Popi + Cesarina - Women who changed my life

Popi on her terrace - Carla Coulson

Cesarina on the terrace - Carla Coulson

I met the fabulous Popi and Cesarina when I still had a business waiting for me back in Sydney. I was in Florence for an Italian course that was meant to last one month. At the end of the month I was having way too much fun and decided to stay another month. I was going crazy in a small room in the centre of Florence and my Swiss friend who was doing the same language course as me recommended Popi's house. He promised 'it was close to paradise'.

I was hesitant about living in a house full of people but my friend insisted, till one day I went to meet the fabulous Popi. There she was dressed in a caftan (a different one to the above picture) smiling ever so sweetly over her balcony. I fell in love in love with Popi, her house, her cooking, her generosity, her nowness and the wonderful Cesarina who came with the package. I stayed two years.

Cesarina would be at Popi's place by 7.00am that meant that she took the regional bus from her home around 5.45am. Cesarina always had a smile and a cheeky sense of humour she would have all of us rolling around clutching our stomachs with laughter. Nothing like Tuscan humour to get the day started. I am yet to meet anyone that has passed through Popi's house in the last 25 years that hasn't fallen in love with both of these women.

Some mornings when I had a late class I would sit at the kitchen table with Popi and Cesarina and discuss life. It was during these discussions that they both told me literally 'to get a new life' probably in more eloquent words. Well, I did exactly that. I left my business, my family, my friends and my life in Sydney to come and share their life in Florence. It was Popi and her house that gave me the courage to leave knowing that I always had a 'safe port in a storm'. My years in Florence one could almost say were the best years of my life, so jam-packed full of happiness, learning and love. I still like to enter my memory somedays to re-live them one day at a time.

For all of you who have read Italian Joy and fallen in love with Popi vicariously I want to tell you that our friendship has endured all these years. She is the first person I call when I am in Florence and when I ask her if there is any room at her table she always responds no matter how full the house is 'c'è sempre spazio per te' there is always room for you.

Has any woman changed your life??

Friendship forever

Carla xx

If you love Florence and Italy you might to read Under the Tuscan Sun and Living in a Foreign Language. Of course you would probably lurve Italian Joy

Taken on my Leica M7

Shot on Tri-x 400 film

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