Ah Florence.
I arrived with magical illusions for this city; the long lost name for my daughter, pipped at the post with Matisse for my first, and then Elspeth second time around. My third daughter will definitely be called Florence, I vowed… until I had a 2 and 3 year old and renewed that vow in the form of a totally different one to never have more children.
A train from Venezia to Firenze; Venice to Florence.
The whole of the world calls half of Italy by names that the Italians don’t; and then wonder why the Italians wave their arms around all the time.
An intense amount of evaluation led me to forfeit our business class train fares to Florence and take a day trip to Burano island with Imogen instead. And then catch the train at dusk by myself with a mountain of luggage and two really exhausted kids, one on my lap because there weren’t enough seats on the train let alone any in business class.