Chestnut season, you will be relieved to hear, seems to be ending here in Capriglia-by-the-Sea. We still get some nuts crashing down through the leaves, sounding much bigger than they are, but it is handfuls a day now rather than hundreds and we feel that we can once again go outside without fear or protective headwear.

On Wednesday, we drove into Firenze and bought an annual pass to the Uffizi. Now we can go in whenever we want without waiting in line or paying. On future visits we will perhaps stay longer, perhaps look at more. But this time we hightailed it straight to my favorite piece in the museum -- a Botticelli Madonna that no one ever pays any attention to because it is in the same room as The Birth of Venus, on the wall opposite so that the crowds are facing the other way, busy taking pictures of the goddess on the half-shell with their phones, and I have the already heart-broken Madonna to myself. She seems to know, even with the chubby baby still on her lap, the whole bloody story of what is yet to become of her child.

I cried, of course, standing there at the back of the sea of I-Phones. Jonathan and I stayed so long looking at her that a few people in the crowd even noticed us and wandered over to take a phone picture before walking off. Then we went to see the Caravaggios and then to lunch.

Firenze is filled with people speaking English, which sounds startling now when we encounter it in the wild. Many of them looked hot or tired or slightly annoyed and I suspect that many of them were not having a very good time. I remember the first time I came to Italy, when I was a teenager here with my family, not having a very good time and at one point -- in Venice -- finally rebelling and refusing to go on yet another tour-group excursion to see yet another required marvel that I didn't understand. I claimed not to feel well, demanded to be left to sleep in the hotel, and when I was sure the coast was clear, went out by myself into the streets near the Piazza San Marco and bought a basket of fresh cherries and ate them. I still remember those cherries fondly.

I also remember thinking that Italy might be a fun place if I wasn't with my parents on a forced march of tourist sites with the crowds and the heat, so perhaps I am projecting my own remembered feelings onto the beleaguered Americans snapping photos of Venus in the Uffizi to look at later, I guess, somewhere cool and quiet where they could sit down.

Back at home, we went down to the pub, where Daniele dished out helpings of risotto for all the usual reprobates on the terrace. Daniele and Alice give away so much free food there out under the tree leaves that I don't see how they possibly manage to stay in business. The risotto was made with gorgonzola and prosciutto and was one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth.