FLORENCE WITHOUT A BAEDEKER

While in Florence a few weeks ago I couldn't help but think of E.M. Forster's novel A Room With a View (1908) and the faithful (if slightly more romantic) film adaptation by Merchant Ivory (1985).    In one of my favourite scenes, Eleanor Lavish, a high spirited novelist played by Judi Dench, takes the prim and proper Charlotte Bartlette (Maggie Smith) down the back alleys to experience the "real" city.  It seems that little has changed since Edwardian times as it still takes only a few twists and turns to escape the tourists. Wonders abound in Florence, especially in Santa Croce Cathedral where I saw Giotto's Saint Francis frescos and visited the tombs of Michelangelo and Galileo; unfortunately I had no run-ins with Ralph Emerson types.