An Aussie Abroad

It would be very easy to visit Florence and miss its best kept secret.
It’s not a monument or gallery, not a restaurant or bar. It is an institution, a practice taken advantage of by the students and young people of the city.
Emerging from a club at 3am, the cold dark of night hits you like the music pounding in your ears. On many occasions while living in Florence for two months, my friends and I began the stumble home.
It’s only when you’re deep in the Florentine rabbit warren of streets that a smell hits you. A smell so powerful and enticing at that time of night that it must be followed – the smell of a bakery.
The smell provided comfort in a foreign city. It gave us hope that the hangovers wouldn’t form. It marked a sign that in a country that hates fast food, we may yet find something to fill our hungry, drunken souls. Most of all it provided direction, a map in the dark, a woman gently walking in front with her hand outstretched urging you to come closer and closer. And follow her we did.
The smell was so immense it was hard to know where to go after a while. As intrigue and hunger grew stronger, all the streets blended into one, and the desperation grew. All of a sudden we rounded a corner and were met with cries of “shooshhh” from a group of young locals. They had been here before.
We got told the drill, without quite knowing what it was; knock on the door, hand over some money, and you will be given the goods. And most important, be deadly silent.
Far from walking into a drug den, we had discovered the secret bakeries of Florence.
Commencing baking in the wee hours of the morning, the bakers sell their freshly baked products to the night owls of Florence. Bags stocked with chocolate croissants for a mere one euro, we giggled our thanks to the locals and stumbled out of the maze of streets into Santa Croce square, silent and empty, with its church lighting up the night.
A dominating statute of Dante adorns the front of the church, peering down into the square with a look of defiance and rebellion. The man that loved Florence so much, but was not loved back and exiled instead. As Dante watched on, we were rebels as well, playing soccer with the extra croissants we had.
There, in that moment, with sunrise around the corner and under the watchful gaze of Dante, who failed to kick the croissant back when it was his turn, we revelled in our discovery. The night was warm, the air crisp and the church illuminating. Florence had us now.