Kira Klein, Engineering Perspectives of the Renaissance and Sustainability: Florence Summer 2023
One of my favorite surprising things about Italian culture is something that I did predict from media but was such a different experience in-person. This is the relationship between indoor and outdoor spaces in Italy, and how united and blurred the lines are. Simply put, Italians spend a lot more time outside, and infrastructure here is often conducive to this indoor-outdoor blended lifestyle.
For example, many cafes and markets are open air- able to open not just windows, but entire walls when the weather is nice (which is often, at least while I’ve been here – even if it is raining a bit, it is not enough to close completely). It is very common for city apartments to have balconies, and not just a small place to stand outside and smoke – like large, long balconies that have herbs and flowers growing, clotheslines attached, flags and chairs and are generally very comfortable places to hang out and enjoy the outdoors – even from a few stories up in an urban environment. It is also very common for multi-apartment buildings, such as the one I stayed in on this study abroad, to have columnar courtyard spaces that go up the entire height of the building (like an empty square in the middle of the building). I found that this helped with temperature regulation and was a good, more private place to have clotheslines, balconies, and open windows.
A few friends that I had made on the trip and I went to Cinque Terre and stayed at Monterosso del Mare, which is a couple hours train ride from Florence and on the Italian coast. It’s a beautiful location, with hills and beaches and beautiful old-style Italian houses dotting the mountainside. We stayed in a quaint Airbnb that was a bit more like a ‘typical’ Italian country home than the city apartments. It had a fenced yard with beautiful citrus trees, and as we walked around the inside for the first time, there was a door in the dining room that was particularly interesting. It was two doors: one was like a full length shutter, and one was a ‘real’ glass door that would keep out wind, rain, etc. One could be opened to allow light and air through, or both could be opened and the doorway led right to outside. It was lovely! It opened to the side of the house, next to an ivy-covered tall privacy wall and a few steps away was a bountiful lemon tree. This means that if you lived there, for every meal at that table you could open the door and get the breeze, sunlight, and scents of the outdoors, and easily establish this indoor-outdoor connection. It is a very natural connection in Italy.
I find frustration with the harsh barriers between indoors and outdoors in the States. When I lived in a big suburban home, we had a back porch and you could go outside- but there was little shade, the grass was monotonous and could be sprayed with pesticides, and it was always a worry of ‘bugs and sun and bad weather.’ In the apartments I’ve lived in, windows often didn’t even have screens, so you could barely open them due to bugs (and the chance for pets to escape). Even screened windows are nothing like a real balcony or porch, and my apartments have felt somewhat trapping – they have no access to the outdoors, and if you go outside there is just pavement and uncomfortable, unwelcoming urbanism – it’s not walkable, it’s not welcoming, and there seems to be a harsh time limit to do anything.
Part of the beauty of Italy’s lack of tipping (because people should just be paid enough from their employer from the beginning!) is that they don’t rush you at a table. In the States, servers effectively make more money the more people they can serve through the night, so you are somewhat pushed through the experience by not wanting to ‘hold up the table’ and inconvenience them. However, outdoor tables at restaurants in the States are often some of the most ‘outdoor time’ that many people get for a week. Here in Italy however, cafe tables are often open air (either inside a well-ventilated cafe or completely outdoors) and there is no rush to give up a table (other than maybe a wait). There are nearly always cafes and tables open to sit and chat, places to walk and enjoy, and ‘Piazzas’ in Italy are great places to hang out with friends and enjoy the outdoors.
This blend of outdoor and indoor is so relaxing and a great opportunity for connection, hobbies, and having an overall good time. It is definitely better for one’s health to spend more time outside, especially enjoying the sun and fresh air when it is available. It is often so much more rewarding and enjoyable to read a book, draw or paint, eat ice cream, or hang out with friends outdoors- especially when the weather is nice.
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