In the mists of Florence

In autumn, this city is completely with itself

A popular resting place in the Giardino di Boboli: the Neptune fountain

The sun only warms the face slightly. It no longer has the power to make the reddish brown and ocher yellow of the palazzi glow. It smells of firewood, mandarins and pine needles. In summer, it's mostly hectic and noisy here in downtown Florence. But now, at this time of year, only a few people stroll through the streets - and the few are blurred by the autumn fog: their steps are muffled, their outlines blurred, their faces seem softer.

I walk along the cathedral in the famous shopping street Via dei Calzaiuoli. Florentines walk past me in down jackets. Only two English tourists walk in shorts along the shop windows and point grinning at an Italian on his Vespa wearing gloves. In the Piazza della Repubblica, I stop in front of a carousel, the wooden horses remain silent before the glittering mirrors. There are no customers yet. The cashier makes crossword puzzles. From the Via del Corso the smell of roasted chestnuts comes to me. Even at the gallery of the Uffizi people are only a few people, but I still prefer to stay outside a bit and absorb the mood. On the famous bridge Ponte Vecchio I pass three Chinese women, who giggling for a photo grouped around a carabiniere in a chic black and red uniform.

The figures in Piazza della Signora

Then, on the other side of the Arno River, it suddenly becomes very quiet. The last tourists have disappeared from my environment. I dive into Oltrarno, where the narrow streets narrow - just a few meters away from Ponte Vecchio, the Duomo and Palazzo Pitti, the former city palace of the Medici. In them, the singing of the saws from the joineries, the clatter of the espresso cups in the many bars, the rattling of the shutter of a polleria, of a chicken-meat factory, begin.

For a while, I feel like I'm just crossing the line of fiction and finding myself in the world of Magdalen Nabb detective novels. No author has captured the spirits in the artisan districts of Santo Spirito and San Frediano as she tells in her stories about the Maresciallo Guarnaccia, a Carabiniere from Sicily working in the police station at Palazzo Pitti. Nabb died in Florence at the age of sixty in August this year, and for half her life the Englishwoman had lived here. Her last crime novel "Vita Nuova", which ended shortly before her death, will be published in German in the spring.

In front of the palazzi, the lanterns start early

the Piazza della Repubblica

Shoemaker Luciano Foggi looks upgrumbles a "Buon giorno" and straightens his big glasses. Then he continues hammering nails into a sole. It smells like leather. Heels are stacked on a pile. Wooden and plastic foot molds hang on the walls in the Mannina shop in Santo Spirito. Yes, the Signora Nabb he knew, says Luciano Foggi after a while thoughtfully. "Was often here." He looks up from his workbench for a moment. She wanted not only handmade shoes from him, but also stories like those of Japanese apprentices trying their luck far from home. Since the artisans in Florence hardly find Italian apprentices, many Japanese work here. In the anteroom of "Mannina" I almost collide with a young Japanese woman. She smiles briefly, breathes a shy "Ciao" and scurries out with some leather scraps under her arm. I have to think of "A Japanese Woman in Florence", which ends in the pen in the penultimate novel by Magdalen Nabb as a drowning in a well.

In the morning, the hills of Tuscany are bathed on the horizon in milky haze, the long cypresses are as dark green shadows against the sky. In autumn the wind blows the smell of Arno water through the alleys of the artisan district. I ended up here again in Oltrarno, because I feel like discovering a little new world here in every craft business. In his workshop, a man wears an old chair with claret-colored fabric, a radio dribbles from a radio. In Piazza Santo Spirito, with its austere, yellow-washed Renaissance church, two men carve hat shapes of light wood.

Warm air hits mewhen I open the door of the "Trattoria la Casalinga". The tables are full of men in once gray trousers now covered in paint. With coarse hands they spoon thick soups. "Attenzione", a waiter with a white apron screams and carries two plates of roast chicken. Behind the bar stands Paolo. Magdalen Nabb Paolo has been a local celebrity 26 years ago in her first novel "The Death of an Englishman". "As a good-natured boy, Magda described me there," he grins. "Well, I'm not a boy anymore." Paolo strokes his belly.

Outside, the yellow lanterns are on, time flies by fast in the trattoria, and dawn breaks in early. In the illuminated rooms of the gray palaces of the city air, the thick beamed ceilings can be seen. Chandeliers sometimes hang down, massive, ornate dark-wood cabinets stick to the walls. I stroll along Via Mazzetta to the Giardino di Boboli, the park behind Palazzo Pitti. From the courtyard of the palazzo, a carabinieri Fiat roars on the street with blue lights. Behind the guard the trees are blurred in the evening haze. Pine needles lie between the pebbles in front of the fountain. Quietly, only the city can be heard with their mopeds and horns here in the park. From the hinterland the smell of firewood pulls up. A few birds chirp in the setting autumn sun, the last sunset is just disappearing behind the Tuscan hills. And over the Arno the fog rises again.