To Stay in Florence Centro Historico or up in the Hills ?

Hi Denny,
Have you considered the Oltrarno neighborhood? We’ve stayed there twice and loved it. It’s much quieter than the central Duomo area but still an easy walk to many attractions you may want to visit.

The location up in the hills would be a really, really hard "no" for me. I'd rather use earplugs the entire time I was in my room than deal with a hotel shuttle, much less one with a 3-hour afternoon break. I can't imagine being stuck in that situation for four weeks. And where is the pick-up point in central Florence? Would you be protected from potentially unpleasant December weather while waiting for the shuttle? And the food situation? I wouldn't stay there for free.

If you stay on the south side of the river it will be quieter almost everywhere. If you like something tell us the address and I can tell you if it’s quiet.

Also the zone around Porta a Prato, Lungarno Vespucci and Piazza Ognissanti is much quieter than the center, and the walk to the center is flat.

If you stay on the south side of the river it will be quieter almost everywhere. If you like something tell us the address and I can tell you if it’s quiet.

Via del Presto, 4 Nero, Uffizi, 50122 Florence, Italy.

Previous guests have said it is quite noisy even at night because of its hyper-central location.

In Venice, I was still 5-7 minutes from the Campo Santa Margherita but in an inner courtyard but next to a very busy alley leading to the Piazzele Realse. The woman upstairs was often moving heavy furniture around. I prayed for the evening to roll around when the noise would gradually abate. Being there during the daytime, I would avoid staying in, even if the weather wasn't great.

But it is one of the upstairs rooms of a flat that still retains features and at atmosphere of centuries past, a rarity in Florentine lodgings available to tourists, which have a IKEA Plus ambience and furnishings to match.

How to not stay on the outskirts (hillside) surrounding Florence but still have space and quiet closer to the Centro Historico? I would most like to see the Bargello Museum as I've already seen some of the major tourist attractions but not the Baptisery or the Duomo/Campanile except from the outside. Also the Medici-Ricardi Palazzo, etc. that you don't have the time or leisure to see on a Rick Steves tour.

Also the zone around Porta a Prato, Lungarno Vespucci and Piazza Ognissanti is much quieter than the center, and the walk to the center is flat.

Thank you for the suggestions. I wish I was more familiar with Florence and not just the Palazzo Vecchio/Uffizi neighborhood, which I know now I don't want to stay near unless my lodgings are well sound-proofed.

Here is the location of the hotel up on the hillside above the Piazzele Michelangelo. Beautiful but going back and forth sounds challenging and probably more of a trek than I'm willing to undertake, especially in December.

Via Torre Del Gallo 8-10, 50125 Florence, Italy

I stayed in the Porta Romana neighborhood on the south side of the Arno and a bit beyond Boboli Gardens last July. My rented room with private bath, and most charming host, had a phenomenal view of the Duomo and was quiet. The kitchen is available and I generally ate breakfast at home - fruit, yogurt, etc and was comfortable having some salad ingredients and water/wine in the fridge. I’m returning to the same place this summer.

Good luck with your search. That does seem like an interesting trade off. Sometimes with airbnb you can get a discount for a longer stay, but finding a quiet place seems like the challenge of course. I stayed at Boutique Hotel del Corso (used earplugs and white noise from the fan) and it was fine for me but?? Maybe the tranquility of the place in the hills would be a nice break after being in town? Cheers.

Have you tried looking for apartments on Booking.com? I find their listings more trustworthy and generally better than either Airbnb or VRBO.

Just for fun, I tried finding a place with the following filters: 2 weeks 12/16-30/24, within 1 mile of city center, maximum $200 per night, very good rating 8+, free wi-fi, free cancellation, flat screen TV, clothes washer, kitchen, non-smoking. I got 163 results.

If you do this for yourself, you'll likely have more precise results based on your own filters. I couldn't get the basic map to work on my tablet, but by choosing one apartment to get the details and pictures, and clicking on its Show on Map link, you'll see others in your results. I can't stress enough spending time looking at the pictures, reading recent reviews and looking at apartments with many (defined by you) reviews.

Note that each place in the initial list of apartments gives the basics of its rating from reviews from those who've stayed there, how many people have reviewed it, its size including a description of the rooms, what it's close to and its distance from the center. Hint: if it says 2 beds but 1 bedroom, that most likely means the sofa makes into a bed.

Also note that there are several ways to sort the results, the top choice being "Top picks for long stays." I don't know what that really means or if it was generated by the 2 week stay I searched.

Only you can determine what's most important to you among all the filters available. If you haven't used Booking.com to look for apartments before, it will be a bit of a learning curve, but I highly recommend trying it before you give up on finding a place close enough for easy access to town, far enough away or sheltered from the noise and both physically and financially comfortable for your time in Florence. My personal "rule" is 5 nights or more in the same place is worth renting an apartment. You've got that covered.

I’ve stayed near the Botanic Garden, just north of P. San Marco and it was very quiet there.
Still within walking distance of the centre.
The place we were in is too big for just you, but we liked the peaceful no-tourist feel of the area.
Or how about in the San Frediano area?

Edit:
I also did a mock search for apartments on booking.com for two weeks in December…..lots of good choices!

The Oltrarno side would be my suggestion too.
The local buses are a cheap and convenient way to move around the city - we used them extensively during our own visit to Florence a few years ago. Google maps was very helpful for mastering the various routes, timetables, and generally getting our bearings . Am sure the other popular mapping apps will be equally helpful in sorting things out.
Can buy tickets at any tobacconist shop around town or just pay the driver on boarding.

I’ve stayed near the Botanic Garden, just north of P. San Marco and it
was very quiet there.

We've stayed in that area too - abt. 2 blocks north of Convento di San Marco - and weren't bothered by noise either. We also didn't use any public transit during our stay; walked everywhere although some distances might be a bit much depending on how much walking you can do.

We stayed west of the busiest tourist area near Piazza Santa Maria Novella. It was busy during the day but not loud at night.

We also had the good fortune of having our hotel room in the back side of the building rather than facing the front and the street noise. That could be a solution for you to request a room that doesn’t face the street - but rather the courtyard or whatever the building faces on the backside. You might have a view of roofs and satellite dishes but less noise.

Adding another recommendation for the Oltrarno area! We loved our stay. Our apartment was right on Piazza Santo Spirito, which was NOT quiet, but a side street would be fine! It was not terribly crowded as long as we weren’t right by Ponte Vecchio.

Via del Presto is at the corner with the Rosi shoe store. I’ve shopped there a few times, they have good prices for shoes. I don’t know what you consider noisy, but there is nearly no car traffic. It is possible however there is foot traffic on Via Del Corso, as it is a main shopping street. But in December? I wouldn’t worry about it. Unless they opened some bars recently, in December it will be quiet after stores close (after 7:30pm in winter) and I don’t remember restaurants or food eateries right there. There is an espresso bar/pastry shop across of Rosi’s shoe’s store but I wouldn’t consider that street a place that would be very noisy at night in winter, maybe in summer at the height of the tourist season but not in December.

The place on via Torre del Gallo is probably Villa Agape. It’s very nice famous place (albeit above my preferred budget) if you prefer a more rural and secluded, and luxurious setting, but it’s not walkable much, and you will need to walk to Viale Galileo for some buses (no. 13 or 12), so you will be relying on taxis.

The place on via Torre del Gallo is probably Villa Agape.

Thanks for the information, Roberto. There's no way of knowing all this by just looking at Google Maps!

Yes, it is. It looks quite marvelous from the website but one has to read through a lot of reviews to realize that, even with a shuttle, it is not all that easy to (1) walk around and find places within the immediate vicinity to drop in for a bite or (2) get into the Centro Historico more than once a day, which would make it seem like a trek or (mini-) journey. It almost sounds like there isn't much around it, it covering 7 acres or so.

Adding another recommendation for the Oltrarno area! We loved our stay. Our apartment was right on Piazza Santo Spirito, which was NOT quiet, but a side street would be fine! It was not terribly crowded as long as we weren’t right by Ponte Vecchio.

The second place I'm thinking of staying is apparently right across from the Ponte Vecchio, so it does get (a lot of?) noise if the windows are open:

Via de' Bardi, 46

The neighborhood doesn't look like much:

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7670705,11.2538242,3a,75y,286.69h,75.34t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sP4DhuK9q2SpXGOAVLTyRGw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DP4DhuK9q2SpXGOAVLTyRGw%26cb_client%3Dsearch.gws-prod.gps%26w%3D86%26h%3D86%26yaw%3D41.292667%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

"Via de' Bardi, 46 ... The neighborhood doesn't look like much:"
Actually, we stayed just around the corner from there on Via del Canneto - it's a great location for explorations on foot.
There are a number of great restaurants close by - especially the further you move away from the Ponte Vecchio - and the supermarket that you see in the Google maps link is top notch - it's much bigger than the photo would make it appear.
There's a city bus stop about half a block down the street that we used for our own excursions around the city - very handy.

Noise was never an issue for us in the evenings. I doubt that it would be much of an issue for you since you're not likely to have your windows open much in December.

Via de Bardi 46 was super noisy in the 1980s and 1990s prior to the ZTL, which closed the area to traffic. In summer there is foot traffic due to the proximity of Ponte Vecchio, but in December not much, certainly not at night. Stanford University is right there so you might have to deal with some drunk American students but maybe they are back home during the Christmas break. That is the area where the fictional hotel in the film Room with a View was located, so your accommodations might have the same view.

I’m wondering how a closeup view of the Ponte Vecchio compares with one over the Palazzo Vecchio. The latter is presumably filled with crowds and is all brick while the former has the Arno River and foot traffic across it.

Have you tried looking for apartments on Booking.com? I find their listings more trustworthy and generally better than either Airbnb or VRBO.

Thanks, Lo, for your question and comments. That's what I've been doing for the past week. But not just on booking.com, but also airbnb.com (which I don't like using, for many reasons), vrbo, and trying to dig up other platforms, perhaps specific to Italy, from the Internet.

It is overwhelming, and when it boils down to it, it seems to be more about convenience/location versus quiet/convenience, although there is also the dichotomy of room (hotel) versus apartment to consider.

I still haven't found a place that hits all the checkmarks, partially because it's difficult to judge a place just based on a web description and even guest reviews. Most people wouldn't be as bothered by noise as I am, particularly that generated by loud human conversation on the street or beyond the other wall (or people walking on the ceiling/their floor above me.

IMHO, shots of Ponte Vecchio are best snapped anywhere but ON the thing, and most attractive of the exterior sides of it. I'd guess that the view wouldn't be great if directly over the top.

It's difficult for me to choose from a view from the 4th floor of a building on and overlooking the Piazza della Signoria (in early-mid January) versus from a second floor of a building looking almost directly at the Ponte Vecchio.

In fact, I can't think of any time in the past ten years (where I've been to France 8-9 times, Rome, Venice, Athens, etc. whether I've ever stayed in a place overlooking or on the edge of a major monument or tourist attraction. I could really find it panoramic, fascinating or irritating.

Actually, last October I was in an apartment on the 6th floor of a building right on the Bassin de la Villette (which extends directly east from the Canal Saint-Martin) and found it fascinating to watch the people walking or biking down the canal or sitting in the park, although it was quite noisy.

Looking at pictures, too, of the banks of the Arno in Florence make it seem quite scenic, rather like the banks of the Tiber. The Piazza Vechio seems immense and beautiful, a stunning view. I remember how amazing I thought the square in front of the Palais des Papes in Avignon was, or the Piazza del Campo in Sienna.

The Piazza della Signoria was way too crowded (wall-to-wall crowds) and hectic when I was there nine years in early April. I think the noise must make it even up to the upper floors of the buildings on the "square." The carnival-like atmosphere is something I could do without.

Maybe the safest bet would be just on the other side of the Ponte Vecchio...