June 2027

No class

Nothing is taught: you practice, or you watch how it's done. Someone who just started dances with someone who's been at it for twenty years.

Even if you don't dance

The Banco A Ristoro is open, the kitchen is cooking, and sitting down doesn't commit you to anything.

Then you stay

Drinks and snacks are included, and so are the icebreaker games. The swing night follows.

Who comes

Students, expats, people here on Erasmus, travelers — and anyone who wants to meet new people in Florence.

From three to seven

The afternoon runs from 3 to 7 pm, and inside it you move around: you come for one thing and stay for another.

What goes on

The constant is the Circolo di Lettura. The others change and take turns — pastry, sewing and embroidery, painting, sign language — and any Saturday can bring a new one.

It ends at the table

Every session ends with a friendly aperitivo, the moment when people who didn't know each other start talking.

The first book

“Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro. Kathy, Ruth and Tommy grow up in a boarding school in the English countryside, where everything seems safe and in order.

A truth that arrives slowly

Ishiguro doesn't need plot twists: the novel's strength is the calm with which it leads you toward something that becomes hard to ignore.

After the meeting

Anyone who wants to stops by the Banco A Ristoro for a drink and keeps the conversation going. The pages matter, says Giulia, but the conversations matter even more.