Get Off the Beaten Path in Florence: San Niccolò district

The jewel of Renaissance Italy, Florence is a city of timeless beauty and myriad artistic treasures. Full of family legacies and modern imaginings, this is truly a city to savour. If you're lucky enough to be traveling here, pour yourself a glass of Chianti and start planning!

To help, local guide Ivana joins us today to share details about a classic Florentine neighbourhood you’ll want to visit when you’re ready to step away from the grand galleries and piazzas of central Florence.

Off the Beaten Path in Florence: San Niccolò

San Niccolò is a thin strip of the city stuck between the Arno river and the slopes that lead to Piazzale Michelangelo. It is a colourful neighbourhood you can reach within 30 minutes walk from the Duomo and it became a UNESCO world heritage site in 2021. It’s also one of my favorite places in Florence!Here you can meet locals, find great food and wine, discover special gardens, interesting artisans and street artists shops, churches and unique museums to visit. But it is also a quiet place where it is simply beautiful to walk, spend time away from the crowds and where it is possible to recover a bit after visiting the busy main squares, museums and landmarks of Florence's bustling tourist spots .

Porta San Niccolò and Piazzale Michelangelo

The skyline of this district is represented by “Porta San Niccolò”, a tower that once was part of a gate of the former defensive walls of Florence. It dates back to the 14th century and it is the only tower that has not been shortened: 160 steps will take you to the top. Today it is a scenic tower, playing a dramatic part in the background of the city.You can start discovering this neighbourhood right here at the tower, behind it you’ll find beautiful ramps built around 1876: grottoes, walls covered with plaster work, rocks and mosaics, little waterfalls. The function of the ramps was not only embellishment, but first and foremost to stabilize the hillside, given the soil movements documented in the past by Leonardo da Vinci.

If you walk the steps on the side of these ramps you will reach Piazzale Michelangelo in a few minutes, and at sunset or night you will enjoy from here the best view of the city and take amazing photos from up there!Just between these ramps and Piazzale Michelangelo there’s a very special place, the Rose Garden. Here you will be able to admire hundreds of different types of roses; you can also just sit on the grass, enjoying the silence. Since the garden is overlooking the city centre you can also enjoy a magnificent view of the Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio and other sites. This secret garden was built after the capital of Italy was moved to Florence and it also contains works of sculptor Jean Michel Folon.

In the garden there is also a surprise: a corner of Japan! The Japanese Garden was donated to the city of Florence by its twin city of Kyoto.

San Miniato al Monte church

The beauties you can find in this area are not over, in fact while on Piazzale Michelangelo one can walk another 5 minutes up the street to find the beautiful San Miniato al Monte church, which is more than one thousand years old. According to a slightly creepy legend, an Armenian prince and martyr was beheaded downtown, but he picked up his head, carried it up to this hill and then died. This church was erected for him in the same area and named after him.

Among all the people buried in the cemetery behind the church we find also Collodi, the Italian author, humorist, and journalist that wrote one of the most translated books in the world, Pinocchio!

The church has an outstanding poly-chrome marble decoration on the facade and the interior is one of the masterpieces of Tuscan Romanesque architecture.

Stroll Down Via San Niccolò

After spending a few hours walking among all these beautiful spots, one can go back down the street and stop to have a glass of wine in Via San Niccolò. This picturesque street in the 1st century BC was a portion of the “Via Cassia” street built by the Romans to connect Rome and Florence.

Along this street and along the following one, via de’Bardi, there are today many medieval and renaissance buildings such as Palazzo Mozzi, Palazzo Nasi (where the Madonna del Cardellino by Raffaello was found), Palazzo Demidoff and many others. For the memories it preserves and for its architecture, and even more for the character of a neighborhood or "rione" that it still maintains, the area is considered of high historical and artistic value. It was also chosen for some famous Italian comedy movies such as Non ci resta che piangere with actors Trosi and Benigni and Amici miei by Monicelli.If you are a curious traveler looking for beauty and authenticity, you can come here any time of the year, and get inspired by this magnificent district in the city of Florence!

Take a private tour of San Niccolò in Florence with local guide Ivana to experience the best of this historic neighbourhood’s charms.