A bit of culture and a lot of convivial dining dominate a return to Milan

I didn’t expect to be back in Milan just six months after entertaining you (hopefully) with our last adventure here. But my family from Los Angeles was starting a 10-day Italian holiday in the city. I hadn’t seen most of them in five years, so I couldn’t miss the chance and this was the most efficient place for us to meet up.

I had two days on my own before they arrived, then two days to show them around. They’re moderate sightseers but—unsurprisingly, given the cumulative total of Italian DNA in our bloodstreams—like to catch up over a dining table. So our adventures included a bit of culture, a lot of food, and a football match I’ll describe in my next article. 

Here’s a roundup of what we got up to. If you’re planning a trip to Milan, do consider this in partnership with my articles from December 2024. (Sforza Castle, which I revisited, was covered here.)

The Museo Poldi Pezzoli

Unlike the Certosa di Pavia, which I explored on my first solo day, this museum is right in the heart of tourist Milan—just a few hundred yards from La Scala opera house. Yet as far as visitor numbers go, it’s just as far off the beaten track.  I never shared a room with more than three other people as I wandered through this exceptional museum, very similar in size and mood to London’s Wallace Collection.

Like Sir Richard Wallace, Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli was an aristocratic 19th-century collector who, having no children, donated his urban mansion and its collections to the nation. The Milanese palazzo houses a quirky and exquisite collection of treasures: late medieval and Renaissance art from Milanese masters, a Baroque room overflowing with porcelain and decorative arts, a couple of very famous Botticellis, an eye-popping collection of pre-19th-century clocks and pocket watches, jewellery, striking portraits, and an armoury.

My star sight, however, was the studiolo: Poldi Pezzoli’s personal study, and reportedly his favourite room—where he chose to be moved before he died. It’s a glorious combination of frescoes, gilding, stained glass, and sculpture, pushing 19th-century Gothic Revival to its limits in anticipation of the Italian Liberty style. A sumptuous jewel box of a room, and worth the price of admission alone.

The Duomo Roof Walk
This is about as solidly “on” the beaten track as you can get—probably second only to Leonardo’s Last Supper on the must-do list for Milan. There’s a reason for that: it is magnificent.

I’m on record saying the inside of the cathedral is a disappointment; its exterior is what’s worth your time. And there’s no better way to appreciate the splendour of the medieval stonework than to get up on the roof and see it close up.

You can walk up or pay a bit extra to take the lift, then do a circuit around the whole building, with a final climb up another set of steps along the front façade to reach the spine of the cathedral. It’s fascinating to compare the original statuary and decorative elements to newer replacements (easily spotted by their lighter colour), and to marvel at the level of detail. Much of this work would have been invisible to those on the ground, yet every fold of a robe, line of a cheek, or vein of a leaf is carved in loving detail—for the glory of God.

Even if you take the lift up, most tickets assume you’ll walk down. If you have a walking stick or mobility issues, you can talk the guards into letting you ride down as well.

Sunday Like Locals
My cousin’s wife has her own cousins in Milan, so we all came together for an extended family Sunday. We started with Mass at Santa Maria del Carmine. This is a church that, in Milan, is unremarkable and barely makes the guidebooks, yet would be a headline attraction in many other cities.

It has Renaissance bones, a Baroque altar lined with impressive life-sized silver reliquary busts, and a variety of side chapels ranging from original Renaissance to baroque to Gothic Revival. As a Catholic, I find attending Mass in a foreign country an interesting way to dip into local culture. The ritual is familiar, but the language foreign—you’re participating like a native, yet still an outsider.

The church sits in the heart of Milan’s posh Brera neighbourhood, which hosts an excellent Sunday market—mostly antiques with a few crafts. After Mass, we took a pleasant passeggiata through lively but not overcrowded streets, eventually circling back to almost exactly where we’d started.

Convivium Ristorante, just across the square from the church, was our lunch spot. Its eclectic East-meets-West design (including some enormous Buddha heads) contrasts with its resolutely Milanese menu. The staff filled our nine-person table with shared starters before we tucked into individual mains. The food was excellent, but secondary to the atmosphere—an ideal Sunday afternoon of familial connection, lingering until the place closed for its afternoon break.

Eating in the Galleria
Even more than the previous meal, this was about the experience rather than the food. You’re going to pay a premium—probably 20% to 40% more than elsewhere—for the same dishes you’d get across town, but you’re buying the privilege of sitting in one of the most iconic architectural spaces in Europe. 

Don’t bother with any of these restaurants unless you’re sitting outside with a view. Neoclassical buildings rise around you under a sparkling glass arcade, while the world promenades by on inlaid marble streets inspired by Ancient Rome.

We ate at Salotto, near the Piazza della Scala exit. I suspect all the restaurants here are similar: cheerful staff fluent in English, decent antipasti, weak spritzes, slightly soggy pizza—but no pressure to leave once you’re settled. That’s what you’re paying for, so linger. See and be seen.

Meat Feast
Il Mannarino is a top-quality butcher with an attached restaurant just south of Centrale Station (Via Carlo Tenca 12). Vegetarians need not apply. Culinary heretics who prefer their meat well-done should also stay home. But if you revere beef and pork, this is the place for you.

You order at the counter, take a seat, and wait for the magic. The family had just arrived after an epic trek from LA and were far too tired to make decisions, so we told the staff: just bring us nice things. A procession of delights followed. Highlights included rare bistecca fiorentina, meatballs, and Puglian bombetta—little meat rolls of pork shoulder and caciocavallo cheese wrapped in prosciutto and fried crisp.

Wine isn’t available by the glass—the smallest unit is a carafe. Sensible, really. This food deserves multiple glasses of red. 

Antica Trattoria della Pesa
Worth booking. Worth taking a taxi. This classic Milanese restaurant claims to be one of the city’s oldest in continuous operation. Today, its Porta Garibaldi neighbourhood has been transformed by cutting-edge redevelopment. This is where you’ll find the Bosco Verticale, high-rises planted with vertical forests and visible from the train station.

The restaurant itself is a holdover from when this was a gritty industrial area near one of Milan’s main gates. They set up the kitchen where the best produce first arrived in town. Their menu is firmly rooted in traditional Lombard cuisine, serving ossobuco and risotto alla Milanese on par with Trattoria all’Antica in the Solari district. (I would have returned there, but it was too far from our hotel. This was a worthy substitute.)

Where We Stayed
Continuing our loyalty to Club Accor—and collecting those all-important reward points— I tried out the Ibis Milano Centrale, near Centrale Station. While I prefer the Solari neighbourhood, with its Mercure and direct connection to Linate Airport, I was surprised to find I actually preferred this Ibis.

Technically, it’s  a lower-tier hotel than the Mercure, but the room décor was more cheerful, the lobby larger and more comfortable, with a proper bar and restaurant (unlike the Mercure’s pokey breakfast room). It’s also just a short walk to the stop for the Line 1 tram, which runs right past La Scala, the Galleria, and the Castle. I’m likely to book here again—despite its “budget” label, it was the better hotel.

Milan’s cultural wonders deserve more attention than the average tourist gives them

Milan may be Italy’s richest city and its business hub, but when it comes to tourism it’s an also-ran. People may arrive here, but they’re more likely to be in transit through town en route to Venice or Florence. They might pop in to da Vinci’s last supper, or use a hotel here as a base for a day trip to Como, but they’re unlikely to linger.

That is a shame. 

Milan is as rich in history and cultural gems as any of the more popular destinations. Though it’s lacking in rustic charm and feels more modern than other Italian towns, the very fact that it’s less dependant on tourism than its neighbours makes it more authentic than the staples of the tourist route.

Most visitors start with the Last Supper, as well they should. It one of the great masterpieces of Western Art. Seeing it takes long-range planning. The official website opens sales for three months’ worth of tickets at a time, and they quickly sell out. We booked our tickets for early December on the first day of their availability, 24 September, when tickets for November, December and January became available. The official website does not publish those drop dates very far in advance. Your best bet is to follow them on social media and check regularly; they announced new ticket availability on their Instagram feed about two weeks before the date.

Adult tickets are €15. You may be able to get in without advance planning, but it will cost you a lot more. A handful of official tour guides get blocks of tickets they resell as part of packages, but these tend to go for well over €100 per person. Sure, you’re getting a guide and a tour of a few other things nearby, but it’s a huge difference. Go for the standard admission unless a last-minute trip gives you no other option.

So what’s the big deal? Da Vinci anticipates the immediacy of film by 400 years, dropping us into a moment of high-tension live action that’s been freeze-framed. If you need proof of just how revolutionary this painting was, you only have to turn around and look at Giovanni Donato da Montorfano’s Crucifixion on the opposite wall. It’s beautiful, and it was painted at roughly the same time, but it’s almost cartoon-like. It’s bland and devoid of emotion in comparison to Leonardo’s masterpiece across the hall

Visits last 15 minutes, admit 35 people at a time and are orchestrated with a rigorous efficiency that may cause you to re-evaluate Italian stereotypes. You will turn up a bit before your booked time, go through the security screening, then pass through two air-locked rooms. The high tech procession allows the curators to control exactly the temperature and humidity of the old refectory that the Last Supper decorates, and while you’re waiting you can read useful information about what you’re about to see. The painting’s history has been precarious. Most people know the stories of Leonardo’s experimental fresco technique starting to fade almost as soon as he completed the work, and of Napoleon’s troops abusing the space, but not that the whole room was almost destroyed in WW2. Photos of its wall standing in the open air surrounded by rubble are striking. 

 Recent renovations have worked wonders and the strict visiting procedure makes the experience a joy. In so much of Italy you’re jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with others trying to get a glimpse of the star sights. Here, there’s plenty of space to drink it all in and sit in wonder before you’re moved on. While true art lovers could spend hours in there, 15 minutes seemed the perfect amount of time for most people to appreciate the details without getting bored.

Sadly, I watched most visitors come and go from the Last Supper without ever checking out the church next door. It is the anchor of the monastery complex da Vinci was working to beautify. Santa Maria delle Grazie was a Dominican church and was the burial place of the Renaissance ruling family, the Sforzas, ergo the artistic firepower lavished on the place. It’s had as hard a time as its refectory, with the tombs being moved out by later rulers and the French looting its best painting. (Titian’s altarpiece of Christ Receiving His Crown of Thorns is in the Louvre these days.) But nobody could move Bramante’s dome, which is as much of a masterpiece on the architectural side as the Last Supper is to painting. It’s innovative and unusual; Bramante was introducing Renaissance style to Milan. Outside it’s a curious mash-up of plaster and brickwork, arcades and neoclassical windows. Inside it’s clearly drawing inspiration from the Pantheon with its coffers, but Bramante throws in all sorts of other classical shapes. It’s an elegant study in geometric forms.

The next most visited place in town has to be the Duomo and the streets immediately around it, for good reason. Milan’s cathedral has one of the most gorgeous exteriors in Europe, a fantasy of gothic spires and fantastic statues. It’s even better now that it’s been cleaned and really does resemble an ornate wedding cake. Walk all of the way around it to appreciate the variety of sculpture. The cathedral wasn’t officially finished until 1965 and there are some surprisingly modern gargoyles around the back. Skip the interior if you are short on time. Like many European churches it’s a mix of different time periods and styles, but the Milanese manage to be particularly graceless and heavy-handed putting it all together. The quality of some of the art in here is shockingly second rate, given the wealth of the great and the good in town.

I think it might be the ugliest cathedral interior in Europe. The strange, chunky gothic capitals on top on the ponderous supporting pillars are particularly awful.  It’s not just my opinion. The famous British art critic John Ruskin wrote that the cathedral ”steals from every style in the world, and every style spoiled.” The round classical temple sheathed in patterned silver that serves as a high altar is a bit of a redeeming feature for me, but it clashes so badly with its surroundings it’s hard to take seriously. See what you think.

The streets immediately around the cathedral are full of elegant boutiques and luxury brands, most notably the cross-shaped Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. This is surely one of the most beautiful shopping malls in the world, full of elegant restaurants as well as shops beneath its glass barrel vaults. You’ll pay a premium for anything here, of course, but if you want to see and be seen this is the spot.

Cross through the Galleria to the Piazza della Scala to see the famous statue of da Vinci. He’s facing one of the most famous opera houses in the world, the Teatro Alla Scala. Our timing was terrible. It was opening weekend of the new season, with performances restricted to patrons and no tours taking place to facilitate the national broadcast of opening night. Opera in Italy is a big deal. But under normal circumstances there are regular tours of the interior and tickets for performances are easily bookable via their website. Prices are much closer to London’s Royal Opera House, however, than to the bargain that is the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

My favourite cultural experience of the weekend, after getting one-on-one with Leonardo, was a leisurely ramble around Castello Sforzesco. This is one of the largest castles in Europe, a quintessentially Renaissance assertion that something can be both lethal and beautiful. It’s free to walk beneath its massive gates and explore its lovely courtyards, but you’ll have to ante up €5 to get inside. This has to be the best value for money in Milan.

Technically, there are nine different museums here, all entered by this one ticket. The scale and range of the collection is on par with any of the major museums of Europe, and in many cases the rooms and their painted ceilings are as interesting as the collections displayed within them. It would take at least a full day to walk through everything, many more to view the collections in depth.

With only a few hours, we started with one of the museum’s great treasures: an unfinished pietà by Michelangelo. This has been restored relatively recently and moved to a new display space that reflects its importance; it has a whole hall to itself and the explanatory displays about it and its artist. We wandered through the “Museum of Ancient Art”, which is a bit of a misnomer. It’s mostly sculpture from late antiquity through the high Renaissance, plus an armoury. The arms and armour collection is small compared to those in Vienna or London’s Wallace Collection, but it’s worth checking out just for the gorgeous display of Ludovico Sforza on his horse, both recreated in lifelike detail and dressed in their parade armour. This is also the part of the castle that has the most impressive rooms, including a large chamber frescoed by Leonardo to give the impression of being deep in a magical wood. The painting is in terrible shape but you can make out enough to be impressed. Restorers are trying to recover more.

The Applied Arts Collection is an Italian equivalent to the V&A. Objects range from the Middle Ages to modern times, with much from the Sforza family making the Renaissance galleries predictably strong. There are whole interiors pulled out of buildings, furniture, lush decorative objects, glassware and jewellery. It’s so big that at one point we got lost and drifted into the painting collection. By this point we were too exhausted to even contemplate the hundreds of metres of canvas-filled galleries ahead of us … despite the prospect of some Caravaggios … and doubled back, using my bad knee as an excuse to talk the guards into letting us go out the entrance. We didn’t even touch the Egyptian Museum, the print collection, prehistoric stuff and special rotating exhibitions.

That was the extent of our sightseeing time but was only the tip of the Milanese cultural iceberg. The Brera Art Museum and the Basilica of Saint Ambrogio would have been next on my list. I wouldn’t have minded a day trip down to Pavia and its magnificent Certosa, of which I have misty but dazzling memories from childhood. Lake Maggiore and its magnificent palace on Isola Bella lies in the opposite direction. And I wouldn’t mind a much deeper exploration of the local wine scene. 

Clearly, Milan is not just for business trips and getting to other places in Italy. It’s a tourist destination in its own right.

Coping strategies to enjoy Florence and Siena despite summer crowds

The tragic irony of tourism is that it destroys the things it celebrates. Once someplace makes it onto every guidebook’s “must see” list, the experience of visiting is often more about endurance than enjoyment. While not yet as bad as Venice, summer sightseeing in Florence and Siena now falls solidly into the hard work camp. I suspect San Gimignano is the same, though we didn’t visit on this trip.

People, of course, have been complaining about crowds in Florence since Lucy Honeychurch snagged her Room with a View, but a world of relatively cheap international air travel, plus the ever-escalating numbers of visitors from Asia, has pushed Tuscan tourism to a place unrecognisable from my first visits as a teenager. Nothing sold out back then, you didn’t need to get tickets for anything in advance and all the churches were free. Now there’s a world of long queues, you won’t get in to the Uffizi without a reservation and you’re generally being forced to plan your days; something at odds with the serendipity of discovery I’ve always found marks a good Italian holiday. 

SIENA BASICS

In Siena, for example, we managed to get tickets when we walked up to the cathedral at 10:30. Ironically, it was faster to buy online than wait in the queue, though you then still need to get in another queue to redeem your online purchase for a paper ticket, and another to get into the cathedral itself. At this last queue, individual ticket holders have to wait as group tours get priority. (An early lesson for my friends in why everything takes longer in Italy than you think it will.) Inside, there’s now a strictly enforced one-way system where people shuffle by the famous bible stories laid into the floor in pietra dura mosaic. I understand why they’ve had to take such measures. I swear the 500-year-old floors look significantly more worn than they did just 30 years ago. But any sense of the sacral is gone and there’s no way, beyond the arial view published on the cathedral’s web site, to get a sense of the majesty of the total scheme because as a visitor you can’t get a view that stretches more than 20 feet without a wall of humanity forming an artificial horizon. 

Siena’s cathedral is still one of the great sights of Italy, and the Piccolomini Library off to one side would make my list of the ten most beautiful rooms in the country, with its vivid murals bringing the accomplishments of the donating family to glorious life. Give me this over the Sistine Chapel any day. There are still spots where you can sit down in the main church, let the crowds wash around you and give yourself over to quiet contemplation of an individual story on the floor, or the majestic painted roof. But if you don’t slow down, pull yourself out of the queue and make yourself really look, it’s easy to become one of the plodding masses. Shuffle by. Take photo. Post on social media. Tick off list in guidebook.

While a prompt start meant we got straight (more or less) into the cathedral, by early afternoon first admission into the town hall to see the famous murals of good and bad government required a wait of two hours. A leisurely lunch at Ristorante al Mangia, overlooking the Campo (the main town square) was just as much a part of the day’s experience as the sightseeing. As was wandering through Siena’s shops, which seem to have a higher proportion of both air conditioning and variety than do other towns in Tuscany. It’s almost as if locals still live and shop here, something that’s difficult to believe of much of Florence’s historic centre these days. 

Fortunately for today’s visitors, Florence’s leading families embraced conspicuous consumption. They felt that decorating public spaces was just as important as their private palazzi. So even if you don’t spend the time or money to get inside anything, you can still have an excellent day drinking in atmosphere. The friends I accompanied were in Italy for the first time, and all about introductions. They wanted to get the feel of a place and a sense of what they might want to return to see. A broad range of tastes, one teenager, and short attention spans meant hours looking at paintings in the Uffizi or frescoed ceilings at the Pitti Palace would be a waste of time and money. Florence needed to be a taster tour.

ELLEN’S FLORENTINE WALKING TOUR

We started at the main Santa Maria Novella train station. It’s still one of the ugliest and most crowded in Europe, but has recently been much improved by a tram line that comes in from the airport in 20 minutes, and from a park-and-ride branch on the main motorway to the southwest. The €1.50 fare is a bargain and this is an ideal option for people coming on a city break who don’t plan to have a car.

First we walked to the front of the church that names the station to get an introduction to the inlaid pastel fantasy of marble characteristic of Tuscan church facades. Then to bigger examples: the duomo, baptistery and bell tower.  The outdoor masterpieces here are arguably better than anything you can see inside: the sculptural scenes on the baptistery doors made by Ghiberti and Pisano, Giotto’s extraordinary bell-tower and Brunelleschi’s miraculous dome. You probably don’t even need a map here because, like a leaf falling onto a stream, the flow of people will just push you down the Via dei Calzaiuoli toward the Piazza della Signoria. This main drag between cathedral and town hall is central artery of Florentine history and commerce. Step out of the flow to admire the outside of the Orsanmichele church. Once again, the best stuff is on the outside. In a race to show off their wealth and good taste, various guilds sponsored each niche around the above the streets, filling them with masterpieces of renaissance sculpture by Donatello, Ghiberti, Gianbologna and Verrocchio. Some are now copies of precious masterpieces moved indoors but, unlike the awkward doppelgänger of Michaelangelo’s David in front of the Palazzo Signoria, I challenge anyone who’s not an art historian to spot the fakes. 

If you’ve still got the energy, resist the temptation to look at the Piazza Signoria at the top of the street, and instead turn right. In a block you’ll run into the Mercato Nuovo, a beautiful loggia open on four sides and stuffed with local crafts. Rather reassuringly not much has changed here. It’s still the same densely-packed warren of leather goods, luxury textiles, silk scarves and ties. Most seem still to be made in Italy and prices are fair. I think modern tourism and social media has killed the world where no prices are displayed, traders started high and a good negotiator could haggle down to great deals. Prices now are more uniform and haggling less expected, though you can still get a good discount if you deal in cash. If you’re going beyond Florence, however, keep in mind that most of the Tuscan hill towns have leather stores carrying similar ranges and prices get cheaper the further off the beaten track you go.

Now, assuming you started between 10 and 11, it’s time for lunch. Head back to the Piazza Signoria and grab a table with a view at one of the restaurants that extends onto the square. To be honest, which one doesn’t matter; they’re all much-of-a-muchness, with a menu of tourist classics competently prepared and priced 20% above what you could get in the next street. You’re paying for the view, which was excellent from our table at Bar Perseo in the northwest corner of the square. This isn’t just lunch, it’s seated sightseeing. While relaxing in shade, and under steady puffs of cooling mist, you can admire the towered town hall that started as a home of oligarchy dressed up as democracy, and devolved to a Medici palace. Appreciate the Loggia Lanzi beside it, a glorious outdoor sculpture gallery. You can see the edge of the Uffizi, and all of the other stately buildings around the square. Most are renaissance but a few new ones dropped into the scene in the 19th century, built in the same style. There’s lots of other decorative sculpture, including a brash fountain of Neptune and an impressive bronze of Cosimo the Great (the first Medici grand duke) on horseback. Use your imagination to conjure up the scenes of the Bonfire of the Vanities, held here in 1479 when radical monk Savonarola convinced the town’s rich to incinerate their favourite objects of culture. Though I prefer to imagine the burning at the stake a year later of that same revolutionary, when popular opinion turned and they torched him, too. When it comes to book and art burners, karma is a good thing.

SHOPPING AND BACKSTREETS, FROM THE PITTI PALACE TO SANTA CROCE

From here, walk over to and across the Ponte Vecchio. It remains a great place to buy gold but research prices before you buy. The craftsmanship and quality is unique here. But if you’re going to buy it’s good to be fluent in the price of 24k gold, so you know what you’re paying for the art on top of the weight. Continue up the street to take a look at the Pitti Palace, contemplating the Medici family’s evolution from merchants to royals. On your way back, pop your head into Bottega del Mosaico on the left side of the street as you return to the bridge. This is one of the few workshops and stores left that produces and sells the ancient art of pietra dura. Literally “hard stone”, it’s a type of mosaic made with pieces of highly polished, semi-precious stones like lapis lazuli and malachite. It’s typical to see tabletops of the stuff in museums, palaces and aristocratic homes across Europe, but this is the only place I know where you can buy something for yourself. Though still expensive … you’re paying for a rare skill and time-consuming craft … small pictures for the wall or pendants from your neck are in the realms of normal budgets.

From here you’re walking back over the bridge, turning hard right as soon as you cross and walking along the river to the back of the Uffizi. There’s a balcony that curves out over the rowing club on the river bank below that will give you your best photo of the Ponte Vecchio on this route, and will let you spot the Vasari corridor. That is the private route the Medicis built to get from the Palazzo Signoria to the Pitti Palace without ever setting foot in the street, visible when you spot the line of matching windows along the route..

Walk through the inner court of the Uffizi and then head for Santa Croce. This L-shaped route from the Pitti to Florence’s Franciscan basilica has some of the nicest shops you’ll pass. In addition to the mosaic store, look for small places with beautiful marbleised paper, handmade notebooks and other high end stationery; higher-end leather goods than you’ll find in the outside markets; wooden toys and all things Pinocchio (it’s a local story); shoes and fine woollens. 

It’s at Santa’s Croce that the ticketing system frustrates me the most. This is my favourite church in Florence, and no proper tour would be complete without a peak at the famous memorials (Michaelangelo, Dante, Machiavelli), Giotto’s Bardi Chapel (the Renaissance starts here!) and the Pazzi Chapel (one of the most beautiful little buildings ever designed). The official Florentine leather working school is also here, with a shop that offers things beyond the ordinary.  But it’s probably not worth €8 and a queue unless you want to linger for at least an hour. It’s still worth the wander this way, however, to glimpse the Pazzi Chapel through the cloister gates, see the big statue of Dante (the town that exiled him cashing in his fame) and contemplate the playing ground of “calico storico”. It’s here, once a year, that opposing teams from Florentine neighbourhoods play a ruthless game of football with no rules, regular bloodshed and rumours of convicts being sprung from jail for the event to beef up teams. A friend of mine saw the legendary game when one brute bit another’s ear off.

From there, navigate your way to the Bargello. Take the Via Torta out of the side of the square opposite the church and you’ll come upon Vivoli, a family-run ice cream shop in operation since 1929 that many locals swear by as the best in town. It’s just to the right of he first crossroad on Via del Isole delle Stinche, a name that gives as much delight to small children as the ice cream. No Italian summer afternoon is complete without a gelato break. 

Lick and walk, gazing up at the walls and tower of the Bargello. It appears a smaller copy of the Palazzo Signoria and was once the town prison. Now it’s my favourite museum in Florence. Full of decorative arts like pottery and sculpture, consider this the V&A to the Uffizi’s National Gallery. But this tour isn’t about going inside anywhere. You need to keep moving.

At this point there’s a choice. If you still have energy, you can head up to the Medici-Riccardi palace, checking out what the banking family built for themselves when their money was new and they were still competing with other families. It’s an impressive facade and has influenced countless buildings down the ages. From there head to San Lorenzo, the original parish church of the Medicis. Michelangelo’s famous Medici tombs and library are here, but you’re not going in. Instead, have a poke around the sprawling leather market outside. Similar stuff to the market you saw before lunch, but more of it. 

We were worn down by the heat, however, so skipped these last two stops and headed back to the train station. Whether or not you choose the final extension, that’s a solid circle tour of the heart of the historic town centre that gives you a taste of everything without paying for admission. Skipping entry queues and stopping frequently for meals and drinks makes it pleasant despite the crowds, and gives first-time visitors a sense of what makes this heart of the Renaissance beat. 

Seeing those crowds, however, has hardened my resolve that there’s only one way to do Florence any more if your objective is culture. Come in the winter, when the weather is bad and schools are in. Fly direct to Florence, take the tram in and settle into a hotel in the historic centre. Pre-book tickets to cultural institutions and sink into them for long, unhurried visits. 

But that is a very different kind of trip. Having consumed the amuse bouche of the Tuscan capital, we were heading off the beaten track. The rest of our Italian meal would be picturesque drives, wine hot spots and lesser-known hill forts. Read on for more.