Florence

Florence is small in a way that surprises people who arrive expecting something closer to Rome. The historic center, the part with the Duomo, the Uffizi, and the Ponte Vecchio, covers roughly a square mile, walkable end to end in under an hour without stopping. That compactness is also the source of the city's biggest practical problem: everyone visiting Florence is funneled through the same few streets, and in peak season it shows.

The Duomo dominates the skyline before you've even entered the center — Brunelleschi's dome, completed in 1436 using construction techniques that were considered borderline impossible at the time, still the largest brick dome ever built. Climbing it means several hundred narrow steps and a view that makes the climb worth it, but book the timed slot ahead; walk-up tickets are unreliable most of the year.

Two museums do most of the heavy lifting for Florence's art reputation, and they're different enough in scale that treating them as interchangeable is a mistake. The Accademia is small and specific — you're mainly there for Michelangelo's David, and the visit runs about an hour including the smaller galleries around it. The Uffizi is a genuinely large Renaissance collection, Botticelli's Birth of Venus among hundreds of other major works, and rushing it in under two hours means missing most of what makes it worth the ticket price.

Tuscan food shifts the register from what you'd find in Rome or Naples — heavier on grilled meat, particularly bistecca alla fiorentina, a thick-cut steak usually served for two, and simpler pasta dishes that lean on good olive oil rather than elaborate sauces. The Chianti wine region starts less than an hour outside the city, close enough for a half-day trip that still feels like a real change of scenery rather than a rushed detour.

The Oltrarno district, across the river from the main tourist center, is where a lot of the city's actual working artisans still operate — leather workshops, small jewelry makers, frame restorers — running businesses that predate the tourism economy built around them. It's a five-minute walk from the Ponte Vecchio and gets a fraction of the foot traffic.