Florence Travel Guide, Florence, Italy (B)

Think of Florence and more than a few clichés come to mind, primarily that Florence is “one of the most beautiful city’s in the world”. People who have been will wax lyrical about beauty and enchantment around every fanciful corner. Websites and blogs will mimic popular rhetoric about the exceptional architecture and art heritage of the city, and the numerous galleries and museums that still exist as a result, and they’re not wrong, Florence is all of those things. But Florence is also a lot more.

We were there for three nights to see this art beauty for ourselves, but after just one evening our aim changed to searching for alternative culture. When tourists grossly outnumber locals, and when you need to stand in a line for an hour to pay €15 to see the same thing everyone else is, maybe that thing is just not worth it.

We arrived to Florence Santa Maria Novella station via bus from Rome, courtesy of Megabus (now flixbus). Our journey took 3.5 hours, cost €6 each one way, included WiFi, and was about as good as you could hope for a bus ride. You can make the journey faster by taking a train, but the main attraction to the bus on this occasion was the low price point. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).