La Biblioteca Oblate

I went to the Commune di Firenze library to get wi-fi connectivity. It is right down the street from my apartment and about 500m behind the Duomo. (I just had to throw that in there!) An old building, like they all are in the centro storico, it has a magnificently modern entrance and access. I went to one of the reading rooms to get the password for the network and I was told that I had to go to the first floor to get it. So I find the stairs, but they are blocked and not seeing any other logical way up, I asked the librarian how to get up to the first floor. She tells me to go all the way to the front of the building and take the outside staircase. Off I go. I climb the spiral staircase and realize that it doesn’t have a landing on the 1^st floor – you have to go up to the 3^rd floor and come back down.  So, I do, thinking the whole time that they just do this to the tourists. I line up to get the password, but first, I have to fill out a form providing more information than I think is necessary, (really, is my passport necessary for a library card?) but I give them what they need and I get a library card. I carefully listen to how many books, DVD and CDs I can check out and for how long, and then how to connect to the internet – all in Italian! I get myself all set up on one of the black Italian leather and chrome sofas that are all over the library and get connected. The internet is glacially slow, but no one else seems bothered, probably because this has to be the most beautiful library I have ever been in. There is art work and sculptures subtly placed everywhere.

 Study rooms and reading rooms and even tables set on the terrazzo, should you want to read al fresco. On the third floor there is a bar/restaurant where you can get a proper drink and food. None of the municipal libraries I have been to are like this. Of course, I had to go back up to the third floor to get back down to ground level. Which I still think is to make fun of us tourists.