Notes from two weeks in Italy, March 2026:
Venice: A shop crammed with velvet gondolier slippers, tiny glass snails and mushrooms and dachshunds (saw dachshunds everywhere). Old wells around every corner and brass door buzzers that looked like doodled faces. Shops selling turned-wood geometric shapes, convex witches' mirrors, and wool sweaters and skirts of elegant plainness and eye-popping affordability. Fortuny's private library/wonder cabinet, with tiny theatres, cloud projection scrims, and pleated silk gowns. The zine library + fabulously slouchy couches at Fondazione Quarini Stampalia (and the tiny Carlos Scarpa garden with its spiraled water channel). Cornell boxes + dog memorials at Peggy Guggenheim's palazzo. A grocery store in an old, fresco-adorned theater. Vaporettos up and down the canals. Citrus trees.
Salami sandwiches and travel Scrabble. Bumping luggage over cobbles. Extraordinarily tiny cars.
Venice: A shop crammed with velvet gondolier slippers, tiny glass snails and mushrooms and dachshunds (saw dachshunds everywhere). Old wells around every corner and brass door buzzers that looked like doodled faces. Shops selling turned-wood geometric shapes, convex witches' mirrors, and wool sweaters and skirts of elegant plainness and eye-popping affordability. Fortuny's private library/wonder cabinet, with tiny theatres, cloud projection scrims, and pleated silk gowns. The zine library + fabulously slouchy couches at Fondazione Quarini Stampalia (and the tiny Carlos Scarpa garden with its spiraled water channel). Cornell boxes + dog memorials at Peggy Guggenheim's palazzo. A grocery store in an old, fresco-adorned theater. Vaporettos up and down the canals. Citrus trees.
Salami sandwiches and travel Scrabble. Bumping luggage over cobbles. Extraordinarily tiny cars.
Florence: A medieval abbey turned into a massive public library with a cafe on the top and a sneaky, beautiful view of the candy-striped Duomo; the third-oldest botanical garden in the world, full of charmingly overgrown greenhouses and flowerbeds; a garden of wax flowers, cabinets of shells and butterflies and beautiful rocks at La Specola; pictures made of rock at Opficio delle Pietra Dure; the sacred Ainu sticks in the old anthropological museum and its specimen cases made with old, wavy glass; the hidden garden at Basicila San Spirito; the Medicis' citrus collection at the Boboli Gardens (and oodles of little lizards running around in the sun); pop-up paper fairies and miniature accordian-file books with vintage imags of the city at Eredi Paperone; shimmery Rothkos hung in monk's cells next to Fra Angelico's luminous frescos at San Marco. Todo Modo, a bookstore/publisher/press/cafe. Many epic vintage shops. Ringing a bell for spritzes. Salted cream gelato. A roll of watercolor pencils tied with grosgrain ribbon; hand-glazed espresso cups. Diamond earrings of constellations and Florentine sandals in a small shop stocked with expensive workwear. A miniature train world created by an obsessive Sicilian count.
Horrid food poisoning for Sean. An unplanned extra day in Florence. Dry biscuits on trains; blurry landscapes. Five flights up, up, up for rooftop views in Trastevere.
Rome: Bernini's Daphne, with her toes turning to roots and fingers to translucent leaves; gleaming candied peels and marzipan fruits; fountains of sunken boats; a tiny, wisteria-hung balcony over the Spanish Steps attached to the Keats-Shelly house; galleries of micromosaic butterflies and marble animals at the Vatican museums, a starry door, celestial globes, and a floor of mosaic crows; an old cookie shop in Trastevere with photos of beloved cats on the walls; a shatteringly thin biscuit flavored with fennel. Churches everywhere hung with chandeliers and adorned with skulls and angels (my favorites, I think, were the Basilica of Saint Mary Minerva, Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere); the rooms of special stones at the Capitoline, plus its stunning views of the Forum and the city. Cats dozing on broken columns in the Largo Argentina. Passionfruit mango gelato, and another gelato that tasted of peaches and wine (went back for seconds of both). Wild cherry and coffee granitas every day, heaped with whipped cream. A street of shops for priestly vestements and a smocked undershirt of pleated, translucent silk. Crossing the Tiber using oldest bridge in the city. Antica Cartotecnica's old postcards and wall of typewriters and leather satchels; also the little notebooks stamped with the Italian words for dreams and thoughts. Everywhere, fabulous bookstores—holes-in-the-wall with foxed paperbacks, and airy fresco-ceilinged compilations of art books and fancy paper goods.
Glimpses of a garden center we did not get to explore from the taxi window. Duty-free Swatches and Adidas at the airport; tiny magnets shaped like bags of pasta, cans of tomatoes, wedges of cheese, and bottles of Aperol.
Horrid food poisoning for Sean. An unplanned extra day in Florence. Dry biscuits on trains; blurry landscapes. Five flights up, up, up for rooftop views in Trastevere.
Rome: Bernini's Daphne, with her toes turning to roots and fingers to translucent leaves; gleaming candied peels and marzipan fruits; fountains of sunken boats; a tiny, wisteria-hung balcony over the Spanish Steps attached to the Keats-Shelly house; galleries of micromosaic butterflies and marble animals at the Vatican museums, a starry door, celestial globes, and a floor of mosaic crows; an old cookie shop in Trastevere with photos of beloved cats on the walls; a shatteringly thin biscuit flavored with fennel. Churches everywhere hung with chandeliers and adorned with skulls and angels (my favorites, I think, were the Basilica of Saint Mary Minerva, Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere); the rooms of special stones at the Capitoline, plus its stunning views of the Forum and the city. Cats dozing on broken columns in the Largo Argentina. Passionfruit mango gelato, and another gelato that tasted of peaches and wine (went back for seconds of both). Wild cherry and coffee granitas every day, heaped with whipped cream. A street of shops for priestly vestements and a smocked undershirt of pleated, translucent silk. Crossing the Tiber using oldest bridge in the city. Antica Cartotecnica's old postcards and wall of typewriters and leather satchels; also the little notebooks stamped with the Italian words for dreams and thoughts. Everywhere, fabulous bookstores—holes-in-the-wall with foxed paperbacks, and airy fresco-ceilinged compilations of art books and fancy paper goods.
Glimpses of a garden center we did not get to explore from the taxi window. Duty-free Swatches and Adidas at the airport; tiny magnets shaped like bags of pasta, cans of tomatoes, wedges of cheese, and bottles of Aperol.
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Ichi Antiquities typewriter pants and shirt / Madewell Lantern straw hat (past season) / Runaway Bicycle handloom cotton jacket / Beklina Pensionata shoes / ancient Roman signet ring, 2nd century AD / Plain Goods vintage drop earrings / vintage square-faced Rolex, ca. 1913 / Camp Snap screen-free digital camera (we got one of these for the trip and loved using it) / Il Bisonte Linea 1978 crossbody bag / Parvum Opus intaglio notebook / vintage Super P ballpoint pen.