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The custom-made perfumes of AquaFlor Firenze
Fashion & Shops & Markets

The custom-made perfumes of AquaFlor Firenze

28 septiembre, 2025 / By:
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This perfumery handcrafts made-to-measure perfumes and it is located in the Palazzo Serristori Corsini Antinori, a few steps from the Santa Croce Basilica. The store consists of three spacious rooms connected through a sublime olfactory experience. The furniture is composed of ancient pieces, chosen carefully as an invitation to laxity, delight and contemplation. The old shelves of the Hall of Essences contain more than 1500 unique substances. «Creating an original perfume» — says Sileno Cheloni, master artisan at AquaFlor Firenze — «is like building the biography of an individual: cut the present in half, as if it was a tree, to read the circles of life representing years, important events and emotions.»
AquaFlor – Borgo Santa Croce 6, 50122 Firenze FI…

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Arty cocktails at Antico Caffè del Moro in Florence
Wine & Food

Arty cocktails at Antico Caffè del Moro in Florence

27 septiembre, 2025 / By:
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Some venues of Florence became my favourites thanks to dating local guys. The Art Bar – Caffè degli Artisti – Antico Caffè del Moro is one of them. I believe locals are always the key to entering everyday life, anywhere. And, although those dates rarely succeeded, fortunately the places still endure. Despite usually crowded, it´s worth a visit just at Antico´s happy hour (6-9 p.m.), with fruit cocktails at 7 euros (10 euros after 9 p.m.). Customers range from American college students with their last generation iPhones, to gentlemen from the neighbourhood and residents in their early forties. Founded in 1926, it consists of a small room with ten round tables with candles, and the service (especially the girls) is charming. The buts? Cocktails sometimes look like fruit salads and the preparation of drinks takes its time.
Via del Moro 4 50123 Florence FI – open every day from 6:30 p.m. to 1 p.m. (Friday and Saturday until 2 p.m.)
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Al Tranvai: history and tradition of a trattoria in San Frediano
Wine & Food

Al Tranvai: history and tradition of a trattoria in San Frediano

9 septiembre, 2025 / By:
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We find ourselves in San Frediano, one of the most popular Florentine quartieri; set of Vasco Pratolini’s novels and where supposedly the «locals» live. Through Torquato Tasso Square, one accesses this traditional district. A stroll along its charming narrow streets is especially pleasant: numerous shops and craft workshops encourage the area commercial activity. Al Tranvai is a very narrow tavern. Here you feel like having lunch in a tram wagon — hence its name. Regarding the room, you usually eat side by side with the diner next to you, as in the old Florentine trattorie. The menu is made up of Tuscan dishes: pappa al pomodoro, ribollita or panzanella. Among the first courses stand out the tagliatelli or gnocchi served with pesto. The authentic restaurant’ specialty are, however, the second courses: Florentine tripe, lampredotto, cacciucco, di lesso salad, meatballs fried or in sauce, and francesina. Served as an accompaniment are mixed salads, ceci bolliti, fagioli all’uccelletto and homemade potatoes. For dessert, they propose various types of pie: apple, figs and walnuts or pear. Finally, to enjoy the food, it is recommended to choose a good wine, although the list is short, Al Tranvai offers some appealing suggestions.
Al Tranvai – Piazza Torcuato Tasso 14r 50124 Florence
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Shoe master Roberto Ugolini and his traditional atelier in Santo Spirito
Fashion & Shops & Markets

Shoe master Roberto Ugolini and his traditional atelier in Santo Spirito

8 septiembre, 2025 / By:
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Roberto Ugolini is one of the most prestigious shoemakers in Florence. His workshop is located right at street level, in Via dei Michelozzi 17, in front of the basilica of Santo Spirito, in Oltrarno, as if in old times, when medieval guilds were so present in cities. The business opened twenty-two years ago just like a repair shop, but he soon began to make shoes too, always in Italian and English leather tanned in Italy. It takes thirty hours of work to create a pair of handmade shoes; thus there´s a waiting list over six months to acquire any. Above and below, photos show one of the craftsmen, probably the sexiest shoemaker in the old continent.

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Studio Musivo Lastrucci: masters of the Florentine mosaic, the art of «painting with stones»
Fashion & Shops & Markets

Studio Musivo Lastrucci: masters of the Florentine mosaic, the art of «painting with stones»

7 septiembre, 2025 / By:
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The artistic discipline named “commesso” or Florentine mosaic made with semiprecious stones emerged in Florence in the 16th century. As could be expected, the Medici family was a great promoter of this new artistic manifestation. Using the traditional technique of the Romanesque mosaic, the “commesso” added interspersed gemstones with highly aesthetic results, very similar to those of a real painting. Each mosaic is handmade in the laboratory following the traditional method, which allows to maintain the authenticity of the technique and enhance the natural colour of each stone. To complete a surface equivalent to a DIN A3 size, three or four years of craft work are needed. …

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The magical world of Gucci Garden in Florence
Fashion & Shops & Markets

The magical world of Gucci Garden in Florence

6 septiembre, 2025 / By:
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After thorough renovation, Gucci has reopened its Florence museum located in Palazzo della Mercanzia. Its three floors and different rooms have been converted into a multi-space where you can eat, shop and join the Gucci constellation. Past and present merge within a fusion of animals, plants and flowers appearing as cheerful as the intense patterns of Gucci´s traditional garments. …

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Florence – To love a city
Moments & People

Florence – To love a city

4 septiembre, 2025 / By:
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I feel often the captivating force of Florence acting as a magnetic power. And yet, what we know about places comes mainly by sharing certain time and space in them. Florence is there, the person appears, but the person leaves. Florence continues. The place transforms the human and the person alters the place. Thus, José Saramago once wrote: «I do not remember having ever read about the reasons that lead us to love one city more than any other (…). I believe that the love for a city is made of tiny things, of intangible reasons, perhaps a street, a fountain, or even a shadow. In the interior of the city of us all, the small city where each of us really lives. We physically inhabit a space, but above all, sentimentally, we inhabit a memory.»…

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La Cité: books, music, coffee and wine in the heart of San Frediano
Wine & Food

La Cité: books, music, coffee and wine in the heart of San Frediano

4 septiembre, 2025 / By:
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Books, art, wine and music. La Cité is defined as a polyvalent cultural space, responding to demands for the eclectic interacting of today. Since 2007, this two-storey café-bookshop of Borgo San Frediano (Oltrarno, Florence) has become a small cultural island, a city within the city itself. La Cité is just the antithesis of the classic bookstore-supermarket franchise and is described as a place of research and meeting, as well as a reading room, where cultural diversity and languages ​​are mixed. Their selection of texts is preferably of critical, independent and creative publications. Over the 5000 titles included in its catalogue one can find new and used books, newspapers and editorial oddities. Before sale browsing and reading books is allowed. In addition, each week, book presentations are organized with the presence of authors, critics, musicians and artists, as well as public debates on current affairs. Ideal spot for blind dates, too.
La Cité – Borgo San Frediano 20R, Florence. Open every day, from 9 to 2 a.m. On Sunday it opens at 3 p.m. – WIFI connection
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Trattoria Coco Lezzone: bistecca alla fiorentina for celebrities in Florence
Wine & Food

Trattoria Coco Lezzone: bistecca alla fiorentina for celebrities in Florence

3 septiembre, 2025 / By:
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The best way to discover authentic places is to get carried away by Florence’s vicoli, wandering around one finds the best chances merely turning in the next corner. This is what happened with the Trattoria Coco Lezzone and with most of the places featured on this blog. Toni has been working in this family run restaurant for ten years. “David Rockefeller was here in 2014 – He was 99 year old at that time. He ordered pasta with white truffle and bistecca alla fiorentina. He ate a lot! Likewise Prince Charles of England was here, in 1986, invited by the marquises of Frescobaldi, the restaurant was closed for them and all their retinue,” says Toni. The photos hanging on the walls show these and other celebrities. “Every time Pavarotti visited Florence, he came to the trattoria and had bistecca alla fiorentina,” which by the way is prepared in a centuries-old wood-fired oven. “Queen Beatriz of Holland ate pasta with white truffle and tiramisu. According to her, it was one of the best she had ever tasted.” Serving diners since 1800, this restaurant also follows the tradition of Tuscan cuisine, consisting in preparing typical Florentine dishes with fresh seasonal products. Lampredotto, bollito con salsa verde, spezzatino con verza, coniglio alla cacciatoria …
Trattoria Coco Lezzone – Via del Parioncino 26R
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Sala della Niobe, a passage not to miss at Uffizi Gallery
Art & Culture

Sala della Niobe, a passage not to miss at Uffizi Gallery

2 septiembre, 2025 / By:
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Room 42 or Sala della Niobe is my favourite area at the Uffizi. An spectacular frame created in 1781, during the Neoclassical period, to house the ancient sculptures of the Villa Medici in Rome. The pieces represent the Greek myth of Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus and wife of Amphion, who witnessed the murdering of her seven children in the hands of Apolo and Artemisa as an act of revenge to their mother, whom Niobe had previously mocked. The ones at the hall are Roman copies of Hellenistic originals, moved to Florence after their discovery in 1583. The walls at Niobe also display some canvases; two signed by Rubens, in baroque style. The decoration of this notable room was by Peter Leopold of Lorraine.

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