FLORENCE, ITALY – The Italian city of Florence is to sluice down the steps in front of its iconic churches and hose down its Renaissance pavements to stop tourists camping out on them, Mayor Dario Nardella said.
«We’ll sweep by at lunch time on the church steps and on the pavements of the streets where there are more grocer’s shops to wet and cleanse the paving stones,» said Nardella.
Nardella said the move was aimed at «upholding the decorum of the city, which is marred by these bivouacs».
He said «tourists will get wet if they want to sit down and so perhaps we’ll have a few less tourists camping out on the pavements».
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Our recent intensive ten day trip to FLorence led to these comments:
-there are far too few places to sit in the historic center (except for those in churches);
-the few open piazzas in front of churches are unattractive to begin with: no trees, everything
paved over. Santa Maria Novella is like a parking lot and so is Santa Croce, and Santa Spirito has a handful of benches despite it being a popular tourist spot.
-despite the cosmically important art concentrated in Florence, most tourists, at least young ones, seem to go there less for art and more to “hang out” in beautiful public spaces. This is exactly the same as in Rome but Rome is much more open and spacious and there are more outdoor spaces so people are not crowded together as they are in Florence, which is really just a small town with everything crowded together. The result is that millions of dollars pours into Florence every month and tourists have to put up with the insoluble problem of where they can
“hang out”. For us, senior citizens who walk slowly with difficulty, finding places to sit was a struggle, if there was no church in sight. But we weren’t there to “hang out”: we walked nine hours a day almost non stop to see the
museums, palazzi, churches, etc. Except for the long lines for the Uffizi, Accademia,Duomo complex and the Biblioteque, and once at Santa Croce, there were no hordes of tourists in most places. So just book reservations for Uffizi, Accademia, Duomo complex and biblioteque, and then spend the rest of the time on all the other things
that the “hangers-out” are avoiding. The damage to Florence is irreversible. They want the money, they get the hassle. Go there for the great art and you will be quite happy. And try to go off season whatever you do. And not during school holidays or breaks; we went at Easter because we had no alternative. Go in the late fall or winter but not holidays!