Welcome to Florence's Centro Storico, a walkable heart where medieval history meets Renaissance artistry. Over the next few hours, we'll wander past architectural giants like the Baptistery of San Giovanni and the magnificent Basilica of Santa Croce, before exploring the spiritual beauty of Santa Maria Novella and the residential grandeur of San Lorenzo. We'll even find a moment of quiet escape in the Boboli Gardens, and keep an eye out for the charming Buchette del Vino nestled in the ancient streets.
Baptistery of San Giovanni
Piazza di San Giovanni, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
Dante was baptized here.
Basilica of San Lorenzo
9 Piazza di San Lorenzo, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
The Medici family's parish church has an unfinished brick facade, and that's one of the most fascinating things about it.
Basilica of Santa Croce
16 Piazza di Santa Croce, Centro Storico, Florence, 50122, Italy
They call it the Temple of Italian Glories, which sounds grandiose until you realize Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, and Rossini are all buried here, in the same building, steps from each other.
Basilica of Santa Maria Novella
18 Piazza di Santa Maria Novella, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
The facade of Santa Maria Novella is a Renaissance geometry lesson in green and white marble, designed by Leon Battista Alberti in the 1450s and so mathematically precise that art historians have spent centuries measuring its proportional ratios.
Boboli Gardens
1 Piazza dei Pitti, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
Behind the Palazzo Pitti, the Medici carved an entire hillside into one of the first and most influential formal gardens in European history.
Buchette del Vino (Wine Windows)
Via del Sole, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
Scattered across Florence's palazzi, at about knee height, you'll find small arched openings roughly the size of a wine bottle — because that's exactly what they were for.
Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore
Piazza del Duomo, Centro Storico, Florence, 50122, Italy
Here's the thing about Brunelleschi's dome: nobody thought it could be built.
Medici Chapels
6 Piazza di Madonna degli Aldobrandini, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
The Medici didn't just run Florence — they made sure everyone would remember them forever.
Mercato Centrale
Piazza del Mercato Centrale, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
The man who designed Milan's famous Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II — that grand glass-roofed shopping arcade — also designed this market hall.
Museo Galileo
1 Piazza dei Giudici, Centro Storico, Florence, 50122, Italy
In a glass egg-shaped reliquary on the second floor, a bony finger points permanently toward the heavens.
Museo Nazionale del Bargello
4 Via del Proconsolo, Centro Storico, Florence, 50122, Italy
Before this building held some of the world's finest Renaissance sculptures, it held prisoners.
Museum of San Marco
3 Piazza di San Marco, Centro Storico, Florence, 50121, Italy
This monastery tells two completely opposite stories.
Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella
16 Via della Scala, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
The world's oldest pharmacy has been in continuous operation since 1221, which means Dominican monks were mixing herbal remedies here before Dante was born, before the Renaissance started, and about 300 years before anyone thought to put shops on the Ponte Vecchio.
Orsanmichele
1 Via dell'Arte della Lana, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
This is the strangest church in Florence, and that's because it wasn't built as a church at all.
Palazzo Davanzati
13 Via Porta Rossa, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
Want to know how a wealthy Florentine family actually lived in the fourteenth century? Not in a palazzo stuffed with Renaissance masterpieces, but in a house with painted parrots on the bedroom walls, a toilet on every floor, and an internal well system that brought water to each story — luxuries that most European nobles wouldn't enjoy for another two hundred years.
Palazzo Pitti
1 Piazza dei Pitti, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
Luca Pitti wanted the biggest palace in Florence, and he wanted it bigger than anything the Medici had.
Piazza Santo Spirito & Oltrarno
Piazza Santo Spirito, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
Cross the Arno and Florence changes completely.
Piazzale Michelangelo
Viale Michelangelo, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
Every postcard of Florence was shot from here.
Ponte Santa Trinita
Ponte Santa Trinita, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
The most beautiful bridge in Florence isn't the Ponte Vecchio — it's this one, fifty meters upstream.
Ponte Vecchio
Ponte Vecchio, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
For centuries, this bridge stank.
Porta San Niccolo
Piazza Giuseppe Poggi, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
Of the original medieval gates that pierced Florence's city walls, this is the only one that still stands at its full original height.
San Miniato al Monte
34 Via delle Porte Sante, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
If Piazzale Michelangelo gives you the postcard view, San Miniato al Monte — perched just above it — gives you the spiritual one.
Uffizi Gallery
6 Piazzale degli Uffizi, Centro Storico, Florence, 50122, Italy
The name literally means "offices," which is the most spectacularly underselling name in art history.
Vasari Corridor
Centro Storico, Florence, Italy
In 1565, Cosimo I de' Medici wanted to walk from his government offices in the Uffizi to his private residence at the Palazzo Pitti without ever setting foot on the street.
Explore Centro Storico with VoiceWalks
GPS-guided narration at every landmark. Tap a spot on the map, hear the story.