"In Santa Croce with no Baedeker." Now try saying that with a fwightfully fwutty English accent (unlike mine!) That's the title of the second chapter of E.M. Forster's " A Room With a View", a favorite book of mine from which one of my top-five favorite movies was made. So today I was indeed in Santa Croce without a Baedeker, although I did have my crumpled, ripped-out chapter from Frommers; but I'm sure Miss Bartlett (played perfectly by Maggie Smith in the movie) would have frowned on that.

"In Santa Croce with no Baedeker." But Frommers to the rescue, on the left the tomb of Gallileo, and on the right: Michelangelo. Apologies for the poor picture quality - neither of my cameras function reliably in dark interiors, particularly when you're not allowed to use a flash.

Both the book and the movie mean a lot to me. I even bought a cheap copy of the book the other day and I'm reading it currently. The reason it means so much to me is that the movie really saved me from being the philistine I was up until the time I first saw it. It was during my last Summer in England, the few excited months between getting my Batchelor's degree and moving to Philadelphia to go to grad school. I spent that couple of months staying in a hall of residence in Cartwright Gardens (the same Cartwright Gardens in which I stayed in a hotel a couple of weeks ago), and spent my spare time hanging out with an international group of friends who were also stranded in London for the Summer.

Yes that is me on the bottom left, with a bunch of my international friends - London, Summer 1986, age 21. Incredibly skinny and smiling with my mouth closed out of embarrassment (one of my front teeth had gradually receded into my gums due to a childhood accident.)

At that time, my taste in movies didn't extend past James Bond and Star Trek, and in books, past Frederick Forsyth and Robert Heinlein. I'd really been brought up in a working-class atmosphere that didn't revere art in any way, apart from a smattering of classical music. But one evening that Summer, a group of my friends persuaded me to go see "A Room With A View" with them. At first I resisted - it sounded so stuffy (I find this attitude hard to understand now!) But I loved the movie! It was funny, beautiful, meaningful, romantic, perfectly cast. It got me past that barrier of thinking that all things old would be hard to appreciate.

Of course, I bought the book, and loved that too. I sought out more Forster and came across "Maurice" (by now, I'd arrived in the States), not knowing it was his "gay" novel (this was before the movie came out). I found the book at a propitious stage in my life as it was at about the time I was slowly starting to deal with my sexuality - I was about to tell my first friend. The book hit me like a locomotive - I stayed up all night, reading it breathlessly. But that's really a different story - it was finding that I liked Forster that sent me to find other classic authors of this century that I liked - Salinger, James Baldwin and F. Scott Fitzgerald were my first great discoveries. What a great world to discover! - and that's why "A Room With a View" means so much to me.

Oops - time has passed, and it's almost time for England's first game of the Euro 2000 soccer championships! So let's just breeze through the other events of the day.

First thing this morning, I went inside the Basilica San Lorenzo (in the picture), mainly to see the Medici Chapels. The first is spectacular - something like being inside a kaleidoscope - a very tall, narrow, octagonal chamber lined with statues and a beautiful painted ceiling. The second, more sombre, with some famous sculptures by Michelangelo.

A mid-morning espresso with the Herald Tribune at Gillis, probably the most famous cafe in Florence - 225 years old.

In the afternoon, in the intense humidity following a thunder storm, I climbed the hill across the Arno to the Piazzale Michelangelo, from where you get a great, spread-out view of Florence - the Arno and Ponte Vecchio on the left, then Palazo Vecchio, followed by the Duomo, with Santa Croce on the right.

Even higher than the Piazzale, the beautiful small (by Florence standards!) church, San Miniato al Monte, with its peaceful cemetry. If I don't look too happy it's because it was darned hot!

In the cemetery