Firenze & A Love Affair With Manarola

Florence, again. Finally.

Our second time in the city, and yet, it still feels like a first love.

Some places are too grand, too full of stories, to ever be fully known, and Florence is one of them. It is a city that lingers in the mind like poetry, unfolding in whispered secrets and golden light. The first time I fell in love it was winter, 2010, I spent new years here with my family and the Christmas markets were busy and bustling and cosy and the warm, richly thick hot chocolates and espresso were divine. Now, it was summer. And I felt like I fell head first into this beautiful, warm embrace.

The Duomo, rising in its quiet majesty, its red-tiled dome a heart beating at the center of the city. The Ponte Vecchio, standing stubbornly through time, where shop windows glisten with gold and reflections dance on the water below. The hidden streets, the sun-drenched piazzas, the shadowed corners where romance settles into the stones.

There is something about Florence that makes getting lost feel like a gift. And at sunset, when the sky softens into hues of apricot and lavender, the city glows—as if it, too, knows it is loved.

But after nearly a week, the coast was calling. I remember mama and I sat eating dinner in the square, and across from us sat another pair of women, also mother and daughter. We got to talking, and funnily enough, we had just come from Venice, and they were heading there. While we were headed to the Cinque Terre, they had just come from there. “Oh, my god, you’re going to love it!” We said to each other about the respective places, “Oh, I miss it already, don’t you?” We gazed and smiled at one another, and we laughed. We nodded at one another and wished one another well, and we settled back into the arms of our chairs and people watched the night away.

The following morning, a train, winding its way toward the sea, where the land tumbles into cliffs and the water stretches endlessly, bluer than anything I’ve ever seen.

The Cinque Terre, five villages suspended between sky and sea, where time slows and beauty takes on a different shape. We arrived in Manarola, the kind of place you dream about but never truly believe exists.

The steps were steep, the climb up to our Airbnb carved into the cliffs, but waiting at the top was Luca—our host, with kind eyes and a smile as warm as the Italian sun. He handed us glass bottles filled with his homemade limoncello, the lemons from his own towering trees, their scent sweet and sharp in the evening air. Limoncello was another lover I fell for ever since this trip, and one of the glass bottles he gifted us I now use as a flower holder on my desk.

Manarola, with its pastel houses stacked against the rocks, its tiny harbour where boats bob like pieces of a painting, its sea—a deep, endless blue, crashing against the shore in a song only the cliffs could understand.

That first night, drowsy from the train but drunk on Italy, summer, and salt air, we ate at a Michelin-starred restaurant, the ocean stretching before us, whispering its lullaby.

Days melted into sun-warmed bliss. Crab linguine that tasted like the sea itself, gelato that could only be described as divine, and pasta—every meal, in every shape, with every sauce.

We took boat rides along the Amalfi Coast, watching the villages slip past like scenes from an old Italian film. The water here is a different kind of blue—impossibly rich, almost glowing, as if it holds the sky’s secrets beneath its surface.

And the sunsets—the sun setting behind the mountains did not look like the sun I had seen anywhere else. It burned softer, slower, slipping behind the cliffs as if it, too, never wanted to leave.

We took boat rides along the Amalfi Coast, watching the villages slip past like scenes from an old Italian film. The water here is a different kind of blue—impossibly rich, almost glowing, as if it holds the sky’s secrets beneath its surface. And the sunsets—the sun setting behind the mountains did not look like the sun I had seen anywhere else. It burned softer, slower, slipping behind the cliffs as if it, too, never wanted to leave.

Seeing the coast from the boat, with its umbrellas scattered along the shore like a painter’s brushstrokes, felt surreal—a place built to be admired from both near and far. And for those who crave a good sweat, the Sentiero Azzurro, the famous hiking trail that links the Cinque Terre villages, winds through vineyards, lemon groves, and sheer cliffs, offering views that make every step worth it.

There is a history in these places that lingers in the air. The Cinque Terre—Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore—five sisters carved into the cliffs, their streets winding through centuries of fishermen, poets, and dreamers. These villages were once hidden from the world, reachable only by foot or boat, and though the world has found them now, they still feel untouched, as if they exist on their own time.

We spent afternoons sunbathing, reading, watching the world move at a slower pace. The scent of lemon trees, the hum of waves, the feeling of being suspended between earth and sea.

D.H. Lawrence once wrote of the Italian Riviera:

“The sea is so bright, so blue, so soft. The hills run along and into it, the houses crowd to the shore, and the trees cluster and lean to look at their reflections in the living water.”