Cumulative tickets
Combined tickets can offer great deals if you plan properly and use them to their fullest extent. The cumulative ticket to the Duomo Complex (€10 adults) provides access to the Duomo and its crypt, the Baptistery, Giotto’s Bell Tower, and Brunelleschi’s Dome; the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, a spectacular collection of original works from the Duomo and the Baptistery by artists such as Michelangelo, Ghiberti, and Donatello, is closed for restoration until November 2015. The Firenze Card (€72) is valid for 72 hours, during which time visitors can visit a litany of the city’s museums. The price also includes unlimited use of buses and trams. It’s a good buy for visitors planning strategic and intense museum-going. Additional perks include free Wi-FI access and priority entrance to sites.
Summer cinema and music
Throughout the month of August, the Limonaia di Villa Strozzi (Via Pisana 77), Le Murate (Piazza delle Murate), and Piazza della Santissima Annunziata are hosting free film screenings highlighting the work of Italian cult horror film director Dario Argento. The Florence Open Art Project (from 24 August to 10 September) is organising free performances featuring dancers, chorographers, and visual artists at Le Murate. The city’s public markets will have free evening concerts (from 1 September until 31 October, various locations, mercatiinmusica.com).
• For details on these and other free summer events, visit the Estate Fiorentina website (ef2015.it)
Urban beaches and city pools
The mercury has soared in Italy this summer and visitors to land-locked Florence have struggled to beat the heat. For a cooling dip, head to the Piscina Costoli (Viale Paoli 6, centroservizi.lineacomune.it), a public pool offering reduced €5 admission after 3pm. Visitors can relax by the banks of the Arno river at the Spiaggia sull’Arno (from 10am-1.30am daily, Piazza Poggi), a free urban beach replete with sand, lounge chairs, beach volleyball nets, and bocce courts. DJ sets accompany a nightly aperitivo and there is free yoga every Wednesday.
Natural history for all the family
The multidisciplinary spirit of the Renaissance is alive and well at the city’s university-run museums. The Università di Firenze’s Natural History Collections (various locations) are spread over numerous properties and cover subjects ranging from anthropology to zoology. The zoological museum, called La Specola has a creepy collection of centuries old anatomical wax models made for medical researchers. Full-priced tickets to each museum cost €6 and the family ticket costs just €13 for parents and up to four children. A cumulative ticket, valid for 3 months, which permits admission to all museums in the university’s circuit, costs €10.
Free gardens
Laid out in the Oltrarno district in 1865, the city’s rose gardens (Viale Giuseppe Poggi 2) contain more than 350 varieties of the flower. Although the garden is in full bloom in late spring, the public park can be enjoyed year-round. Look out for 10 bronze works by Belgian sculptor Jean-Michel Folon. The grounds surrounding the Museo Stibbert in northern Florence are free and open to the public throughout the year. The English-style gardens are embellished with grottos, fountains, a neo-classical greenhouse, and a round temple inspired by Hellenistic architecture. An Egyptian-style temple, completed in the mid-1860s, sits on the edge of a serene pond. The Parco delle Cascine, a former Medici property, is situated along the Arno river and is Florence’s largest park. Pavilions, running paths, performance spaces, and diverse flora and fauna populate the vast public space. The Giardino dell’Orticoltura, a 19th-century experimental garden and greenhouse, hosts initiatives that promote gardening and biodiversity.
Free Sundays at museums
In July 2014, the Italian government launched an initiative offering free admission to museums, cultural sites, and archeological parks on the first Sunday of each month. Though Florence’s top tourist attractions tend to get packed out, this is a rare opportunity to visit world-class collections such as Galleria degli Uffizi or noble chapels-turned-museums such as the Cappella Medici free of charge. For lighter crowds, as well as a full immersion into the city’s ancient history, go to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, which showcases ancient Etruscan and Roman artefacts.
• Visit the Ministry of Culture website for full listings and news
Public art
The city is an open-air museum and, although many treasures live within museum collections and church chapels with admission fees, there are plenty of piazzas and panoramas that offer masterpieces of their own. Piazza Santa Maria Novella offers views of the façade of the church of the same name (admission €5). The building’s polychrome exterior is a study in Renaissance proportions and design. A short walk away, the 14th-century Loggia dei Lanzi (Piazza della Signoria) shelters Benvenuto Cellini’s 16th-century bronze sculpture of Perseus with the severed head of Medusa. Drink in the city’s skyline from San Miniato al Monte or head to Piazzale Michelangelo for similarly sweeping views overlooked by a bronze copy of Michelangelo’s David.
Budget accommodation
The Villa Camerata (beds from €9.50 a night) is a 15th-century dwelling immersed in a green park that offers hostel accommodation. Choose from shared quarters or private rooms, with an en suite bathroom or without, or camp on the grounds around the villa. The Opera B&B (doubles from €76), north of the centre, has four en suite rooms clad in earth tones. Each has high ceilings, air-con and Wi-Fi. Cross-Pollinate (doubles from €46) provides bookings for apartments, guesthouses and B&Bs.
Nose-to-tail dining
Florence’s city-run food markets and simple osterie (tavern-like dining venues) are fantastic destinations for fresh, seasonal, and authentic Tuscan fare. Da Nerbone (Piazza Mercato Centrale), in business since 1872, provides affordable dining options for market workers and visitors alike. Try the lampredotto (simmered tripe) and bollito (simmered meat). Across the river in the Oltrarno district Luca Cai serves a similarly meaty menu at his osteria-tripperia Il Magazzino (Piazza della Passera 2).
Art in situ
Visit works of art in the chapels and churches in which they were meant to be seen. At the medieval church of San Miniato al Monte (free admission), the apse shimmers with gold and glass mosaics laid in the 13th century and the floors feature inlaid polychrome marble from the same period. Michelozzo’s Chapel of the Crucifix contains terracotta works by Luca della Robbia, whose other works can be found throughout the church. At Orsanmichele, a church and former granary, Andrea Orcagna’s tabernacle enshrines an icon of the Madonna and Child. The statues on the building’s exterior are copies, while the originals, by the likes of Ghiberti and Donatello, are inside the complex’s museum (free).
