City focus

A Weekend Alone in Florence

Florence is small enough to do on foot. The historic center is about two by two kilometers, so you can spend a morning in the Uffizi Gallery, leave when you have had enough and rest in a café for an hour.

Eating alone is easy here too. At aperitivo you can stand at a bar with a glass of wine and a few snacks and be part of the evening without sitting down to a three-course meal. Small workshops close at midday and dinner starts late, so plan a slower trip than you would at home.

Where to base yourself

Two bases suit a weekend. The first is a side street in the Centro Storico, a block off the main thoroughfares rather than facing a monument. You can step out of the door into the Cathedral complex. In return, you accept crowds from mid-morning to late evening.

The second is the Oltrarno, around Santo Spirito and San Frediano. It is a good choice for its evenings and for artisan workshops that are still in use. The trade-off is a fifteen- to twenty-minute walk to the major museums and a piazza that stays loud late.

Either way, ask about noise. Courtyard-facing and upper-floor rooms are quieter than a room over a piazza with restaurant tables. Ask, too, whether the desk is staffed in the evening. A person at reception can hold your bag, call a taxi late at night and knows the room is occupied.

The shape of a good day

Start in Piazza del Duomo early, before the tour groups, when the marble shifts from cool white to warm rose. If you hold a Brunelleschi Pass, take the earliest dome slot you can get. It is 463 steps, fifteen to twenty minutes up, and you can stay at the top as long as you like. Afterward, sit in the cathedral nave for fifteen minutes.

Walk south down Via dei Calzaiuoli to Cantinetta dei Verrazzano on Via dei Tavolini. At the counter it sells focaccia by the slice and its own Chianti by the glass. Then rest for an hour.

In the afternoon, take the Uffizi in the easier, later slot. Go straight to the Botticelli rooms for the Birth of Venus and the Primavera, then to Leonardo’s Annunciation and Michelangelo’s Tondo Doni. Leave within two to three hours. Book the Uffizi, the Accademia and the dome climb before you fly.

For the evening, cross the Ponte Vecchio and walk back along the river to Ponte Santa Trinita for the light on the Arno. Then go to the Oltrarno for a first glass at Il Santino on Via Santo Spirito, and book dinner one street back from the piazza.

On the second day, see Michelangelo’s David at the Accademia, then walk five minutes to the Museo di San Marco for Fra Angelico’s frescoed cells. Eat lightly in the evening at the counter at Le Volpi e l’Uva: a plate of salumi and a glass of Chianti Classico.

Eating alone

A woman dining alone at a neighborhood trattoria is unremarkable, and the staff treat it that way. Counter seats, bar seats, small trattorias, wine bars and market counters are the most comfortable options. Cafés expect you to stay, so you can sit for an hour over one coffee or one glass of wine.

A book or journal gives you something to do with your hands. If you stay a week or longer, pick one trattoria near your base, go back two or three times and ask what the kitchen is cooking that day.

The thing first-timers get wrong

They try to see everything. A list that runs “Uffizi, Accademia, Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio, Bargello, done” leaves you exhausted with fewer real impressions. Art fatigue, the exhaustion that comes from looking rather than walking, is the main hazard in a city with this much art in so small a space.

The fix is simple. Choose three major things. Treat one big gallery a day as plenty. Spend no more than two to three hours in a museum at a stretch, because past that you are simply walking. Sit for fifteen minutes in front of one painting, which is worth more than two minutes each in front of thirty. Eat before you go in and carry water.

A few courtesies and precautions help as well:

Watch your bag in crowds. Pickpockets are the realistic concern on the Ponte Vecchio, in Piazza della Signoria and around the Cathedral. Keep bags zipped and phones in a front pocket.

Respect the churches. They are working churches. Dress appropriately, keep the noise down and do not photograph people without permission.

Plan the ride home. The central streets stay busy until about eleven or midnight. After that, take a taxi. You cannot hail one on the street, so book one by app from inside, or walk to the rank at Piazza della Signoria.

Leave the afternoons loose, and Florence does the rest.

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