"The Other Side of Florence" a Florence Travel Page by Tolik

Since the early 19th century, Florence (Firenze in Italian) has been celebrated as the most beautiful city in Italy. We decided to explore this wonderful city and booked an apartment in the old town historic area south of the Arno River.

Florentines claim that they invented opera, ice cream, football and 3-dimensional perspective.

We had chosen the Oltrarno as the place we were going to stay a week. The districts south of the Arno River are known as Arno di là ("over there") or Oltrarno, literally "Beyond the Arno River". There are several distinct areas in Oltrarno; western part of the area was traditionally an artisans' quarter, while many of the ruling families chose to settle in the central or eastern Oltrarno.