Portrait Firenze

My wife, covered in nothing but fragrant bath foam, answered the apartment door when I knocked. She needed the bath because an hour earlier, stalled in traffic, she had unwisely opened the car door. Do this in Florence in summer and it is like putting your head in an oregano-infused steam bath with a top-note of sweaty handbag pedlar and diesel.

Florence’s high-season traffic exceeds in its horror Dante’s conception of the Inferno: futility, discomfort, heat, punishment, irrationality and eternity jostle each other as your tormentors. We had been trying to get to the Portrait Apartments. I had checked if there was parking and they helpfully said, yes, there was. Less helpfully, they forgot to say that, being hard by the Ponte Vecchio, the Apartments are in a ZTL (a Limited Traffic Zone) and are entirely inaccessible to alien vehicles. Only special forces, emergency services and cab drivers know the way. But if you’re a pedestrian: rejoice.

So we abandoned the car in the Mercato Centrale and taxied to our destination. She had sunk into the tub and I had taken Portrait’s valet parker back to the car to retrieve our bags. So that was why, an hour later, I was knocking on my own apartment’s door. I blew away an amusing amount of foam, admired the revelation, ordered a large glass of cold vernaccia, felt some relief as the collar of tension slipped off my neck, and sat back to reflect on Florence.

I have been coming here since I was a student. Accommodation on my first visit was a wobbly tent in the public campsite by Piazzale Michelangelo in Oltrarno, the other side of the river. This was dignified only by a view of Brunelleschi’s stupendous duomo, which is (and it cannot be stated more simply or clearly) one of humankind’s greatest achievements. Yet the reality of some great Florentine landmarks is sometimes blurred by over-familiarity. My wife has a professional designer’s eye, but, blinking and mischievous, said of this glorious ramshackle structure: ‘The Ponte Vecchio is actually hideous, isn’t it?’ An Englishman I know who has been resident for 30 years often jokes that Florence is an ugly place with an extraordinary number of beauty spots.

Since my tent days, I have sometimes enjoyed the isolation of world-class luxury at great hotels such as the Savoy, but the chance to stay in an apartment seemed a delicious opportunity for some first-hand rediscovery of this mythopoeic miniature city. Hence, Portrait. The site on the Arno is superb, and interior design miracles have been performed inside even if the building itself is a featureless block from the Fifties or Sixties. It is a part of the Lungarno Collection, a group of intimate hotels, restaurants and accommodations owned by the descendants of Salvatore Ferragamo, the magician-shoemaker whose presence is very much felt in Florence. Five minutes from Portrait you find the palazzo-impressive Ferragamo store and its extraordinary shoe museum, anchoring the via Tornabuoni and its global brands of Prada and Tod’s, now rivalling Rucellai, Strozzi and Medici as tastemakers.

Anyway, moments after blowing away the foam and downing the vernaccia, it was time to enjoy the apartment itself. Smith readers will want to know about the bed. The crackle of superb linen sounded just like the scrunch of fresh snow under skis. On a hot day, it is pleasant to experience the background thrum of air-conditioning that is too new to rattle. All was luxurious, calm and voluptuous.

While crocodiles of maleducati traipsed dolefully outside, Portrait comforts its visitors with that confident whoosh and hum that only money can buy. Reference point for the cool and comfortable style is global First Class, as improved by the heirs of Brunelleschi. You are on the grey-beige spectrum to signify a monied sophistication shared by you and your hosts. The loo paper is sophisticatedly hidden in a compartment revealed by a brightly chromed hinged door. For me, this was a landmark in the history of taste.

Negatives? Truthfully our apartment was not much more than a large room. Yes, it had a rudimentary kitchen, but the lack of cooking equipment and dining table limited prep to nothing more ambitious than an aperitivo. And if views are important, be careful to specify a room, which actually has one through the floor-to-ceiling glass. Behind the ethereal, light-diffusing, complexion-enhancing drapes in ours was the back wall of a neighbouring block with lot of mechanical and electrical clutter. Better to draw the curtains and tackle the challenge presented by the several full-size bottles of French Champagne in the fridge. And think about dinner.

Portrait has its own restaurant, but with our favourite Florentine haunts only a stroll away we went out. Turn left out of Portrait, right across the Ponte Vecchio, then immediately left by the church of Santa Felicita (with Pontormo’s Greatest Hits inside). No more than five minutes, even if you dawdle. In a tiny, quiet square is Le Volpi e l’Uva, Florence’s best wine bar. I recommend you eat bruschetta absurdly overloaded with tomatoes and olives and glistening with divine oil. This always gives me a Proustian return to my dear mother’s tomato sandwiches and reminds me why I found Florence wonderful in the first place. The cheese and sausage bruschetta is just as good. An alternative? Turn right out of Portrait, right again near Tornabuoni to find Coco Lezzone: here is unimproved cucina da nonna under tourist-repellent harsh light. Not specially fine, but indisputably wonderful. Breakfast? Left and left again to Gilli in Piazza della Repubblica, Florence’s favourite caffe since 1733. Don’t sit. Stand at the bar (al banco) as the locals do. (It’s also cheaper.)

I will return to Portrait, but without a car: incomparable bruschetta and incomparable Brunelleschi are just moments away on foot. The room without a view was my fault: I should have specified, and the space itself was ample compensation. In the ground-floor public space, the staff was notably discreet, efficient and helpful: ideal accomplices in any romantic adventure.And when I return, it will be in winter. The sense of absolute serenity in our apartment will be even more enjoyable when it is cold outside. I will remember that near Portrait is the ghost of Dante, still searching, many centuries later, for his Beatrice. One day my ghost will be there too, searching for Mrs Smith in her bath foam. The art-drenched dream that is Florence makes you say such things. And Portrait gives you the comfortable, fully serviced freedom to do so. That glass of cold vernaccia di San Gimignano, that scrunch of sheets... the beautiful memory makes me forget the traffic. Portrait made me realise that, if you are going somewhere wonderful, it is better to arrive than travel.