When I was a little girl and Coi still lived in Italy, I told him that I would come visit him in Europe, hoping to do so when I finished high school. I was so angry with him (briefly) when he migrated to Australia and I was only 8 or 9. My opportunity to spend time with an Italian family and swan around Europe gone.
Kieu, also, had wanted to spend time with Coi and his Italian foster family; so, we arranged to meet and stay with Coi’s foster parents, the Galimbertis, in Florence. As a bonus, Alessio, who visited Australia in about 1990 (?), lived nearby Coi’s foster parents and we got to catch up with him, as well.
Kieu & Tien were already in Italy and they travelled by train from Venice to Florence, arriving the same day that we planned to arrive but in the late afternoon. Our plane was scheduled to arrive at 11pm, but with delays etc, we ended up arriving shortly after midnight. Luckily, we had declined the Galimberti’s kind offer to collect us from the airport and booked ourselves into a hotel for our late night arrival. The following morning, we took a train to their home on the outskirts of Florence.
Day 1 – Arrival at Poggiolino
Alessio met us at the train station and it took me a moment to recognise him – his hair was no longer blonde and he was not as tall as I remember. As we walked to Alessio’s car, I stumbled on the cobbled pavement and twisted my ankle. It would not have been such a bad sprain, except that I was carrying my backpack, weighing about 15kgs. Worse luck for me, I had just declined Alessio’s offer to take the backpack off me. I was hopeful that some rest and ice would fix the ankle, but it was actually rather painful and swelled up very quickly. This did not look good for our holiday – we had planned to hike in the Apennine Mountains north of Florence.
When we arrived at the property, named Poggiolino, only Kieu and Tien were there. Everyone else had set off to church (it was Sunday). We made ourselves at home in the kitchen, where we gorged ourselves on freshly picked cherries and caught up with Kieu and Tien and their travels.
When the Galimbertis came home, we had a riotous introduction and I was quickly told off for spraining my ankle then just as quickly cared for and admonished if I tried to do anything beyond sitting down with my foot up by Signora Galimberti.
We also met Barbara, Alessio’s wife; Diana, the eldest sister, and her partner, Miguel. We had great fun communicating – or, rather, trying to – with everyone: Nic and I muddled our way through Italian with a phrase book; Diana was a master of many languages – French, Spanish, English; Signora Grazia Galimberti’s English was excellent but she was adamant we had to communicate with her in Italian; Signor Gianfranco Galimberti’s technical English was excellent but he faltered in everyday English (though he fared better than we did with Italian!) There were lots of looking around at somewhere else and saying, “How do you say …?” (or it’s equivalent in Italian or French). Luckily, Italians have a very tactile way of communicating and Nic and my exuberant hand gestures became even more exaggerated as we did our best to converse.
After a delicious Sunday lunch in the Italian way: pasta to start, bread, cheese and meats to follow and chased with dessert of ?? , all accompanied with olive oil and wine made by the Galimbertis from the trees and vines we had driven past on our way to their idyllic property in the Tuscan countryside.
The afternoon was spent lazing about in the hazy siesta time. I would have loved to explore the property, but also wanted to rest so that the ankle could heal properly. It was good for Nic and me to wind down and it seemed like my ankle was forcing us to do so!

Nic relaxing on the front steps at the Galimbertis' home.
Day 2 – Rest day at Poggiolino
The next morning, my ankle was still painful and very swollen, so Nic and I decided to just hang around Poggiolino instead of joining Kieu and Tien on their trip to visit Pisa and its famed leaning tower.
Nic’s and my day was filled with very little activity. I mostly lay around reading, resting and napping. Nic explored Poggiolino, taking photos and drawing, and also occasionally reading and resting. It was incredibly warm and very sunny in Italy; much of our time was spent trying to keep cool in the shade, marvelling at the beauty of the surrounding landscape and enjoying the abundance of cherries on trees (by helping them make their way into our tummies).

Not going anywhere fast.

Butterfly on lavender, in the garden at Poggiolino.

The main house, as seen from the garden.
In the mid afternoon, Kieu and Tien came back exhausted by their day in the heat at Pisa. They succeeded, however, in their goal: to take a typical tourist photos (as one must) of holding up the leaning tower. Naturally, they then joined Nic and me doing very little under the shade of some old grapevines.
That evening, we had another fabulous feast with the Galimbertis, as it was Alessio’s birthday. For dessert, we had eight different flavours of gelati. Heaven. We were joined by Alessio’s mother, Liliane, Eliana, the Galimberti’s youngest daughter and Hector, who also lived in the house that we were staying in, though we did not realise it until after dinner that evening, when he gave us a lift home (it wasn’t far, but people were very solicitous of my ankle).
Day 3 – Into Florence (Firenze)!
The next day, my ankle was healed enough that we decided to head into Florence and visit some of the sights. Gianfranco drove all four of us into the centre of town, suggesting to Nic that we visit San Lorenzo church as it was one of the oldest in Florence. While looking for the entrance to the church, we accidentally went into the Cappelle de Medici instead, only realising it was not the church after we had already paid to go in and ascended to the first floor exhibit about the Medicis. That’s when we realised where we were: The Chapel of the Medicis. Silly us.
I feel a bit naughty admitting this, but I do not find the Medicis very interesting. Nor does medieval Florence, with its patrons, artists and religious fanatics capture my imagination in the way that Rome and its much older history did. Even in Rome, I much preferred the artefacts of classical times than the artefacts of medieval times (e.g. the Villa Borghese). And all the religious artefacts just make me cold with the ostentation and expense. There were many reliquariums at the Capelle de Medici – overwrought boxes intended to house the bones of saints – of varying degrees of ostentation but pretty much all covered in gold gilt.
From the Cappelle de Medici, we decided to wander around Florence. We did not get very far before the heat drove us inside another building. This time, we had entered the capacious ground floor of Florence’s famed Duomo (cathedral), where the geometric tiles combined with high ceilings gave us wonderfully cooling respite from Italian sunshine and warmth.

Geometric tiling.
We could see the inside of the cupola and decided we were here and we had to ascend to the top, sore ankles aside. It took us a while to find from where, exactly, we could climb to the cupola as it was a separate entrance from the one we had used to get inside. After checking that the stairs would be wide enough for someone to pass me if I was going too slowly, Nic and I began the long, slow climb to the cupola.
We had two levels at which we got to see the frescoes on the inside of the cupola up incredibly close and marvel at the detail and clever perspective put in to make the central part of the painting look like it extended even higher than it actually did. What’s more, the images of hell became even more viscerally disturbing up close. The fresco was a depiction of the world in ‘levels’ as seen, I suppose, by an imagnative Catholic: the lower levels were vivid pictures of hell where men and women were being torn apart and eaten by demonic red creatures with bulging eyes. Next, was life on earth, with some people slipping towards hell and others exalting with the angels in the level above. Above the angels were saints, surrounding God who was in the highest, central part of the cupola.

So close, you can make out the paintstrokes.

From the top, we had fantastic views of Florence and the mountains we would probably NOT be climbing.
That evening, Tien had agreed to cook up a Vietnamese feast for our hosts, so after finding a cafe to have lunch of calzone in, we hurried back to the train station to return to Poggiolino, go grocery shopping and then cook. Tien had planned the menu: goi ga (chicken salad); squid san choi bao (lettuce wraps); sup mang (asparagus soup); beef and zucchini stir fry and, of course, rice (steamed and fried). Tien did almost all of the cooking, but Kieu, Nic and I all helped with the preparation.
Our meal was a great success (even if I say so myself). People liked nuoc mam lam (dipping fish sauce) so much that they drank it out of their bowls. I was too slow to stop them. For dessert, Grazia made cherry sorbet from the many cherries growing on their property. We had set the table beautifully, as it had been lavishly set every other meal. I did laugh, however, when Grazia asked if all our family meals were like that. Definitely no – they are much, much more chaotic!

Dinner setting by Nic and Kieu.
Day 4 – Firenze again!
On Wednesday, all four of us went into Florence again to explore, splitting up to explore separately and at our own pace. Nic and I found the heat so enervating that we just wandered aimlessly. We ended up on the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge), Florence’s oldest bridge and the only one not destroyed by Nazis in their retreat at the end of World War II. It is famed, now, for being the only bridge still with shops on it (mostly jewellers), which was common of bridges in medieval times but no longer. Amusingly, we ran into Kieu and Tien who had actually intended to go to the Ponte Vecchio.

View of river Arno from Ponte Vecchio.

The back of the shops on the Ponte Vecchio.
From the Ponte Vecchio, we walked to the Uffizi gallery but decided not to go in as the queue for tickets was very long, as was the queue to actualy enter once you had tickets. We did more aimless wandering, resting for a while on the steps of a church, eating gelati and making plans for the weekend that did not involve climbing a mountain.
After lunch of lasagna (me) and salad (Nic) at some forgettable touristic ristorante, we went into the Palazzo Vecchio (old palace). Initially, this was a good idea as it was cool inside. But as we went further into the building and higher up, there was less and less air. We listlessly passed from room to room, half admiring the artwork but I, anyway, was desperate to get out again just so I could breathe.
Our next move was a more suitable one for our moods and the heat: we sat ourselves down in a cafe for due espressi and fruit salad. From there, we moved closer to the train station and plonked ourselves down in another cafe, before returning to Poggiolino for another feast.
Sadly, the heat must have got to me, as I was quite unwell that evening and took to bed early. I felt a bit bad about this because I only got to meet Nicolo, Alessio’s younger brother, briefly and I did not get the opportunity to say goodbye to everyone before we all set off the next day. I slipped away from dinner because I did not want anyone to worry about me.
We all left early the next morning (me much recovered after a good night’s sleep) – Nic and I to the Cinque Terre; Kieu and Tien to Rome. I was sad to leave Poggiolino and would have loved to have stayed there longer and help out around the farm, picking olives perhaps!
All the photos of Poggiolino here.
All the photos of Florence here.