Insight Guides - Insight Guides Explore Florence (Travel Guide eBook)

How To Use This E-Book

This Explore Guide has been produced by the editors of Insight Guides, whose books have set the standard for visual travel guides since 1970. With top-quality photography and authoritative recommendations, these guidebooks bring you the very best routes and itineraries in the worlds most exciting destinations.

Best Routes

The routes in this book provide something to suit all budgets, tastes and trip lengths. As well as covering the destinations many classic attractions, the itineraries track lesser-known sights, and there are also excursions for those who want to extend their visit outside the city. The routes embrace a range of interests, so whether you are an art fan, a gourmet, a history buff or have kids to entertain, you will find an option to suit.

We recommend reading the whole of a route before setting out. This should help you to familiarise yourself with it and enable you to plan where to stop for refreshments options are shown in the Food and Drink box at the end of each tour.

Introduction

The routes are set in context by this introductory section, giving an overview of the destination to set the scene, plus background information on food and drink, shopping and more, while a succinct history timeline highlights the key events over the centuries.

Directory

Also supporting the routes is a Directory chapter, with a clearly organised AZ of practical information, our pick of where to stay while you are there and select restaurant listings; these eateries complement the more low-key cafs and restaurants that feature within the routes and are intended to offer a wider choice for evening dining. Also included here are some nightlife listings, plus a handy language guide and our recommendations for books and films about the destination.

Getting around the e-book

In the Table of Contents and throughout this e-book you will see hyperlinked references. Just tap a hyperlink once to skip to the section you would like to read. Practical information and listings are also hyperlinked, so as long as you have an external connection to the internet, you can tap a link to go directly to the website for more information.

Maps

All key attractions and sights mentioned in the text are numbered and cross-referenced to high-quality maps. Wherever you see the reference [map] just tap this to go straight to the related map. You can also double-tap any map for a zoom view.

Images

Youll find lots of beautiful high-resolution images that capture the essence of the destination. Simply double-tap on an image to see it full-screen.

2019 Apa Digital (CH) AG and Apa Publications (UK) Ltd

Table of Contents

Recommended Routes For...

Art enthusiasts

Dont miss the Uffizi Gallery, the worlds best collection of Renaissance art ( covers the Bargellos sculpture and the famed Santa Croce frescoes.

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Children

Keep kids amused in the Boboli Garden ().

Britta Jaschinski/Apa Publications

Food and wine

Good routes for foodies include ends at one of the citys most popular tripe stands not for the faint-hearted, but certainly authentic.

Britta Jaschinski/Apa Publications

Medici Florence

takes you out of the city centre to focus on several villas built for the Medici.

Fotolia

Parks and gardens

The citys main park, the Boboli Garden () are also notable for their lovely gardens.

Steve McDonald/Apa Publications

Rival cities

Easy day trips from Florence include long-time rivals Siena () a superb hilltop village and the best-preserved medieval settlement in the country.

Steve McDonald/Apa Publications

Shopping

Pop into the Mercato Centrale on .

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Views

The best views are from Piazzale Michelangelo and San Miniato al Monte church ().

Britta Jaschinski/Apa Publications

Explore Florence

Famous for its contributions to science, literature, art and architecture, the city state of Florence is where the modern world began, and today it still retains a lively mix of dissent and luxury, the sublime and the earthy.

In most peoples minds the name of Florence is indelibly linked to that of the Renaissance, when the extraordinarily rich flowering of artistic and intellectual life under the enlightened rule of the Medici, coupled with the citys immense banking wealth, made it the most important centre in Europe.

The view from Piazzale Michelangelo

Britta Jaschinski/Apa Publications

Florence today

Contemporary Florence is without doubt one of the finest open-air museums in the world, and the tourism that this fuels has itself become a major new source of wealth. Rarely, however, is it considered as a city in contemporary terms, except perhaps for its shopping. Yet even here, the fine handicrafts and stylish fashion accessories for which it is now almost equally famous are ultimately rooted in Florences own early mercantile and creative traditions.

Yet struggling to break free of its historical straitjacket is another, more hidden Florence, which, when the surface is scratched, reveals itself to be a sophisticated, tuned-in, complex and even slightly troubled modern city, and anything but one suffering from the passive nature of a resigned tourist capital.