A Quick Word of Warning

To all men thinking about visiting this city with their significant other consider this your warning.  Florence is infested with small adorable babies.  I don't know where all this talk of Italy having a declining population is coming from.  This census clearly did not happen here in Florence.  The people here are doing more than their part to make up for the deficit.  Don't quote me on this just yet, but I'm fairly certain that this city has more babies per capita than any other city I have ever been to.

The first few weeks here Rachael and I were too preoccupied with the course to notice the unusual trend, but it didn't take long for her to pick up on the peculiar abundance of these cute little things that are over running the city.  Via del Corso is a virtual baby parade.  Mom's and Dad's are constantly meandering along this street pushing their babies in their tricked out strollers.  You may want to do some additional hand strengthening exercise before coming as you will be enduring plenty of hand squeezing because the one you are with will be constantly falling in love with another cute baby every few minutes, and frustrated at not having one of her own.

Europeans definitely got the strollers right though.   I'm not sure how they afford babies in this country.  They seem to purchase strollers for very specific periods of the babies life, periods that they will grow out of in a matter of days.  For the very small ones the only stroller that will seem to do is one where they can lie down in a bed then be zipped into a sleeping bag and then have the cover of the stroller zipped and snapped up so that the baby does not even have to know that its outside, sounds like a great way to travel. I would like to be pushed around in one of these strollers.

As of yet I haven't attributed a cause to this abundance of small children in the city.  It may be something in the water, more likely though it is something in the wine.  It could also be a combination of the beauty and history of this city, Florence is undoubtedly a mecca for anyone who loves food, wine, art, history, shopping, and everything else that makes Italy such an alluring country.  For those of you wishing to hold off the discussion of 'why don't we have kids yet,' you may want to consider holding off your visit until you are prepared.  You will have to give up a lot to avoid that, so its up to you to decide.  Consider yourselves warned.