Italy · Old Town
Florence
A self-guided walking tour of the Florence Old Town, every street in two days.
Every street on the menu.
Every street in the Old Town of Florence is a line of dots you collect by walking it. I have been lying in one of them for six hundred years and I am still not finished.
At a glance
Plan your walk.
- Distance
- 38.9 km
- Time
- about 11 hours
- Streets
- 235
- Steps
- 4 streets with steps
- Start point
- Ponte Vecchio
- Phone needed while walking
- no
- Works offline
- yes
- Expires
- never
The Old Town
Every street, drawn.
Every lane inside that line is a course. The circles are fruit.
Landmarks
What I would eat first.
Landmarks are fruit. The bigger the sight, the bigger the bonus.
Ponte Vecchio 1,500 points
The one bridge in this town with a whole street built on top of it. Shops hang out over the water on timber brackets, tight on both sides, so you can be halfway over and never see the river at all. Somebody looked at all that foot traffic and thought: rent. There is a single gap in the middle where the view is let back in.
Basilica di Santa Croce 500 points
One end of the widest flat square on this side of the map, with the low benches all facing the wrong way, which I enjoy. The coloured front is a latecomer, put on in the 1800s over a wall that had stood bare for ages. Stand well back to take it in. Then look down: this is the lowest corner of the centre, and the walls about here remember how high the water once got.
Galleria dell'Accademia 500 points
A door on Via Ricasoli with a queue outside it, and the queue is the tell. Book ahead or turn up at opening, because this is the one halt on the walk where the best of it is kept indoors and everybody in that line has come for exactly one thing. I will be out on the kerb. I have the time.
Palazzo Pitti 500 points
The far end of the walk, over the water and then up. The whole front is one enormous slab of rough-cut stone, and the square in front of it slopes away like a ramp, so the thing leans over you while you arrive. Come at it up the Sdrucciolo dei Pitti if you would rather arrive out of breath. I would.
Belvedere sull'Arno 250 points
A parapet on the Lungarno Torrigiani, at about the height a person wants to lean. Stop and turn to face the water: the far bank stacks the whole city up at once, roof over roof over roof. Late in the afternoon the stone on that side goes orange. I lean here too. It is what a parapet is for.
Campanile di Giotto 250 points
A tower standing on its own, in bands of white, green and pink marble, like something laid out on a counter. The other climb next door has the long queue. This one has the view of it. Go up here and the dome is the thing you are looking at, not the thing you are standing on.
Piazza della Signoria 250 points
The city's front room, with something strange under the paving. A dig here between 1981 and 1989 turned up a large Roman bath complex and a dye works, with medieval houses set straight on top of them. Above, the roofed loggia along one side is open to the lane and costs nothing to walk into. Everything worth looking at on this square is out in the weather on purpose.
Piazza Santa Maria Novella 250 points
A wide open rectangle, and this town does not hand those out often. The church shutting the top end wears a front of green and white geometry that was already old before it was done. Sit on the low wall along one flank and look up the length of it. Two things are set out there that are not figures, and I want you to find them yourself.
Eating
Actual food.
Florence has one famous steak, and the regional register says outright that in the 1700s the rare steak was for visitors. The Florentines themselves ate offal, soups and beans. That is the kitchen here: a stomach in a bread roll, yesterday's bread cooked into dinner, a pot of beans. The steak is on the list too. I have room for both kitchens.
Meat and fish
Lampredotto
The fourth stomach of the cow, the true one after three forestomachs, boiled for two to three hours. The register calls it very soft and splits it in two: the part with violet ridges holds the best flavour. In Florence it is the undisputed star of the steaming rolls the tripe sellers still fill from their carts in the old lanes. The name probably comes from the lamprey, an eel it looks like. I do not choose lunch by its looks.
Sources: Prodotti Agroalimentari Tradizionali della Toscana (Regione Toscana)
Bistecca alla fiorentina
A T-bone four to six centimetres thick, by the custom of the Florentine butchers. It goes onto oak charcoal with nothing added at all, gets its salt just before it leaves the coals, rests a few minutes, then is cut in a fan from the middle on a wooden board. The register traces the word to the English beef-steak, and to Florentine bankers lending money to English kings. Even the name was borrowed. Boiled white beans with olive oil go beside it.
Order one to share. The register says it is eaten in company.
Sources: Prodotti Agroalimentari Tradizionali della Toscana (Regione Toscana)
Baccalà in zimino
Salt cod, soaked first, cooked with chard, tomatoes, spring onion, carrot, celery and a great deal of olive oil. The chard is stripped from its ribs, and once the fish goes back in nobody stirs: the register says to shake the pan so the cod stays whole. Its page on lampredotto cooks that in zimino too, with chard. The greens are half the pan, not the garnish.
Sources: Prodotti Agroalimentari Tradizionali della Toscana (Regione Toscana)
Vegetarian
Crespelle alla fiorentina
Thin pancakes of egg, flour and milk, rolled around ricotta and the long Florentine courgette, laid side by side in an earthenware dish, covered in béchamel and baked in a hot oven. The register wants the pancakes cooled on marble if you can manage it. A pancake with the ambitions of a main course.
Sources: Prodotti Agroalimentari Tradizionali della Toscana (Regione Toscana)
Tortello di patate del Mugello
Pasta parcels filled with mashed potato, garlic, parsley, a little tomato, grated cheese and nutmeg. The register's potatoes come from the upper Mugello, and it makes the filling in the evening for the next morning. Its title dresses them in meat sauce, then it admits they are excellent with plenty of melted butter and sage. Potato wrapped in pasta is one starch in the coat of another, and I see nothing to fix.
Ask for butter and sage, because the register's title dish comes in meat sauce. Ask about the filling too: one variant adds pancetta.
Sources: Prodotti Agroalimentari Tradizionali della Toscana (Regione Toscana)
Pan di ramerino
A soft sweet roll with sultanas and rosemary, cut across the top before it bakes. It has been made since the Middle Ages and belonged to Lent, to Holy Thursday, when sellers called out coll'olio, with oil, to the people making the round of seven churches. The register says it is eaten all year now. A herb and a raisin in one roll, and breakfast is settled.
Sources: Prodotti Agroalimentari Tradizionali della Toscana (Regione Toscana)
Vegan
Ribollita
Stale home bread, white beans, black cabbage, savoy, chard, potato, carrot and celery, cooked a long time in the beans' own broth, left to cool, then covered in sliced onion and put in a hot oven until the onion turns gold. Three quarters of the beans go in as a purée, the rest whole. A soup that goes into the oven at the end is a soup with plans.
The register thins the tomato paste with hot water or with broth. Ask which.
Sources: Prodotti Agroalimentari Tradizionali della Toscana (Regione Toscana)
Panzanella
Stale home bread soaked in cold water, wrung out and crumbled into a bowl, then dressed with red onion, cucumber and basil torn by hand, with olive oil, vinegar and salt. The register puts the tomatoes in brackets, and I read brackets as a shrug. It rests somewhere cool before it is served.
Sources: Prodotti Agroalimentari Tradizionali della Toscana (Regione Toscana)
Castagnaccio
Chestnut flour, water, olive oil and salt, baked in a tray for forty minutes. A book printed in 1553 credits one Pilade of Lucca with inventing it, and Florence has eaten it for centuries anyway. It used to be thick, because its job was to fill a stomach. Now it is low and cut in thin slices.
The register serves it with ricotta or mascarpone, so ask for it plain. It keeps three days at most, and bakeries make it mostly in winter.
Sources: Prodotti Agroalimentari Tradizionali della Toscana (Regione Toscana)
Late breakfast
Trattoria Mario the old one
Via Rosina 2r
Behind the Mercato Centrale since March 1953, and a trattoria with table service since 1957, by the city's own register of historic businesses. A tiny room where everybody eats elbow to elbow, and it costs so little, one writer says, that you read the menu twice to believe it. The kitchen cooks the classics of the tradition, ribollita on the list. The souvenirs on show are purple, for the home football team. The plates are for the food.
- Mon12:00–15:30
- Tue12:00–15:30
- Wed12:00–15:30
- Thu12:00–15:30
- Fri12:00–15:30
- Sat12:00–15:30
- Sunclosed
Lunch only, Monday to Saturday. It also opens on Friday evenings, except in July. Closed on Sundays and public holidays.
Sources: Comune di Firenze, Gambero Rosso, Scatti di Gusto
Trattoria Sergio Gozzi where locals go
Piazza di San Lorenzo 8r
Locals call it Da Sergio. A city paper reported in 2011 that it had served Tuscan food since 1915, with the fourth generation of the family in the kitchen and the dining room, and the same locals in for lunch every day. It also noted that the potatoes are peeled and sliced fresh each day. A kitchen that peels its own potatoes has my attention before the menu does.
- Mon12:00–15:00
- Tue12:00–15:00
- Wed12:00–15:00
- Thu12:00–15:00
- Fri12:00–15:00
- Sat12:00–15:00
- Sunclosed
Lunch only, Monday to Saturday.
Sources: The Florentine
Afternoon coffee
Ben Caffè come for the one thing: the single-origin espresso
Via Santa Margherita 2
Single origin here means coffee from one and the same plantation, pulled as an espresso for a little more than the regular espresso. The bar also brews it as filter, cold brew, Chemex, AeroPress and V60, and a national food guide files it among the city's specialty coffee bars. It started as a hotel's breakfast room that opened its door to anyone. Sweet or savoury breakfast on the side, but the cup is the reason.
Its listings disagree about the closing time and the day off. It is a morning bar, so go before lunch.
Sources: Gambero Rosso, FirenzeToday, European Coffee Trip
Dinner
Trattoria La Casalinga the old one
Via dei Michelozzi 9r
A family trattoria in Santo Spirito, dated to 1963 by two food publications, and by one of them among the cheapest tables in Florence. Always full, it says, because the place does not put on airs. A small terrace outside, the classics inside, and the ribollita good enough to make a national guide's list. Cheap and crowded, for more than six decades. Those two rarely stay together that long.
- Mon12:00–14:30, 19:00–22:00
- Tue12:00–14:30, 19:00–22:00
- Wed12:00–14:30, 19:00–22:00
- Thu12:00–14:30, 19:00–22:00
- Fri12:00–14:30, 19:00–22:00
- Sat12:00–14:30, 19:00–22:00
- Sunclosed
Closed on Sundays.
Sources: Gambero Rosso, Scatti di Gusto
Osteria Tripperia Il Magazzino come for the one thing: the lampredotto meatballs
Piazza della Passera 2/3
A tripe seller's osteria a few steps from the Ponte Vecchio, so the menu is offal. The meatballs are made of lampredotto, the soft fourth stomach, and a food guide lists them first among the dishes not to miss. A second writer found them delicate and light. Making a stomach taste light is a real trick of the pan.
- Mon12:00–15:00, 19:30–23:00
- Tue12:00–15:00, 19:30–23:00
- Wed12:00–15:00, 19:30–23:00
- Thu12:00–15:00, 19:30–23:00
- Fri12:00–15:00, 19:30–23:00
- Sat12:00–15:00, 19:30–23:00
- Sun12:00–15:00, 19:30–23:00
Sources: Il Golosario, Scatti di Gusto, Dissapore, Luciano Pignataro
Trattoria Dalla Lola where locals go
Via della Chiesa 16r
A small Oltrarno trattoria, opened in 2021, with a menu written by hand every day and explained at the table. The dish one magazine singles out is spaghetti with anchovy butter and crunchy breadcrumbs. A food writer notes it still draws plenty of locals from an older crowd, and another says it is hard to spend more than thirty euros a head. Anchovy and butter in one pan is an argument I cannot win against.
Dinner is booked through its website only, up to two weeks ahead. For lunch, come by in person between 11 and 12 to reserve a table for that day. Its own page gives two different sets of opening days, so check before you walk over.
Sources: Scatti di Gusto, Katie Parla, Time Out Florence, Life & Thyme
Checked 30 September 2026.
Name origin
Why it is called Florence.
Florence is a compliment that stuck. The Roman name was Florentia, built on florens, florentis: flourishing, thriving, doing nicely. It was handed over as a wish rather than a description, and the place spent two thousand years growing into it. Firenze comes out of the locative Florentiae, worn down in local mouths, and turns up written that way around the middle of the 13th century. Nobody has ever called me flourishing. Cobbled, yes, and I take that as praise.
Sources: www.lanazione.it
Why here
Somebody stood here and decided.
A road and two rivers. The Via Cassia came through here, and here is where the Mugnone then ran into the Arno, so the trade to and from Rome, Faenza, Lucca and Pisa all piled up in one spot. Somebody put a town where the carts already had to slow down. The Mugnone has since been moved off. The road has not, and it is still under your feet.
Sources: www.treccani.it; www.treccani.it
Why then
When the first stone went down.
This started as a wall with a market inside it. The place took the name Florentia and was a Roman municipium first, sharing its rites with Fiesole up the hill; then Caesar settled a colony here and walled it, a circuit of two thousand metres. That circuit is the smallest version of this level. Everything else on the map grew outward from that one square bite.
Sources: www.treccani.it; www.treccani.it
Who ruled
Everyone who thought they owned this.
I outlasted all of them. It is the one thing I am good at.
- 1138–1530
Nobody in particular, and then a committee. The first consuls turn up in 1138. In 1193 a podestà takes over, brought in as a guarantee that the administration would be impartial. From 1282 the guilds run the government themselves through the priorato, and the Ordinamenti di giustizia of 1295 settled it: merchants and bankers held the city, and the old noble houses were shut out of office. Every trade on this map got a street out of that arrangement, and I have eaten all of them.
Sources: www.treccani.it
- 1530–1737
The Medici, out in the open. The family had been running the city from behind the constitution since 1434, keeping every republican form in place and the decisions to itself. In 1530 the pretending stopped: this became a duchy, and in 1569 its duke was made grand duke of Tuscany. A city that had owned a state turned into the head town of one. The line ran out in 1737 with Gian Gastone, and there was nobody to come after him.
Sources: www.treccani.it
- 1737–1860
Lorraine, by paperwork. When the Medici line ended, the grand duchy was assigned to Francis Stephen of Lorraine as Europe tidied up the Polish succession, and the new administration paid down the public debt. Under Peter Leopold, 1765 to 1790, marshland was drained and smallholdings were encouraged; under Leopold II from 1824 the city got a free press and a written statute. Then in 1860 Tuscany joined the kingdom of Sardinia and the grand duchy was finished.
Sources: www.treccani.it
- 1860–
Italy. Since 1860 the decisions about this place have been taken by a national government instead of a grand duke, and today it governs its own region: a comune of 102 square kilometres, with something like 367,000 people in it. The walled square the Romans left is a small fraction of all that. It is also the only part you can finish in an afternoon, which is why the level stops where it stops.
Sources: www.treccani.it
The emblem
What the shield means.
A red lily, opened out with its pistils showing, on a silver field. Only it is not really a lily. The flower behind it is the white iris that grows all over the country round here, and the shield is the city's own name in bloom: Florentia means flourishing. Until 1251 the colours ran the other way, white on red. Of everything a city could paint on a shield, a flower is the most edible.
Sources: it.wikipedia.org; www.pressandarcheos.com
Emblem: Original artwork for Cobble Gobble — no third-party source
Three facts
Three things I know about this place.
The Roman plan never left. The lanes in the centre still hold the orientation of Florentia's own: the forum is the present-day Piazza della Repubblica, the decumanus runs out along Via degli Strozzi and Via del Corso, and the line of the first ring of walls is traced, in broad strokes, by Via dei Tornabuoni, Via dei Cerretani and Via del Proconsolo. Walk those three and you are eating a fence that came down a long time ago.
Sources: www.treccani.it; www.treccani.it
In 1172 the city threw up a new ring of walls that took in more than twice the old area and, for the first time, reached over onto the left bank of the Arno. Once the far side was inside, one bridge was not enough. Ponte alla Carraia followed in 1220, Ponte alle Grazie in 1237, Ponte a Santa Trinita in 1252. Two of those are still your way over and back on this level. That is how a level gets a second half.
Sources: www.treccani.it; www.treccani.it
Orsanmichele was a grain market before it was a church. The loggia went up between 1337 and 1404, and when the grain moved out the guilds moved in: fourteen figures of the guilds' patron saints stand in niches around the outside of it, one trade at a time. It is the only building I know of that is also a list of jobs. Via Orsanmichele runs along one flank of it, so you will pass under the whole list.
Sources: www.treccani.it
Street words
What the names on the signs mean.
- Borgo
- A street that ran out through a gate of the old wall, into the suburb it served, and kept the name after the wall went. Borgo degli Albizi, Borgo Ognissanti, Borgo Santi Apostoli, Borgo San Iacopo, Borgo San Lorenzo, Borgo Santa Croce, Borgo de' Greci. Seven roads, and every one of them was the way out.
- Chiasso
- A slot between two houses that counts as a street anyway. Chiasso del Buco, Chiasso Cornino, Chiasso delle Misure, Chiasso dei Baroncelli, Chiasso di Manetto. Eleven of them in this level. I fit. A delivery van does not.
- Vicolo
- The same idea one size up: a small lane, usually named after whatever was made or sold along it. Vicolo dell'Oro, Vicolo della Seta, Vicolo del Ferro, Vicolo dell'Onestà. Gold, silk, iron and honesty, in that order.
- Lungarno
- Along the Arno. These are the long ones by the water: Lungarno Torrigiani, Lungarno Corsini, Lungarno degli Acciaioli, Lungarno degli Archibusieri, Lungarno delle Grazie. Flat, straight, and the only place in the level where you can see the sky all the way down a street.
- Canto
- A corner, and here a corner is important enough to be its own address. Canto de' Carnesecchi, Canto di Croce Rossa, Via del Canto Rivolto, Via del Canto de' Nelli. When a city names its corners, it is telling you how people give directions.
- Volta
- A vault: a stretch of street that runs under a building instead of past it. Volta dei Mercanti, Volta dei Tintori, Volta di San Piero. Roofed streets are the best texture in any city and there are only three here.
- -ai, -aiuoli
- The plural of a trade, used as a street name. Via dei Calzaiuoli were the hose-makers, Corso dei Tintori the dyers, Via dei Saponai the soap-makers, Via dei Cimatori the cloth-shearers, Via delle Farine the flour. Pellicceria is the furriers' trade, and it does not even bother with a Via.
The size of it
Walk it in a day: Florence in numbers.
Counted from the streets in the level itself, not from a guidebook.
- 235streets
- 2,047dots
- 31.7km of street
- 38.9km on foot
- 11hours at a stroll
The game
Your first city is free.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone. Claim any city as your free one. Every other city is a one-time purchase you keep for good, Family Sharing included, and a city you own plays fully offline.