My 3 Days In Florence, Italy, Counted In Campanile Steps

I came back to Florence in June, a small bag and a habit of getting lost on purpose. Three days felt short on paper. In practice it stretched, because the city does that. You walk a block, you stop for a coffee, you look up, you forget what you were doing.

This is the route I actually followed, in the order I followed it. Mornings around the Duomo, afternoons drifting south of the Arno, evenings up the hill for the light. I ate well. I climbed a lot of stairs. I did not rent a car and never wished I had.

If a dish here makes you hungry on the page, that is the right reaction. I had been baking zucchini bread at home in LA earlier in the spring and the smell of it had me thinking of Tuscany for weeks before I booked the flight.

Day 1, Around the Duomo

The first day belongs to the cathedral and the streets that curl around it. I started in the piazza before the queues were real, climbed, ate cold cuts standing up, and ended with a sandwich by the river. A day spent looking up more than forward.

Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore

The air still cool, almost ten, and the Duomo just appeared. That is the only word for it. You turn a corner off a narrow street and the whole marble thing is there, white and green and pink, too big for the square it sits in.

I had bought the combined Brunelleschi pass the night before, which let me skip the long line outside and slip in from the right. The interior is plainer than the facade promises, almost stripped back, and that is the point. All the drama is overhead, in Vasari’s Last Judgment ringing the dome. Buskers were playing somewhere behind me on the piazza, a violin and something else, and the sound came in through the open door.

Plan to give it long enough for the light to shift. The crypt, the Santa Reparata bit below, is worth the few extra minutes for how quiet it is compared to the floor above. From the cathedral steps I drifted across the square toward the octagonal building opposite, which is where I went next.

Baptistery of St. John

A few steps across the piazza, past the gold doors that everyone photographs, into a small octagonal room that is older than the cathedral itself. From outside the geometry feels calm, the same green and white marble. Inside it changes completely.

The mosaic ceiling pulls your eyes up and they stay there. Thousands of glass pieces, gold ground, Christ the Judge in the centre. Part of it was scaffolded when I came, which is honest, an ancient ceiling needs help sometimes, and the rest still does the work. The inlaid floor is the other quiet star, geometric patterns underfoot that feel more Roman than Renaissance.

I did not check the time. It is a compact space, you do not need to walk far to absorb it. From the door I followed the curve of the piazza toward San Lorenzo, just a few minutes west through the market streets.

Basilica di San Lorenzo

You can find it by the unfinished facade. Rough brown stone, no marble skin, sitting in the middle of the market district like a building someone forgot to dress. Brunelleschi again, the Medici parish church, all clean Renaissance lines once you step inside.

The interior is the opposite of the Duomo. Quiet, proportional, white walls held in place by grey pietra serena. Easy on the eyes after a morning of mosaic and marble. I paid the nine euros and walked through, then sat for a while on the steps outside where a guitar player was working through old standards for tourist coins.

An hour or so, maybe more, is right here. From the steps the alley narrows and leads uphill toward the next stop, the bell tower, which I had been eyeing all morning.

Giotto’s Bell Tower

By the time the heat was real I was at the base of the campanile, looking up. Four hundred and fourteen steps, marble panels stacked in five levels, the climb is narrow enough that you have to press into the wall when someone comes the other way.

I stopped at every loggia. Not because I needed to. Because each opening showed Florence a little differently, the dome closer, the hills wider, the river suddenly there. The terrace at the top puts you almost eye-level with Brunelleschi’s dome, close enough to read the tiles. There is wire netting at the very top for safety. You stop noticing it after a minute.

I will say it. Climb this one, not the dome. You get to look at the dome from above. From the campanile door it is a short walk north through the streets toward Mercato Centrale, lunch was overdue.

Mercato Centrale

You smell it before you see it. Smoked things, bread coming out of an oven, a wine bar already pouring at noon. The ground floor is the classic market, butchers and cheesemongers and a vegetable stall where I bought figs I did not need. Upstairs is the food hall, louder, busier, and where most people end up.

I went up. I found two strangers running a truffle risotto stall who were singing while they stirred, paid less than I expected for two glasses of red and a plate, and sat at a tall counter watching the room move. The oysters across the way looked good. The vegan stall on the ground floor was packed for a reason.

It is overwhelming. Walk the whole loop first, then choose. Out the back door, Via dei Neri is a short walk south and east, and that is where the sandwich queue lives.

All’Antico Vinaio

In the dust-orange light of late afternoon, the queue on Via dei Neri was already half a block long. Multiple storefronts, same name, all working at the same time. The line moves. Someone counts your group and slots you into a smaller line for the next free maker.

I ordered La Paradiso. Mortadella, stracciatella, pistachio cream, on schiacciata thick enough that I asked them to cut it in half, which they did without me having to push. The sandwich is enormous. Honestly more than one person should eat.

Is it the best sandwich in Florence. Probably not. It is good. It is the one with the queue. I took mine the short walk down to the Arno and sat on the wall, watching the light go pink on the water. The evening drifted from there. I walked back to the hotel slowly along the river, full and not in a hurry.

Day 2, From the Bridge to the Oltrarno

The second day crossed the river slowly. I started on Ponte Vecchio when the light was still cool, lost an entire afternoon to the Uffizi, walked through Santa Croce, and finished at a small trattoria in a quieter part of town. A long, slow walking day.

Ponte Vecchio

The air still cool, almost ten, and the bridge was nearly empty. This was deliberate. I had been told to come early or come late, never the middle, and on the second morning I went early.

The goldsmiths’ shops were still shuttered, the wood doors closed tight, and you could actually see the bridge as a bridge for once. The shutters give it a medieval frame. Above them, just visible on the upstream side, runs the Vasari Corridor that the Medici used to move from the Palazzo Vecchio over to Pitti without touching the street.

I stood at the middle opening for a while, watching the Arno catch the light, then moved on before the crowds did. Across town, well, across a couple of streets, the Uffizi was opening and I had a timed ticket. Three or four minutes on foot, no more.

Uffizi Galleries

Long enough for the light to shift. That was how long I spent inside. It might have been four hours, maybe more, I stopped checking around the Botticelli room.

The building itself is the first surprise. Vasari designed it as offices, the long U-shape opening to the river, and the corridors have a polished wooden ceiling that nobody talks about. Then the rooms start. Botticelli’s Primavera, the Birth of Venus, two Caravaggios in a row, a small Leonardo. There are over a hundred rooms and you cannot do them all properly. I picked a short list and let the rest happen.

Wear shoes you trust. It is warm in there. From the Uffizi exit on the river side the Piazza della Signoria is right there, but I cut east first, toward Santa Croce, walking the back streets where the leather shops sit.

Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence

You walk into Piazza Santa Croce and the facade hits you in green, pink, and white, more striking somehow than the Duomo because you were not expecting it. The piazza is wider, less mobbed, and you can stand back and look.

Inside is where it gets quiet in a different way. Michelangelo is buried here. So is Galileo. So is Machiavelli. Dante has a memorial, not the body, but the name is enough. The tombs themselves are sculptures. You wander down the nave and read the floor as much as the walls.

The 1966 flood left marks here, you can still see the high water line on the cloister wall outside. A local once told me Santa Croce is where Florence keeps its secrets. I agree. From the basilica’s side door it is a short walk west, back toward the Signoria, where the open-air sculptures start.

Piazza della Signoria

In the dust-orange light of late afternoon, the piazza had thinned out a little. The David replica was still surrounded, the Neptune fountain still throwing water, but you could actually walk a clean line across the L-shape now.

I went under the arches of the Loggia dei Lanzi and stood for a long time in front of Cellini’s Perseus with the head of Medusa. The piazza works as an open-air museum, no ticket, no glass, just stone and bronze and the Palazzo Vecchio behind it all like a fortress with a tower.

I had an Aperol at one of the cafes on the edge. It was overpriced. I knew it would be. You pay for the view of the Palazzo, that is the deal. From the south end of the piazza the Ponte Vecchio is a two minute walk, and then you are over the river and into the Oltrarno, where Pitti waits.

Palazzo Pitti

Across town, in a quieter square, the Pitti facade does its fortress thing. Big rough stones, no ornament, the kind of building that announces itself by being heavier than everything around it.

I had the combined ticket from the Uffizi morning, which let me walk in without queuing again. Inside it shifts completely. The Palatine Gallery has paintings stacked floor to ceiling, Raphael and Titian and Rubens crowded together the way a private collection actually was. The Royal Apartments are gilt-heavy and a little exhausting. The fashion museum upstairs surprised me, dresses pulled from paintings, reconstructed Medici everyday clothes.

An hour or so, maybe more, depending on how much gilt you can take. I almost skipped it. I am glad I did not. From the palace I caught a quick taxi across the river toward Sant’Ambrogio for dinner, ten minutes in light traffic.

Cibreo Trattoria

After the last of the sun, on Via dei Macci in a neighbourhood that did not feel like the centre any more, I walked into Cibreo Trattoria without a reservation and got the last small table by the window.

No pizza. No spaghetti carbonara. The specials list was almost longer than the menu and the server, who I think was named Mario, walked me through it patiently. I had the ricotta starter, just olive oil and black pepper, and then the chicken meatballs in pomodoro that everyone says to order. The sauce was the thing. Sweet and sharp at the same time.

The pear cheesecake is not on the menu. Ask anyway. I walked back across the river slowly afterwards, full of beans and red wine, and the city felt like mine for the night.

Day 3, Oltrarno and Up the Hill

Day three was the slower one. Gelato early because why not. The Boboli paths, a quiet basilica, a long lunch on a tiny square, and then the climb up to Piazzale Michelangelo and beyond, finishing with the chant at San Miniato as the sun went.

Gelateria dei Neri

I started early, around ten, with gelato in my hand. Day three, no apologies. Via dei Neri, the same street I had queued on for sandwiches two evenings before, but the morning version was quiet and the door was open.

The Nocciola is the one. Hazelnut, deep, almost burnt-edged, the kind of flavour that ruins other hazelnut gelato for you. I also had Caramel Neri, a dulce de leche thing that did not need to be there but I am glad it was. Three scoops for five euros, generous, no upsell. The man behind the counter handed me a tiny extra spoonful of pistachio because I had asked about it and not ordered it.

I ate it sitting outside in the morning shade. From there I walked west across the river toward the Oltrarno and the entrance to Boboli, an easy fifteen minute drift along the south bank.

Boboli Gardens

Through the Pitti entrance, ticket already in hand from the previous day’s pass. Boboli is huge and uphill and not, if I am honest, in its best condition right now. Parts of it were fenced off. The Kaffeehaus was closed. A famous fountain dry.

And yet. Walk up the cypress avenue and the city falls away and you are alone with the hill and the smell of dry leaves. I took the path to the top and looked back over Florence, the dome a small thing from up here. A couple was having a picnic in a corner near a half-hidden statue and I almost joined them.

An hour or so, maybe more if you like to wander. Wear shoes that can take gravel. From a side gate at the back of the gardens I dropped down through Santo Spirito’s streets toward the next stop, the basilica on the square.

Basilica di Santo Spirito

From the outside it does almost nothing. A blank, plaster facade in cream, on a square where the cafes spill onto the cobbles and someone is always selling vinyl from a folding table. You would walk past it.

Inside is Brunelleschi at his most restrained. The plan is a Latin cross but it reads like a grid, columns marching down the nave with Corinthian capitals like punctuation. Walk slowly and the perspective lines stay perfectly honest. Side chapels run in a continuous ring around the whole thing. Two euros gets you into the sacristy, where Michelangelo’s wooden crucifix is, carved when he was seventeen and given to the convent in exchange for being allowed to study anatomy.

No photos inside. Honestly, good. The cloister out back has lemon trees and a small fountain and almost nobody in it. From the church door, Trattoria 4 Leoni is a two minute walk along the alleys, and lunch was waiting.

Trattoria 4 Leoni

A small square in the Oltrarno, four or five outdoor tables under umbrellas, and the bowl of pear and gorgonzola pasta that everyone in Florence had told me to order. The square is Piazza della Passera, easy to miss, easy to fall in love with.

I had the fiocchetti con pera. Small purses of pasta stuffed with pear, in a taleggio sauce with crispy asparagus on top. Sweet and sharp at once, the kind of dish you finish then keep looking at the bowl. The bread was forgettable. The pasta made up for it.

The waiter, Alfonso, explained the Florentine steak even though I did not order it. He brought a small piece of cheese to try. Long enough for the light to shift across the square, and then I paid and walked east toward the river to start the climb up the hill.

Piazzale Michelangelo

In the dust-orange light of late afternoon, the climb up from San Niccolo is steeper than it looks on a map. Stone stairs, ramps, an old city gate, and then suddenly the city is below you and the Arno is laid out like a long ribbon.

I came forty minutes before sunset because I had been told to, and I am glad I did. The viewing wall was already crowded but I found a slot at the railing. The Duomo sits dead-centre in the view, the campanile next to it, the bridges spaced along the river. Street musicians were playing on the steps below the bronze David replica. Someone was selling beer from a cool box.

I almost stayed for sunset itself. Instead I walked up further, just behind the piazzale, where the road keeps climbing toward a quieter church and far fewer people. Maybe a ten minute walk on foot, all uphill.

Basilica di San Miniato

After the last of the sun, up the hill above Piazzale Michelangelo, the basilica was almost empty. Green and white marble again, Romanesque this time, geometric panels arranged with a calm that the city below was not feeling.

I went for the chant. The monks sing vespers most evenings and the sound inside the raised presbytery, with the gold mosaic of Christ glowing above, is the kind of thing you carry home for years. Photography is gently discouraged. Phones go away. I sat on a wooden bench at the back and let it happen.

Afterwards I walked out onto the front terrace. Florence was lit from below now, the Duomo a soft outline, the river going dark. I took the long stone steps down toward the river and walked back to the hotel slowly, the chant still in my head, the city quiet for once.

Three days is not enough for Florence. It is enough to fall in love with one neighbourhood and to learn which gelato counter you would walk across town for. That is plenty.

If you have done these three days already, tell me which stop you would swap. I am curious which corner becomes yours.