Florence In Monochrome

They call her the Cradle of the Renaissance. Topped with red brick and adorned with the works of the Italian masters of art, architecture and science. She has been broken by floods and trampled by tourists in their billions, but she lives on. She suffers from the over indulgence of our modern lusts for travel. She’s hot but she’s rarely clean, and she is almost bereft of any colour but ochre.

Do you see the Florence that we see? A Florence at her most sublime when bathed in a thick layer of dense fog and a lacquer of rain. When she’s swimming amongst the stars, admired from above and from afar?

A melting pot of art, both past and modern. A city whose minor details are even more beautiful than her grandest cathedrals.

To walk Florence’s antique streets is to be lost in a reverie.

If only we could stop the planes from flying and suture her accessibility, adorn her once more with artists en-masse, and clasp the door tightly shut.