Italian Cats By Madison Forsander

During my time in Europe I have seen my fair share of dogs, way too many pigeons (way to close to my head), and of course stray cats. The first cat I encountered was in the Boboli Gardens in Florence, and I mentioned in a previous post that we named him Goliath. He was very regal sitting in the shade below one of the buildings in the gardens, and he came to say hi multiple times while we were there.  The one time that I went for a fake run/walk in Florence I saw a fabulous black cat sitting in the shade of the one tree in the courtyard of a gated apartment building, he was very majestic. 

In Burano there were so many cats hanging out in the streets, and in people’s yards. I definitely saw more cats than people on the entire island. Seeing that we are creative writers abroad in Europe, we even toyed with the idea of the zombie apocalypse starting in Burano and having to do with the cats, in the most loving way possible of course. Based on all of the cats I have seen on this trip I can deduce that stray Italian cats are just as stuck up as American house cats, but not as high maintenance.