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Florence Italy Europe

Florence (Firenze in Italian) is the capital of the region of Tuscany, on Italy's northwest coast. Florence is a small city, located in the Arno River valley, and surrounded by olive-planted hills on the north and south. It extends west and slightly east along the Arno valley with suburbs and light industry. The centro storico (historic center), where visitors spend most of their time, is a tight tangle of medieval streets and piazze (squares). Most of Florence, and the majority of the tourist sites, lie north of the river, with a vintage artisan's working-class neighborhood wedged in between the Arno and the hills on the south side.

The center is encircled by a traffic ring of wide boulevards, known as the Viali, that were created in the late 1800s by tearing down the city's medieval walls. Since the 14th century the cultural heart of the city has been the Piazza della Signoria with the Palazzo Vecchio (Town Hall), the Uffizi Gallery and a large number of publicly displayed world famous sculptures.

Florence is a walking city. Visitors can take a leisurely stroll between the two most often visited sights, the Duomo and the Uffizi, in less than five minutes. The walk from the most northerly point, San Marco with its Fra' Angelico frescoes and the Accademia with Michelangelo's David, to the most southerly, the Pitti Palace across the Arno, should take no more than 30 minutes. From Santa Maria Novella rail station across town to Santa Croce is an easy 20 to 30 minute walk.

Most of the streets were designed to handle the moderate pedestrian traffic and occasional horse-drawn cart of a medieval city. Sidewalks, where they exist, are narrow; often less than two feet wide. Though much of the centro storico is supposedly closed to traffic, taxis, residents with parking permits, people without permits who drive there anyway, and the endless stream of noisy motorini (mopeds) still enter, drive and park.