Throwback 2023
Firenze - Santa Croce
16-17th Feb, 2023
The second installment of AS A BIRD's travel journal series.
We will look back on the memories of our travels around the world in four chapters.
This time, I will introduce my first trip to Europe since the pandemic, a trip from Florence to Santa Croce to Milan to Paris in 2023.
******
It had been a while since I last went to Europe.
The last time I went was at the beginning of 2020 , just before the pandemic. I had been there several times a year, but I realized that it had been two years since I last visited. Although it was only a two- year period, I am curious to see how Europe has changed after overcoming such a turbulent time.
This trip is my first time in Europe in a long time, so there's plenty I want to do.
I want to meet friends I haven't seen in a while, get the latest information on leather and materials, see how the market has changed before and after the pandemic, and see how people are doing.
The plan is to leave Japan, change planes in Paris, enter Florence, visit a leather factory (tannery) in Santa Croce in Tuscany, then go to Milan to visit Lineapelle, the largest leather materials trade fair in Europe, and then research the city of Paris.
As I was on my first long-distance flight to Paris, my first stop, I noticed that the flight was taking a long time. All of a sudden, I noticed the passengers around me shouting that they could see the Northern Lights.
No way. I look at my watch and see that we must be flying over Russia right now.
I wondered how long it would take to get to Paris, so I looked at the flight map, but something seemed strange.
I wondered if I was seeing it, but the plane was definitely flying in the opposite direction from before.
Planes that normally fly over Russia and the Middle East to reach Europe in the shortest possible distance are now flying over the Pacific Ocean and the Arctic Circle to fly into Paris. Is this because of the Russian war?
It was night when I changed planes in Paris and arrived in Florence. More than 20 hours had already passed.
Before the pandemic, this would have been enough time to get to Mexico in South America. I still wasn't sleepy, so I dropped my bags off at the hotel and decided to take a walk around the city.
There are not many people around. Maybe it's because it's after the pandemic.
I felt a more tense atmosphere than before, so I jogged off. I was back at the hotel .
The next day, I got on a local train early and traveled from Florence Station to a small station called Empoli Station.
A friend who runs several long-established leather factories was waiting for me at the station.
I love visiting leather factories because they are places of "tradition and innovation," where ancient traditional techniques are preserved to transform natural materials into durable materials while pursuing the creation of trendy materials with new looks.
While sitting on the sofa at the factory entrance, we chat about family matters, such as someone's son who started working at the same factory while studying, what to eat for dinner that night, which leather is popular these days, and how many orders came in from that maison this year, and so on, and gradually get into the work mood.
As a Japanese person, I was in the mood to take a look at the leather.
"Well, shall we go to lunch?" he said. That's right. This was the pace of Italians.
I feel very nostalgic. Every time I come to Europe, I feel a little guilty about cramming my time in Japan for work. I think it's important to experience this feeling of leisure every once in a while.
This was my first trip to Europe since the pandemic, and in the first chapter of my 2023 journey from Florence to Santa Croce to Milan to Paris, I looked back on my journey to arrive in Santa Croce.
I'm not getting to the main topic yet, but this is Europe time. In the next chapter, I will finally talk about the leather I found in Tuscany. I hope you will enjoy the next chapter.