If you have the weekend free, try taking a trip to Florence.
As soon as Thursday comes around, sleep during the day and when evening comes, embark on a journey—toward the ins and outs of the Florentine movida. The city’s scene will make you feel like you’re in Barcelona.
Perhaps it’s one of the miracles brought about by the city’s young mayor, Matteo Renzi.
The fact is that Florence is now brimming with myriad evening pubs and nightclubs and the center’s squares are beginning to come alive after dinner. The fun doesn’t stop until 3am, awaiting sunrise. There’s the feeling that its population is more free to celebrate. In fact, having created pedestrian areas in the old-time quad between Santa Croce, the Signoria, Piazza della Repubblica and the Oltrarno district allows locals and visitors to stroll along without worrying about having cars at their heels.
This new feature springs from the knowledge that a lot more tolerance is needed, but that it’s necessary to provide tourists, students and visitors with something more than museums: interesting options not just for daytime, but for nighttime as well.
For their study programs abroad (ranging anywhere from 3 to 6 months), American students usually chose Rome, then Florence, and finally Venice.
The Venice scene is quite limited, despite the fact that it’s all pedestrian, would should make it easier to overturn this trend.
Perhaps all that’s needed is a little more tolerance: to expand the possibility of entertainment to the lagoon city’s numerous squares, not just Santa Margherita or the Erbaria. Another idea would be to extend the city’s ‘curfew’ to 2 or 3 in the morning, allowing people to wisely experience “la nuit”.
If you don’t believe it, go and take a walk around Florence.
of Tuscia Katia Nobbio
