Things were starting to feel rather boring at home—the same old places, the same old food, the same old sunsets. I’ve learned to be very wary of boredom, because it’s a close cousin to one of my least favorite symptoms of depression: anhedonia. Anhedonia is the inability to experience pleasure; things that used to give you pleasure (that amazing Malibu sunset, for example) no longer move you the same way.

It was clearly time to get away from my usual haunts. I needed a startle, an awakening, something that would reset my pleasure circuits so life didn’t feel so humdrum. Simply put, I needed a good healthy dose of awe.

Travel is one of the best ways I know to stoke the wonder inside me. Fortunately, my partner, Colin, was up for it. We thought and thought about where to go, and then, one day, I just knew. I wanted rejuvenation? I wanted rebirth? Then why not go to the very heart of it?

Why not relive the Renaissance?

That meant, of course, heading to Florence. Historians credit Florence as the birthplace of Europe’s revivification after the Middle Ages, and it sounded simply ideal: museums overflowing with masterpieces, architecture so beautiful it could take one’s breath away. Literally. The so-called “Stendhal syndrome” originated there, when in 1817 French author Stendhal took one look at the Basilica of Santa........

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