A matter of real estate

I got stopped by tourists today and asked for directions. “I am not from here but I can help you. Where are you going”?
“To la stazione,” one of the four fair-skinned women said with a British accent.
“Do you have a map?” I asked.
They smiled while keeping their distance. Then I realized they were not as close as Italians get to you.
Everything is so close together in Florence—the city of flowers—where you hardly see flowers or trees, at least in the historical center, mostly covered by stone, cement, marble and metal. People walk with determination but not as if they were in a hurry to get anywhere. I see an array of expressions on the faces of the locals; there are not just smiles. I can observe contemplation, parsimony, peace and a touch of boredom, probably because of the daily routine.
Bodies, faces, cars, bicycles, armpit odor, breaths are in constant contact with you. A smell of urine at the corner of Piazza della Anunziata crosses my path. It doesn’t particularly bother me but it is definitely different from the space notion we have in the American Midwest. However, a person needs to be much more aware of the surroundings. Sometimes I think we need a second set of eyes on the back of our heads. Everything from a car, a bike, a scooter, a pedestrian or even a “little Gypsy thief” —as the carabinieri (police) said— can come out of nowhere.
Streets are narrow and sidewalks even narrower. I think about a Hummer trying to get through one of these streets at the same time thousands of tourists roam around the city in search of Michelangelo, Raffaello, Brunelleschi and Botticelli while carrying their cameras and water bottles.