As someone who lives in Florence, I actually end up not noticing the tourists much. I see large groups of people walking down the street or stopping to look up at something, and I go around them. I don't generally look at them that closely; however, I do notice the locals in Florence instead for some reason. I can always recognize someone who works in a shop or goes to my palestra (gym) when I'm in centro (downtown).
When I walk around in centro, I just try to get from point A to point B. If someone walks toward me, I will most likely look at them. I don't generally look around much when I'm walking around, which can be quite sad considering I live in such a beautiful place. But it really is the only way to survive. If I contemplated the Duomo each time I walked past it, I probably wouldn't arrive at my destination.
Today I was in via delle Oche with a girl from Canada and she said, "Isn't that Sarah Jessica Parker?" I looked down the narrow street and couldn't really tell. She looked like any other tourist with her husband and child. We walked toward them and I recognized her husband Matthew Broderick who looked in our direction. They went into the Paperback Exchange and we followed them a few minutes later. I talked to a few of my friends who worked there while Sarah and her husband perused books in different areas. They were all surprised that they entered the shop and were buying books, but tried to act as cool as possible.
I told a few of my friends about my star sighting after I got home. Most of them asked me why I didn't get an autograph, but I thought that would be intrusive. I took one picture from afar with my zoom (they're on the left in front of the bookshop), and I felt a little guilty about that already. No one can really tell it's them without knowing it's them, but I was happy with my little memento as it was pretty exciting.
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