We’ve tackled all the nuts (nagging unfinished things) that we can possibly face up to. Suitcases are still empty, but possible inclusions are scattered in little piles on most surfaces, likely more piles than www.onebag.com would ever sanction. We’ve even got a pile of take-along books, plus a few hundred others available if we are willing to enjoy the “plain vanilla” texts on-line from the Gutenberg Project. For now I have put out three to get me to within visiting distance of the English bookstores in Florence. The idea is to read, then leave them in Italy in favor of new must-reads discovered on-site.

I don’t have a good record of leaving books behind, however. Luigi Barzini’s The Italians: A Full-Length Portrait Featuring Their Manners and Morals appears on every list I’ve consulted on the essential books on Italy. I took it with me to Orvieto last year, but read it in tandem with Richard Sennett’s Conscience of the Eye, and Virgil’s Aeneid. The three played off each other, sending serendipitous insights aloft on an almost regular basis. Tandem reading is a marvelous way to read, with the right selections. Alas, I can’t take credit for choosing books that will have that result, so for now I’m planning to re-read Barzini without accompaniments.

The second book, The Collected Traveler: Central Italy, was to have accompanied me to Italy in 2006, but space got in the way, and it remained on the shelf at home, unread. The dust jacket calls it “a pastiche of opinions and advice on Florence and Tuscany.” Perhaps a pastiche is just what a long plane ride requires (and perhaps the more easily abandoned at the end of the trip).

The third book, however, is the one I have been anticipating reading since I discovered the author, Alain De Botton. It’s his Art of Travel, written for ruminators more than “pastiche-ers”. Alain De Botton writes of the happiness of going traveling, not necessarily to Italy, and though I’m already happy in the prospect of ”taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home,” reading his Architecture of Happiness convinced me that I will be guided in the pleasures of travel by a wonderfully wise and articulate companion.

Then there is Shirley’s list that, if I’m lucky, she will share: she’s taking R. G. B. Lewis, The City of Florence, a book I couldn’t wait until the trip to read, but will especially enjoy returning to when we can walk the same streets Lewis writes about. In addition: E.M.Forster’s Room with a View, another book we’ve been waiting to savor on site. Then, of course, there is Shirley’s inseparable travel companion, Rick Steves, and, finally, the EyewitnessTravel series’ Guide to Florence & Tuscany--eye candy for travelers.

It’s clear, looking over our weighty piles and our too-small suitcases, that something must remain behind. Let’s see: Socks? That extra pair of shoes?