Tourists Return to Downtown Florence

After a slow start post-lockdown, tourists are returning to populate the streets of downtown Florence in August, although their typology has changed.  Many are instantly recognizable by their outfits–shorts, sneakers, face coverings, backpacks–with maps in the hands of a few.

A few species have totally vanished: this category includes large groups of Asians or Americans following a tour guide.  These visitors normally walk around the city in a few hours and get back on a tour bus, sometimes simply to return to a cruise ship docked in the Tuscan port of Livorno. There are also no groups of American students traveling through Europe for the summer.  They have been replaced by families, couples and small groups of friends mainly from Spain, France, the U.K. and Germany.  Italian tourists are arriving on the weekend in increasing numbers.

Short lines of guests waiting to get in are also beginning to form outside the Uffizi Gallery and the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral (Duomo) complex as well as in front of popular panino (sandwich) shops.

“We love Italy and we have chosen Tuscany to spend our holidays,” said Beth and Kitty, 27-year-old friends from England who are staying in a hotel outside Florence.  “The proprietors explained what anti-Covid regulations we have to observe, and everything is so organized and simple that we have decided to move around using public transportation,” they added, on their way to visit Palazzo Vecchio and the Bargello National Sculpture Museum.  Massimo, a man from Rome accompanied by his wife Daniela and two children, said, “I lived in Florence for six years and left my heart.  It is difficult to make vacation plans during this strange summer, so it seemed a perfect opportunity to come back,” he observed from the steps of the Loggia dei Lanzi.

The merry-go-round of Piazza Repubblica has resumed offering rides to kids, there are plenty of tables outside cafés, bars and residents to offer additional outdoor seating in this season of social distancing, and a few street musicians have returned to their habitual haunts.

Said Matilde and Alessandro, the mother and son owners of a newsstand in via Porta Rossa opened in 1958, “there are more people out and about in the city center since the beginning of August.  But the truth is that we don’t have much work, and — despite the increase — there are still few tourists.

To read more in Italian, visit Florence’s La Repubblica news site.