It’s probably fair to say that most of us would find the idea of abandoning all our creature comforts and social support networks, friends and family, to move to an entirely foreign country with the sole intention of learning its language, an intimidating, if not wholly frightening experience. Some might even call it foolhardy, yet back in 1997 this was the exact course of action Melinda Gallo, a twenty-nine year-old computer consultant, decided to take.

For those first few weeks, alone at night in a room rented from total strangers affiliated with the Italian language school she had enrolled in, Melinda would have been the first to agree, as she found herself curled up on a tiny cot, lonely, tearful and, although she didn’t know it at the time, picking up a great deal of Italian not to be found on the curriculum – as the sound of her new landlord and landlady embarking on a messy separation filtered up through the floorboards from the kitchen below.

“Initially I consoled myself with the fact it wouldn’t be forever,” explains Melinda, “Because I first came here for two main reasons – to learn the language and to get creatively inspired. At that time I had my own consulting business back in the UK and it was proving quite successful, but after putting in long hours each day, I realised that I could do my job forever and nothing would ever change; I never felt like I was doing what I really wanted to do in life. Right before I turned 30, I decided that I wanted more. My initial plan was to live in Florence for a few months, to learn the language and to get ‘inspired’. I’d been there before years back with an ex-boyfriend, and remembered loving it and wishing we’d had more time. Then a friend of mine told me that it’s also meant to be the birthplace of the modern Italian language, and that clinched the deal.”

So, before even she could quite believe it, Melinda found herself in the carriage of a Eurostar train speeding from Paris towards northern Italy. “The whole thing seems like a blur to me now,” she recalls; “The only thing I remember clearly was having to dash across Milan station, which is vast, to catch my connecting train – and the next minute, here I was, standing on a platform in Florence with two suitcases, my mobile phone, a laptop and a piece of paper with an address and phone number for where I was meant to be going. I just took a deep breath, and stepped out into the city.

Florence, the magical Tuscan city that has straddled the banks of the Arno river since the 1st-century BC when Julius Caesar granted this land to veteran soldiers of his many campaigns, is a city that seems to have sprouted from ground sprinkled with the distilled essence of Italy. This is where the Renaissance actually began – the home of Dante, Giotto and Boticcelli, and of one of the world’s most famous works of art, Michelangelo’s David, standing in eternal marbled silence in the most famous art gallery in the world, the Uffizi – the former administrative offices of the world’s most famous plutocratic family, the Medicis.

Then there’s the Duomo, the city’s cathedral sumptuously inlaid with green and white marble and finished with the largest masonry dome in the world. Clad in red clay tile, the whole structure stands like a symphony to the Italian flag, thrusting upwards to the blue Tuscan sky.

“The first thing that hits you, and still does for me every day, is that there’s something of historic significance everywhere you look – architecture, sculpture and art,” Melinda explains. “And the second thing that hits you while you’re staring at it all, quite literally sometimes, is the mass of tourists!”

Indeed Florence attracts over eight million foreign tourists every year and those who would prefer their new life abroad to be ‘far from the madding crowd’ could find themselves hyperventilating just crossing the Piazza Della Signoria, the city’s showpiece square, where the nymphs splashing in the majestic Fountain of Neptune often look as if they’re diving for cover under the unremitting barrage of digital photography.

“It’s a lot to take in at first, whether you’re a weekend visitor or a potential long-term resident,” agrees Melinda, “But when you live here full time you soon realise that this place is actually comprised of two separate cities existing alongside each other; the one with the shops, cafes and restaurants all geared for the tourists, and the one in the streets behind, around the markets where the actual Florentines go about their daily lives. When you live here and become part of that it’s actually just like living in a small town, people recognise you and stop to chat – and the sense of satisfaction from finally belonging is huge.”

For Melinda acceptance and acknowledgment from the Florentine community is not just a privilege but also the hard won reward at the end of a long and sometimes difficult journey, as she explains. “I lived in Paris for six years while working for a French software company back in 1990, so I had some experience of what it’s like to start over in a strange city – but this was different. Initially I was put up by people who were contacts of the Italian school I’d enrolled in. They had a six-bedroom house on the outskirts of town where they put up foreign students for a bit of extra income, and even though they only ever spoke in Italian it didn’t take long to realise they were in the process of a fairly acrimonious separation! I can look back on it now and laugh, but I still remember my very first night here like it was yesterday – lying on a cot in a room the size of a pantry and crying myself to sleep and cursing myself for being such a fool, while two strangers shouted at each other downstairs in a foreign language. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so lonely.”

Ten years later on, Melinda’s life couldn’t be more of a contrast. After spending some time working as an English teacher while she polished her now fluent Italian, Melinda is working from home again, as a website developer with a string of international clients.

Home itself is a far cry from her first rented box-room in the city. Bought in 2006 for €325,000, the spacious single-bedroom loft apartment where she now lives is situated above the Piazza Santissima Anunziatta, a 16th century square containing a 13th-century baroque church located on the edge of the centro historico. And although she’s anything but blasé about her beautiful new home, it turns out that Melinda also has a bit of a pedigree when it comes to living in the heart of places of national historic importance – the last flat she lived in back in England was actually part of Hampton Court, the most splendid palace of the Tudor age.

Ducking between the old stone pillars into the shade of the colonnaded walkway that runs the edge of the square, Melinda’s front door to the shared stairwell is impressive enough by itself, with its huge lock, ten-foot high timber leaves and ornate 16th-century hinges and studs.

The top-floor apartment itself is cool, with high ceilings displaying the heavy beams exposed beneath the eaves, and was part of a larger, recently completed, refurbishment project that has seen the property sensitively fitted with a new kitchen and bathroom, while original features like the oak flooring and moulded plaster covings have been restored and left on display.

“I love it here – and I’ve even got that all-important view of the Duomo, which can double the price of real estate here. All you have to do is lean out slightly from the terrace balcony!” she laughs. “But seriously, I did choose this part of town because although it’s the centre we’re off the main tourist track. I remember talking to a friend’s mother, who’s Florentine, just after I moved in here. She asked me where I lived, and when I told her she looked at me knowingly and said ‘Ah, the most beautiful piazza in Florence!’ That really clinched it for me.”

There’s no doubt Melinda’s affair with the city she calls home continues to flourish, but just what is it that makes this place so special to her? “Apart from the sheer weight of culture, art and history,” she ponders, “I guess it’s when you come to accept the downsides to a place because they’re so outweighed by the good. Nowhere is ever quite perfect, just like no person ever is, but when I go for an early morning run through the empty streets and see the sun rising behind the Ponte Vechio it comes pretty close.”