. ‘Potato’ is ‘patata’ in Italian, just FYI. We needed to ensure that we had the right currency and enough of it if, for some reason, the store didn’t take credit cards. The whole thing was far more involved and far more adventurous. 

Fortunately for me, Maria is maybe one of the most fearless people I know. She never hesitates to try something new or ask a stranger for help. Meanwhile I panic over how grocery stores work in other countries. Can I just grab produce with my hands? Do they do things in bulk? Do they use plastic bags? Will people know I don’t speak the language? What if their patatas look different than my patatas? Everything is Euros and metric. At one point in the crowded little shop, an old curmudgeon waved a disapproving finger at Maria for touching the outside of a cantaloupe. Something about testing the durability of a cantaloupe made this old Italian man scorn us with shame. I was all together irritated and elated. 

Once we procured our necessary items, we went back to the apartment for a quiet evening. It was the first time on the trip where we felt no pressure to get outside and explore/eat/experience. We had our own little oasis in that apartment, complete with a stocked fridge and a bottle of wine (or two). Why would anyone need anything else? 

Maria and I discussed for two straight days making gnocchi once we got to Florence. It seems an odd thing to make gnocchi by hand while in Italy when mouth-watering gnocchi is being made by the hands of professionals in every single restaurant every single hour of every single day in that country. But we wanted to recreate an experience. While in Sorrento, an Italian chef taught a group of us how to make the dumpling-pasta hybrid. We were on a small tour of a stunningly gorgeous estate. Lemon orchards and olive groves made the entire place hazy with sweet fragrance. The estate butted up to a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. As citrusy breezes came by, your eyes would be guided to the bluest water that ever was. That was the setting for our cooking class. 

We took handwritten notes the entire time. Even before the first bite, we knew we would have to make it again. Maybe once we got to Florence, where we’d have access to a kitchen? The rotund chef never seemed annoyed at our incessant questions. How much flour exactly? What do you do if you don’t have a gnocchi roller? What kind of potatoes do you use? By the end, our stomachs and minds were satisfied. We had a mission. 

That night in our Florentine apartment, we felt like real Italians. We each had a glass of wine as we organized our ingredients and prepared ourselves for another incredible meal. Surely this couldn’t be that difficult. We just made this dish a few days ago. Boil some potatoes, add egg and flour, shape into gnocchi. Easy Peasy. Alicia half-read a book on the couch nearby as we pretended to be chefs. 

Maria and I have very different cooking styles, as we’ve discovered in our adult years. As best friends since childhood, it’s odd to not know this until age 25. However, she likes to follow recipes exactly. They need to be exactly exact. If a recipe calls for a tablespoon of minced garlic then, by god, it will be one tablespoon of minced garlic. You cannot eyeball some chopped garlic or, heaven forbid, use garlic powder and hope for the best. That is unacceptable. I, on the other hand, rarely use utensils to measure things and only have the right ingredients 63% of the time. This is a difficult space for us to navigate but gnocchi required us to do just that. 

We ended up following those handwritten notes to a T. Making the gnocchi in the apartment felt like making the gnocchi on that seaside cliff, perhaps with less intoxicating citrus. We laughed and made a mess. Flour made its way into every crevasse of that apartment by the time we were done. The recipe is simple, albeit a little labor-intensive. 

It wasn’t until we drained the gnocchi and dumped them out onto a plate that I realized something went awry. Those perfect little savory potato dumplings we had in Sorrento now looked like a steamy loose pile of hot white shit. Tears started streaming down my face as I gasped for air. It was one of the funniest things I had ever seen. 

Ever the optimist, Maria couldn’t admit that something went wrong. Maybe they just needed to cool down a little. Maybe they’ll hold their shape in a few minutes. Maybe we overboiled them. Maybe we underboiled them. She got annoyed at my uncontrollable laughter and referred back to the recipe. We had, in fact, followed all the instructions. The ingredients were measured correctly. Everything about the Sorrento gnocchi was replicated in Florence and, yet, it didn’t work. 

“With enough sauce, we’ll never know,” Alicia offered, our racket forcing her to abandon her book. Maria scooped a slimy, loose dumpling to her mouth. “It still tastes good.” 

My laughter quieted down enough for me to get some plates and serve up those little potato shits. We sat down and did our best to salvage the meal. Alicia had been half right. Enough sauce did make them edible, but we still knew the truth. We knew what lurked under all that marinara. Maria had convinced herself they were still amazing, and I continued to burst into fits of laughter every few minutes for the next hour. 

That night I got into my creaky old bed in my creaky old room and stared up at that incredible ceiling. How was I this lucky? I was with my best friend and her mom, in a gorgeous country, having the trip of a lifetime. My body melted into that bed as I drifted to sleep with thoughts of belly-laughs and green rolling hills. 

To be continued…

Check out this week’s photo contributors:

Joe Ciciarelli

Mark Neal

Daria Shevtsova

Maegan White