You are as you smell, even in Italia

All cities are known by their smells. Depending on the season, Spokane can smell either as fresh as the wind whipping up over the spring gush of the Spokane River or as musty as the mess that the seagulls deposit all August long in Riverfront Park .

Italy is no different. On the coast, at the Cinque Terre for example, the wind blowing in off the Mediterranean carries with it the familiar aroma of kelp, fish and salt, mixed with a bit of whatever you happen to be eating (or drinking) at the moment. In Firenze, the summers are hot and sticky and the streets don’t always get, uh, cleaned if you catch my drift. So the smell can be, yes, a bit rank. La Citta Bella becomes La Citta Puzza.

And to tell you the truth, I’ve never been a big Firenze fan. Yeah, I know. It has culture, it has the history, it has the art, it has the language and the gardens and towers and gelaterias… well, everyplace has the gelaterias, but you know what I mean. Yet Firenze seems too enclosed, too dark and at times foreboding. Walking down some of its narrow side streets even in daytime can be, for a claustrophobe such as I, an adventure in heavy breathing (and not the good kind). Me, I’ve always been a fan of Roma.

But yesterday, stepping off the train, Firenze struck me differently. I was much more open to its charms. It wasn’t just that a mid-May breeze was giving the city almost a Northwest feel to the air. It wasn’t just that the streets were less crowded than usual (and certainly will be in a couple of weekends). It wasn’t even that the sun was shining down from a sky that had expelled all but a few fleecy clouds.

No, it was the smell. There was a curious kind of scent that didn’t carry with it any negative references. No stench of sewage or garbage, no spoiled food or old sweat or seagull droppings. I couldn’t, and I still can’t, describe exactly what it was. Except, of course, to say that it smelled like Firenze.
Which, for the first time, was a good thing.