Insight Guides: Florence Step by Step (Insight Step by Step)

Step by Step Florence is the ideal, inspirational guide to this beautiful city and its surroundings, revealed through a selection of clearly laid-out walks and tours, complemented by full-color pictures, an authoritative narrative voice, and a wealth of practical information, all in a compact package.
Recommended Tours, organized by theme, highlight what to do, whether you’re interested in art, keeping children entertained, shopping or absorbing the most spectacular views, amongst much else.
In the Overview, an engaging introduction reveals essential background information on the city’s layout and local culture, plus the lowdown on food and drink, shopping, entertainment and Florence’s long history. This provides all the background information needed to set the walks and tours in context.
The Walks and Tours section features 15 varied, easy-to-follow walking routes, showing you where to go in this Renaissance city. The first ten tours explore the city itself, and range from the Piazza del Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio to Piazza Santa Croce and the Boboli Garden. The final five tours extend further afield into the surrounding area to the hill towns of Fiesole and San Gimignano, the grand Medici villas, medieval Siena and the famous sights of Pisa. Each tour is accompanied by clear, easy-to-follow maps, hand-picked places to eat and drink en route, great insider tips and informative feature boxes.
The Directory incorporates a user-friendly A to Z of practical travel advice, carefully selected hotel and restaurant listings, and an enlarged nightlife review, leading the reader to the best that Florence has to offer.

Some of the tours in this book were originally conceived by Christopher Catling, who has worked on over 50 travel guides and specialises in Italy. Maria Lord is a freelance author specialising in the arts and travel, particularly in Tuscany. With her Tuscan partner, she often travels to Florence and knows its art and architecture, and especially food and drink, extremely well. Susie Boulton is a long-established travel writer who has written and updated numerous guidebooks to various Italian destinations, including Florence.