A Fragrant Florentine Escape

In any kind of sweltering heat—be it amusement park queues or the beat-down of the familiar noon Southern sun—I find myself moving in a sluggish slo-mo. This past weekend in Florence, my sensory overload was intensified by mobbish high-season crowds and a lack of free water. Nothing dampens the spirit like shelling out a handful of euros every few hours only to prevent fainting from heat exhaustion. 

It’s only late May, but the tourist swarm has begun. We buzz around ancient attractions, flocking marble and bronze, rubbing it polished and raw. In the galleries, we rush the invisible barricades of the Botticelli’s, the DaVinci’s, and Michelangelo’s. 

Some patrons enter the gallery rooms and balloon into waxing half-moon circles— uniformed by blue or green lanyards and cheap plastic earpieces. Their gazes form arcs, bouncing across the walls and artfully adorned ceilings. These are the guided tours. Expensive and laborious, they will block the directional flow of movement for minutes that crawl into hours. The temperature climbs throughout the day, and the bodies within the rooms radiate a sick, salty aroma, sweat and humidity birthing a cursed love-child. 

Others trying to weave through the half-moons crane up their arms in an attempt to capture the least obscured photo of a sculpture or painting when they could very well Google a high-resolution image of or grab a poster in the bookshop. Inevitably, some will cross the most important line of museum etiquette, knowingly or not. Fingers stretch towards the genius brushstrokes of Renaissance masterworks, the security alarm beeps, and the criminal bounces backwards, their faces retreating inwards, displaying various levels of guilt and sometimes anger after being chastised by the noise.

I’ve been travelling throughout Europe for the past four months as part of my study abroad semester. In addition to how grateful I feel for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I feel even more lucky to have been trapezing around in the low season. As the earth heats up and we move through May and into June, I’ve begun to witness the tourism tsunami affecting these countries, and I’ve begun a conscious attempt to minimize my part in destructive tourism while abroad. In the restaurant I work in back home, we’re hit by the summer onslaught of visitors flocking to our foodie-centric coastal city. I have to chart my walk there, avoiding the most geographically direct route because of the pedestrian traffic, from people walking so slowly, and pausing to pop their heads into every retail front blasting the cool air, an invitation that needs no signage or sale to lure folks in. 

So, this weekend in Florence, to avoid becoming part of the sightseer swell, I abandoned the Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor reviews, and cursed any and all “top-10-must-see” lists of Firenze. A small group of friends and I set out to discover what Florence had to show us, guided by only our heart’s desires (and some unique, off the beaten path recommendations from friends and family). 

We’d come off a lively night out—briny stomachs and temples pounding in the early morning sun. Initially, the Duomo was our quest. We would climb over 400 stairs to be face to face with famed frescoes, trying to beat the crowds by arriving before 8AM. Our side quest began when the magnificent structure was closed that day, citing cryptic needs for renovations. My friend Luke’s older brother—a man I’ve never met but have heard described as having a penchant for bespoke tailoring and sartorial fascinations—had given Luke a scavenger hunt of shopping. We happily accompanied him to several one-of-a-kind emporiums and boutiques off the main strips and squares, where we could stroll without the fear of crowd crush and pause to sit on marble steps in the shade.

Our first (and my favorite) stop was the Perfumery of Santa Maria Novella. It was initially run as a pharmacy by Dominican monks in the 1200s, and now produces a variety of fragrances and cosmetics, still drawing on their earliest recipes.

There is a short walk through a modernized corridor of black marble, fake wisteria and lavender hanging from the ceiling. Entering the store, the ceilings vault and I am transported to the eighteenth century. The lavish and gold-accented furnishings appear to have come straight from a Rococo painting. There are large glass domed dishes over bars of soap, and little ceramic domes over discs that remind me of cotton pads, but far more luxurious. Scent pads, I discovered. 

I reach to look at the identification tag on an appealing bar of soap. Verbena di limone. I lift the dish in one hand and with the other, I gently palm the bar up to my nose, inhaling the zesty scent. Luke taps me, “You’re supposed to smell the dish.” He’s amused by my misstep, and I’m red at his gentle correction. Then I laugh. I didn’t know! I’d never been somewhere so magnificent in the display of its wares. 

I rehome the soap, instead smelling the glass rim of its case, a milder, but still potent rendition. Joined by my friends Madeline and Marley, who were equally impressed with the Santa Maria Novella scents, we sniffed until it felt my olfactory nerves could no longer distinguish fresh from floral, woody from warm. Soaps, shower gels, and room diffusing scents were sampled for quite some time. We lifted domes of varying size delicately and smelled each others’ arms to see how the perfumes developed on skin.

Reassured by the regal saleswoman’s claims that the perfumes would last upwards of three years, and sold on a scent approved by all my friends, I felt ready to make a purchase. I like to believe I am now an investor in scent (I had been devastated when my favorite Twilly d’Hermes perfume had been nicked at a hotel earlier in the year.).

I was handed a card with the logo of the perfumery on it, and was told to take it up to the counter when ready to make my purchase. Initially, I mistook it for a hotel room key, but instead of an access key to a room, my sweet 100mL Rosa Novella loaded onto it. The box and bag felt so luxurious and was stamped in an embossed gold foil.

Elated, nauseated, I made my way out of the store with a hazy desire to linger down more side streets, weaving into the fabric of the city, its smells engulfing me.