Oltrarno
Cross the Arno on any bridge other than Ponte Vecchio and you step into Oltrarno — a neighbourhood of wood-carvers, bookbinders, leather artisans, and the kind of osterie where the house wine arrives in an unlabelled carafe and nobody is in a hurry. This is the Florence that Florentines actually live in.
Streets worth wandering
Via Maggio is the antique dealer's boulevard — a long, slightly faded street lined with 17th-century palazzi whose ground floors overflow with gilded mirrors, cassoni chests, and dusty oil paintings. Window-shopping is free and endlessly entertaining.
Piazza Santo Spirito is the neighbourhood's living room: a morning farmers' market, lunchtime students on the steps of the Brunelleschi basilica, and evening aperitivo spilling out of tiny bars. It is the most authentically Florentine piazza in the city.
Via dei Serragli and Borgo San Frediano are the artisan corridors — peer through open workshop doors to watch gilders and restorers at work, a craft tradition that has barely changed in 400 years.
What to eat and drink here
Buca Mario and Il Latini are famous across the river, but in Oltrarno seek out Trattoria Camillo on Borgo San Jacopo for old-school ribollita and bistecca, or Bevo Vino on Via Sant'Agostino for a €2 glass of Vernaccia and a crostino.
The Boboli Gardens entrance is in Oltrarno behind Palazzo Pitti — buy a combined ticket that also includes the Palatine Gallery inside the palace, which holds Raphael and Titian works in ornate frescoed rooms that feel completely different from the Uffizi.
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