A guide on where to eat, drink and have fun in Florence.
Where to stay
As a tourist hotspot there’s a range of accommodation to suit your needs: hotels, apartments, hostels. This was our last stop on our week travelling around Italy. We’d stayed in apartments before so it was nice to stay in hotel rooms and have our own bit of space. We stayed at Hotel St James which was a great location- close to the train station so didn’t need to drag our luggage too far. The traditional shutters and view of terracotta tiles over Florence was perfect!
Where to eat
Florence is known for its steak! While you want to try the obvious Italian classics like pasta, pizza, risotto if you’re in Florence I really recommend a T Bone. FYI goes down well with a few glasses fo chianti too!
If you’d like dinner with an amazing view, can’t recommend La Loggia enough. It’s right on Piazzale Michelangelo where tourists visit to take pictures of the sunset over Florence. It’s also rumoured to be where the final scene of Dark Knight Rises was filmed. The food and drinks were nice- I had the meatball pasta with a Venetian spritz but it was the atmosphere that made this place great. There’s a bar just inside with a DJ. When we visited there were a group of Italian Americans visiting for a wedding who were all up dancing and let us join in with the fun! What we intended as a sunset dinner, we were up dancing until 1am!
What to do
Florence is beautiful in itself but is also a great base to visit other towns.
Pisa is an hour away on the train, if you’re okay walking about 30 mins from the station it’s a cheap way to go and see the leaning tower. Yes it’s very touristy but there’s a reason! I really enjoyed Pisa, the Tower is really impressive and of course you can take a range of creative photos.
Cinque Terre is a bit of a longer trip- about 2 hours each way on the train. Cinque Terre are 5 towns that can only be reached by train between each other. Although the journey is only a few minutes between each you’re looking at €4 for each journey between the towns so bear this in mind when you’re planning your trip. Monterosso is the town with the best beach so I’d spend a bit longer here if you want to dip in the sea.
How to get around
I used Trainline to book all our tickets in advance. We were really impressed with the regular and reasonably priced train services.