I didn’t come to Florence to find myself.

I came tired. Troubled. Carrying months—no, years—of weight in my heart that words couldn’t quite touch.

And yet Florence knew me.

It didn’t rush me. It didn’t demand anything of me.

It simply opened itself and whispered, “You’re home.”

There are cities you visit, and then there are cities that receive you. Florence is not a destination—it is a remembering.

I had forgotten this feeling. The last time I felt this light, this deeply content, was nine years ago. Somewhere along the way, life hardened me. Responsibility, grief, endurance. But walking these streets again, something softened. Something ancient and gentle stirred awake.

Florence doesn’t shout.

It sings.

The bells ring—not as noise, but as rhythm.

The Gregorian chants drift through stone walls that have held prayer for centuries.

Six, seven, eight Masses a day—each one a heartbeat, keeping the city alive.

This is not accidental energy.

This is a city sustained by devotion.

And maybe that’s why the crowds don’t bother me here. Normally, I shrink from them. I crave quiet, control, space. But Florence holds crowds the way a cathedral holds silence—without chaos. The energy is beautiful, not overwhelming. It feels blessed.

I walk and feel déjà vu—not the fleeting kind, but the deep, unsettling sense that I have walked here before. That my feet remember these stones. That my soul recognises the turns, the piazzas, the light at dusk.

Who knows—perhaps ancestors long forgotten once lived here. Perhaps some part of me never left.

Even my body knows it’s safe.

I sit in a restaurant beside a dog—something that would usually make me tense—and instead, I feel calm. Present. Open. Florence disarms me gently. It doesn’t ask me to be different. It simply invites me to be.

And then there is the food.

Not just delicious—loving.

Prepared with care, pride, generosity. You taste history in it. You taste family.

The people, too, carry warmth without intrusion. They are welcoming without demand. There is kindness in the way they look at you, serve you, speak to you. As though time still matters here. As though humanity has not been rushed out of existence.

My son said today, “I never want to leave.”

I felt it before he spoke it.

Florence is the kind of city you book for a few days and then keep extending. And extending. And extending. Until you finally admit the truth:

You were never meant to just visit.

This city doesn’t speak to tourists.

It speaks to souls that are ready to come home.

And as I walk its streets, I hear it clearly now:

“Welcome home, Georgianna.

You are safe here.

You belong here.

Everything will be well.”

Some places heal you quietly.

Florence does it with beauty, prayer, history, and love.

And once it has you—it never truly lets you go.