The deep and comforting toll of the Duomo's Campanile, replacing your morning alarm, announcing the day as it has for seven centuries - not as a reminder that time is passing, but as proof that time, here, is eternal.

Wisteria cascading over ancient doorways in spring. Olive trees shimmering silver in the afternoon light. The smell of something slow-cooked drifting through an entire street - filling your soul like a memory you once had but forgot.

A panino filled to the brim with deliciousness. A caffè macchiato at a sun-warmed piazza table, watching the everyday theatre of Italian life unfold to the soothing sound of a fountain.

Nights like velvet. Swallows tracing arabesques against a sky that deepens slowly - from gold to rose to the deep blue of a Florentine evening.

The art. The frescoes and the gilded altarpieces. Streets so ancient they make you question your own worries. You walk where Michelangelo walked. Where Leonardo dreamed. Where the Renaissance began. Where a group of humans once looked at the world and decided that a new era was not only possible, but necessary. So they began.

Some eras begin in Florence.

Perhaps yours will too.