It was a long, hot July in Italy. We had been riding in beige vans for three weeks, and somehow I'd gotten stuck in the middle seat in the back the past nine times out of 10. Our fingers were greasy, our rations of Nutella nearly gone. All of our tapes sounded old--even Garth Brooks, even Madonna. If I saw another Novotel, that sterile European hotel chain, I thought I would scream.

We were approaching Florence, the city of Michelangelo, of Giotto, of Raphael. The Uffizi, a Florence art gallery, had been bombed the month before and we were somewhat apprehensive.

"Florence will be like a spiritual experience." the art history teacher leading our tour promised us, and we wanted to believe him.

After 10 hours of traveling in the van with eight other people on my school's tour of Europe, I was certainly open to spiritual intervention.

But the two police cars blocking the street leading to our hotel were not exactly what I had in mind. I persisted. After all, what was another hour in this land of full-bodied wine and Tuscan food?

After our leader spoke to the police officers in animated Italian, our van drivers managed to back 50 feet down the street as passers-by fled for their lives and cursed at us in rapid-fire Italian.

When we finally navigated our way into the hotel, dragging our luggage on the asphalt on the way, we encountered an unfriendly desk attendant. She wouldn't talk to us until our leader came in from parking the van.

And so I let my mind wander, looking at the old-fashioned telephone booths and the notices in the lobby.

Amid the signs about breakfast hours and dry-cleaning, I spotted a concert notice: Zubin Mehta, the next night, in front of the Uffizi, to commemorate the bombing the month before.

The name sounded familiar--I had a few of his recordings--and I was certainly game for a classical music concert in Italy to soothe the dust of some long days on the road. While eating gnocchi and sipping red wine at the trattoria we found for dinner, I proposed the idea to a few friends.

After a restless night's sleep in our non-airconditioned corner room and a restless day's wandering on the cobblestones on which Dante walked, we were ready for music.

We cleaned our pockets of money, identification and anything else that might appeal to the Florentine gypsies in the plaza, remembering the gypsies we had seen that morning--who bit people.

As we walked over, we merged with hundreds of people, becoming part of a crowd that didn't speak our language. I hadn't thought it would be that crowded.

The seats directly in front of the orchestra had been taken long ago and so we stood. My six-foot-tall friend took turns lifting us into the air to see the roses, the statues and the music stands that lined the stage.

There must have been 30,000 people in thesquare, pressed against each other in the waningItalian heat, waiting for the music to stir theirmemories.