Florence had been on Ayla's list since she was twelve. We arrived on a Tuesday afternoon in late summer, the kind of light that turns the dome a soft gold from any direction you approach it. She had drawn a small map of her own — places she wanted to see, in the order she wanted to see them.

What surprised us about Florence was how generous it was with its scale. The city is built for walking, and the proper way to see it is to wander. By the second morning we had a rhythm: pastry, slow walk, lunch wherever Grace had circled. By the third we had stopped checking the time.