Everyone's Favorite City..

Working in a bank's call center, I talk to literately hundreds of people every week. Throughout the summer, a lucky portion of our members called to inform us of their travels. Being a natural-born jabber-mouth, whenever anyone would tell me they were traveling to Italy, I'd always ask "Where are you going in Italy?" Excited to talk about their impending trips, the members would gladly go into detail and then always ask "Have you been?" If they new me outside of the professional realm, they would know that any open ended-question is not something to ask me. Even if it's not open-ended, my love for talking overcomes me and I start my incessant rambling. As I did. In every, single conversation someone would have about traveling to Italy. One woman's sentiment, "Florence is my favorite city!", was echoed in almost every phone call I had regarding Italy.

While I always enjoy any reason to just chit-chat, I enjoyed one particular conversation the most. This conversation took place with a woman who was born in Italy and moved to the States as a child. Now in her seventies with grandchildren my age, her rambling about traveling exceeded any expectation I had about a twenty minute phone call from a customer. She delved into the memory of her passionate affair with the city of Firenze as a young woman. She brought me into the kitchen of her youth while talking about the food. She created a visual of the city - the Duomo, the architecture, the cobble stone streets. She carried on for fifteen minutes about how, to her, Florence was the most amazing place in the world. Over and over, she would exclaim, "It's my favorite city! You'll love it!". Unfortunately, she, like every other person, never spoke of a single place by name.

As I prepare to leave and my travel plans become more concrete, I'm starting to look for the well regarded restaurants, the picturesque places, the astounding architecture, and the fantastic food. In short, I'm looking for what makes this city stand the test of time. How is it that a woman who visited the city half a century ago has the same feeling for the place as a young man not even in his thirties. I want to know, "Why is Florence everyone's favorite city?"

I've always been intrigued by what people believe and why they believe it. I love hearing why someone loves a particular person, place, thing, idea - anything. Then, I like to see whether or not I have the same passion for it, if I ever have the chance to experience it. I equate this quirk of mine with abstract art. People's passions, like Picasso's paintings, are not always easy to understand, sometimes you're never meant to even completely grasp them, but once you do it can be immensely powerful.

So, I pose this question for anyone willing to answer...

What makes Florence your favorite city?