A Phrase that’s Music to My Ears: Free Entertainment

If there’s one thing you quickly realize while living here, it’s that Florence is a city of art. You can’t walk anywhere without seeing the beautiful Renaissance architecture, artists painting the beautiful scenery around them, or my favorite, the many street performers throughout the entire city. These street performers aren’t just random people looking for money, but instead actual professional musicians who are playing for entertainment, and to get their names out into the world.

It doesn’t matter what time of day it is. Morning, afternoon, evening, night, you can’t walk around Florence without hearing some type of music. It may be a man playing “Beauty and the Beast” on his violin in front of the Duomo. It may be a duet, singing, harmonizing to “Ciao Bella,” an Italian classic. No matter who you see, you’re sure to be impressed. One of our personal favorites is a man named Francesco who we have had the privilege of seeing multiple times. Using an Ed Sheeran-esc loop pedal, he mainly plays American hits like Coldplay’s “The Scientist” or Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours.”

It’s not uncommon to see those passing nodding their heads, tapping their feet, and on some occasions, even dancing to the acoustics filling the air. The amount of smiles, contentment, and pure light-hearted joy these musicians bring to people on the street is awe-inspiring, and nothing has made me happier than to see strangers all singing and dancing along together in harmony, and in music.

[This post was written by Aly D’Eramo, a Junior studying Nursing]