A Beaten Path

We've developed a sense of home here in Florence. Routines and patterns have become our daily life, like our walk home from Gonzaga in Florence.    

Our mile walk starts here at Gonzaga in Florence, just one block north of Piazza San Marco on Via Georgio La Pira.

  

 

Across the street from Gonzaga is a beautiful, botanical garden museum.

  

We walk north along the gardens to the end of the block, and turn right onto

Via Pier Antonio Micheli.  

                

We then follow this long, mustard-colored wall to the end of the street, passing another university on the left before we turn right.

Here, we can always catch a view of the Duomo.
 

Via Gino Capponi is typically congested on weekdays. Cars, buses, bikes, mopeds, and lots of pedestrians crowd this narrow street. On rainy, November days, it's full of umbrellas. 

We turn left onto the Via Giuseppe Giusti, the longest stretch between our work and home. We pass a high school, a convent, calcetto fields, a few small businesses and a corner cafe. Many apartment homes line this street and hide quiet, center-court gardens.


This fall, we watched as the leaves changed overhead each day on these beautiful trees, and enjoyed them at nightime, too, when they were lit up by the street lamps, often wet and sparkling.

We pass a nice hotel and restaurant on the left here...  

...before arriving at our home on Via Silvio Pellico, 1.

 
  

We feel lucky to live on the northside of a park and children's playground in Florence,
the Piazellale Massim D'Azeglio.

The park is just outside the front door of our apartment in Florence, and the red elevator ride that takes us back home.

  

Gonzaga in Florence



Pat Burke, the Dean of Gonzaga in Florence and heart and soul to the place, has warmly welcomed us all to Florence. 

  


Giacinta supports the work of the dean (and has been a big help to us, too) and we enjoy working closely with Linda, Larry, Federica and Shelley who lead student life programs.




Working with university students has been fun. The students have been very receptive to us and to the girls.

In this small chapel, we host a Sunday service, a weekly retreat evening, and offer spiritual direction to students.

At the close of Sunday service, we share pasta downstairs in the student lounge and help build our faith community.

And behind this door, you can find at least one of us Orlandos on each work day, happy to be with Gonzaga in Florence.

Festivals in Firenze

Florence is full of festivals. On almost any weekend, we can stumble upon a festival by just walking through town.









Festivals of European foods and ceramics, clothing and crafts.

  



Or festivals sponsored by the city, like this one we discovered in tents at the Duomo and all around old Florence, encouraging creative living and "The Imagination."

  One weekend, we went looking for our favorite bakery, and discovered circus artists setting up in front of the church of the Galileo family.





They invited us to try our skills at games and circus acts, until we found ourselves...



                         

in the middle of it all!



We had become a part of the festival!



We were roasting chestnuts, and drawing crowds...

          ...who had come to see our fine, circus performances!

We entertained until dusk fell,

leaving us the lasting satisfaction of playing our part, much like the family Gallileo, in this on-going, medieval life and history of Florence.