We are scheduled to arrive at the Amerigo Vespucci airport at 10:30pm on a Friday night and our host will drive up from the Siena area to pick us up the next morning, so we don't really need a home base hotel with easy access to the sites, we just need a place to lay our heads for 8 hours. Because of this and my innate Midwestern fear of inconveniencing anyone, I've been looking at larger and/or chain hotels that I know will be easy for taxi drivers to find and that will have night clerks. 2 questions: Am I being foolish (and perhaps a bit chicken) to avoid a smaller locally owned establishment? I'm guessing we won't make it to our lodging until at least 11:30pm.
Does anyone have suggestions for hotels that may fit my needs?
Posted by
Land of La
8701 posts
Florence doesn't roll up it's cobblestones early. Dinner is often served at 8pm. People will be up, out and about at 11:30pm. I trust your friend understands what driving into Florence entails. The area of greatest tourist interest coincides with the ZTL ("Zona a Traffico Limitato" or Limited Traffic Zone), a restricted traffic area controlled by a network of video cameras. Since Florence's historic center is a UNESCO Heritage Site, it makes sense to protect it in this way.
So all vehicles without a ZTL permit are banned from the city center from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on weekdays. During the summer, generally from June to August, the centre is also closed from midnight to 4am on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. That said reviews for the hotels around the airport sound awful and who wants to start off a visit with a bad accommodation experience. Take the taxi into Florence and simply figure out a way to meet your friend on the outskirts of town. It's Florence for gawd's sake. Hotel Accademia which is one of the places Rick's tour groups stay is fine. Badia Fiorentina B&B has very positive reviews on the Graffiti wall and on Tripadvisor. Email your hosts and let them know you'll be arriving late. It's their business to welcome you. My 2 cents.
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
Claudia has really flagged an issue. Almost the entire historic area of Florence is a ZTL zone (Zona Traffico Limitado). The catch you with cameras entering these zones and by the time you get the ticket notice a year later, you have missed your court days and you are facing a fine of about $150. Unless your friend has the proper stickers on the car, it should not enter these zones. Since you mention major hotel, there is the Hilton Metropole that is on the other side of the Arno river. It's not in a dreaded ZTL zone. We've stayed there. We took a taxi from the airport direct to the hotel. Fare was 25E plus a couple of Euro for the luggage.
Posted by
Toronto, Canada
415 posts
There's a Novotel hotel close to the airport if you really don't want to go into Florence. http://www.novotel.com/gb/hotel-1798-novotel-firenze-nord-aeroporto/index.shtml I don't know how familiar you might be with this chain, but it's part of the very large Accor hotels system and very established like Hilton.