During Advent, I went to Florence. I hadn’t been there in twenty years, and I was excited to return—to Dante, to the Renaissance masters, to all the beauty patiently waiting in museums and churches. I imagined myself eating bistecca fiorentina, running my hands over stacks of handmade paper I would desperately want to buy. I would restrain myself, of course. I would end up with just a few notebooks as gifts. Nothing for me.

And that’s exactly how it went.

With Elisabeth—a wise woman with whom everything feels possible—we wandered through the city, stood in front of paintings at the Uffizi, and treated our taste buds with appropriate devotion. Everything unfolded smoothly. The trip would have been perfect if not for one thing.

The maritozzo.

A round bun, sliced open and generously filled with whipped cream. Twenty years ago, Florence had been innocent of it. Now it stared at me from every bakery window, glowing like a crystal ball.

Every time I was about to try one, something intervened. Not a lack of hunger. Not aversion. Not fate. Just another cake. Another pastry. Another “maybe later.” And so it happened that in December, in Florence, I never ate a maritozzo.

More than a month has passed, and I still think about that bun. Sometimes it is joined by another object, or a person, and together they haunt a small drawer in my mind. I know they sell maritozzi at Italians in Smíchov. I also know I refuse to drive across Prague just to give in.

You won’t control me, I tell myself.

Sometimes I buy a different pastry instead. Other times I make myself a virtuous dessert sweetened with erythritol and reassure myself that this is better.

It isn’t.

One morning the craving becomes unbearable. No breathing technique helps. No meditation. I get out of bed, get dressed, and drive to my favorite place by the Elbe River, where I usually go when my thoughts get complicated. Let’s see what the landscape of Stará Boleslav has to say about my obsession.

Brown reeds. A river frozen so solid it has nothing to tell me. Snow everywhere. Just like the white curve of whipped cream lining a maritozzo.

No matter where I look, I see the bun.

Defeated, I return home, change into something nicer, and ceremoniously take the subway to Smíchov. On the way, I read a poetry collection by Typlt—one you can’t even buy anymore—and get completely absorbed. I miss my stop and end up at Zličín. So what? I’m already crossing the entire city for a bun. A few more stops won’t change anything.

At Italians, the woman wraps two maritozzi with care and offers pistachio cannoli as well. The same ones Elisabeth loved in Florence. She probably still dreams about them, though, being a wise woman, she doesn’t show it.

I decide to take everything to her for afternoon tea. She’ll be surprised. She’ll be happy. And finally, so will I.

Between now and then, however, I still have half a day ahead of me—half a day of resisting the perverse urge to eat everything at my writing course and show up empty-handed. The only thing that saves me is knowing that if I do, the whole story collapses.

So I hold out until five o’clock. Then the maritozzi and Elisabeth are consumed like a proper feast, and for a moment we feel as if we’ve stepped into a fairy tale.

The next day we go for a long walk along the Vltava River. Thankfully, it is no longer frozen and has a few things to say. I feel calm. Settled. Like after a long mission that somehow worked out.

After the walk, we stop at an artisan bakery. There are so many cakes that my heart rate rises again. I examine them carefully and choose a triangular pastry topped with flakes. No more buns, I tell myself.

On the way home, I start thinking I should have chosen the poppy seed bun. Or the cottage cheese one. They really did look excellent. And although the triangle is perfectly fine, I keep thinking about the buns.

I would love to believe that next time—if I buy them—I will finally be at peace.

I won’t.

This bun journey will never end. You simply can’t eat the whole world. Not even the Italian one.