The trattoria is cheap, it's full of locals, it's boisterous, and friendly. They give you a massive caraffe of wine and sort of estimate how much you've drunk (it's about €1.50 per glass). They all wanted to talk to my toddler. A chap from a market stall walked by carrying a pig's carcass, and stopped to shout over to his friend, who was serving my panzanella. No one spoke English, no one minded that our Italian was awful, and it was just such a great atmosphere.
The trattoria is within the market, and after lunch we bought the best fruit and veg we found in the city, and some great prepared meat, and some top pecorino. The market is so much better than Mercato Centrale, which is basically just for tourists and sells awful fruit (we actually had to throw away the strawberries and peaches we bought there). And if you don't want the trattoria then Semolina, a very good pizzeria, is just outside, and just down the road is Sancho Panza, another great pizza place.

It's in the Piazza Lorenzo Ghiberti, 10-15 minutes walk east from the Duomo.
Google map: bit.ly/13hSdgZ

It's here:
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ie=UTF8&cid=3384849024654938165&q=I%27+Trippaio+Di+Sant%27Ambrogio&iwloc=A&gl=GB&hl=en

It's on TripAdvisor too: www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g187895-d195019-Reviews-Sant_Ambrogio-Florence_Tuscany.html

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Wherever you are in Florence there is a bar within five minutes walk. When I was staying there a few weeks ago, in a cheap Airbnb apartment, everyday I would get up early and walk to my local, sit at the bar, drink cappuccino and eat a pastry and watch Florentines do the same. Sometimes they drank and ate on bar-stools, sometimes just standing there eating with one hand, drinking with the other, before shouting 'ciao' and striding off.
My pastry and cappuccino came to €2.20, about £1.90. Nothing else I did, certainly not that expensive restaurant I went to, brought me closer to feeling like a local.

The dingy looking place down that side-street.

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Strange that many of the selected tips this week seemed to require an overnight stay. I wouldn't recommend Barga for a day trp from Florence. You'll need to change trains at Lucca and the drive along the valley of the Serchio river is not particulary quick. However, if you do give it a go leave time to stop at the Ponte del Diavalo, also known as the Ponte della Maddalena. You'll find it at Borgo a Mozzano. Better to stay in Barga for a few days and explore the upper reaches of the Garfagnana region, which is so different to the traditional Tuscany that everybody knows. Even better still, coincide your stay in Barga with the Pesce e Patate festival when local Italians tuck into fish and chips served down at the local football ground.
PS Lucca is an excellent recommendation for a day trip. There's an international music festival every summer - Leonard Cohen is playing this year. The best way to explore the city and its walls are by bike, which can be hired by the hour.

Google map: bit.ly/153ob5S

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Take a bus (or drive) from Florence towards Sienna and you'll be able to visit two medieval fortified hill towns that offer stunning views across the Tuscan countryside and a taste of life from another time. You can spend a day in either Monteriggioni or San Gimignano or combine both for a day trip to remember. Great places to eat and drink, with rustic churches and historic buildings that rightly make San Gimignano a UNESCO world heritage centre.

www.sangimignano.net/; www.comune.monteriggioni.si.it/
San Gimignano, Siena , Tuscany
Google map: bit.ly/YFa2nc

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Mercato centrale, as it's name suggests, is placed bang in the centre of Florence. And it's a food market. It's kinda like Borough Market is to London.
Inside you'll find the odd tourist that's found their way there but you'll mostly see chefs buying wholesale and locals buying their ingredients for that night's dinner.
The smell of truffles as you walk in will wash over you and, if you're anything like me, pull you in like the tractor beam in Star Wars. It's got some amazing wines (nearly all varieties of Super Tuscans), cheeses, olive oils, bread, huge bags of fresh porcini mushrooms (depending on the time of year) but, for me anyway, the main reason to go is for the cafes at the rear of the market. There's always a queue and it's packed with locals. A good sign. It's very cheap (about €3.50 for a main and €2 for a medium caraffe of wine. The porchetta sandwiches at Nerbone at €3.5 are an absolute must. They're incredible.

Piazza del Mercato, Florence, Italy
Google map: bit.ly/12SI4Jr

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Flee the tourist hurly-burly, coach party crush and cultural overload and head for the hills. Not the well-known wine rich Chianti Hills to the south, but to the altogether wilder, more rugged deeply forested Apennines to the east. The Parco Nazionale delle Foreste Casentinesi, Monte Falterona e Campigna straddling the Tuscany / Emilia-Romagna border is just 40km from central Florence and easily reached by bus although a car would provide more flexibility for a day trip.
These majestic ancient forests in one of Europe’s oldest continuously wooded areas create a place of great natural beauty and profound meditative stillness. Chestnut woods on the lower slopes where old and dead trees have been kept seem magical and enchanted. Statuesque stands of dark fir are carefully managed while the higher ground is clothed in cathedral-like beech, sometimes serried ranks leaning at improbable angles, pushed over by a winter avalanche sometime in their past. Timber from here was used in the construction of the magnificent dome of Florence’s Duomo and was especially prized for shipbuilding.
The main ridge is traversed by the Grande Excursione Appenninica (GEA), a 375 km hiking trail extending from the Umbria / Marche border near Sansepolcro to Montelungo in Liguria. Marked and unmarked paths are plentiful in the national park though a good map is essential if your day communing with nature isn’t to become something much more unsettling or potentially life-threatening. Out of peak season and avoiding weekends the chances are you and your companion(s) won’t see another soul.
The mood of contemplation and reflection is sustained by an overnight stay at the Foresteria attached to the Monastero di Camaldoli (advance booking is advised to guarantee a bed for the night). Delicious fresh food, comfortable uncluttered rooms and an atmosphere of quiet dedication to work and prayer deep in the forest nourish body and spirit, perhaps almost ready for the return to the fray in Florence.

www.parks.it/parco.nazionale.for.casentinesi
www.parcoforestecasentinesi.it
www.monasterodicamaldoli.it
Google map: bit.ly/10c8v7t

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Certaldo Alta is a short train ride from Florence. The new part is less interesting, apart from a twice weekly market so head for the old part, Certaldo Alta either on foot or using the cable car from the square. Here you will find a lovely Tuscan hill town with few tourists, some interesting history and quiet bars and restaurants. In the summer there is a music and arts festival so you can listen to jazz in part of an old church surrounded by ancient frescoes. Even better, stay for the night in the nearby Fattoria Basseto, a former Benedictine convent, that is now a budget hotel and hostel. In one of the rooms there is a black and white photograph of the family who still own it, taken in the 1950's by Cecil Beaton.The owners are lovely, you will want to stay, arrange a cooking class at a nearby farm, and not return to Florence!

www.fattoriabassetto.com/tuscany-accommodation/certaldo-bed-and-breakfast-tuscany.htm
Via delle Città, 50052 Certaldo FI, Italy
+39 348 4370285
Google map: bit.ly/11ucXCG

www.mercantiacertaldo.it

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... and leave the train at Pisa Central. From the station walk towards the river and cross the Arno by Ponte di Mezzo. Explore the narrow streets and squares of this historic university town. Eventually you will arrive at the Leaning Tower in the Piazza dei Miracoli (Cathedral Square). Make sure that you walk back to the station exploring a different route – there’s so much more to discover than the buildings close to the Tower (which is all that you are likely to see if you book on an organised excursion).

www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=d696652188ea7210VgnVCM1000004016f90aRCRD

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Hilltop town favoured by the Etruscans and wealthy Renaissance families who valued the cooler climate. Well preserved Roman Theatre and other ruins in the archaeological park with lots of Etruscan artefacts in the Civic Museum. A Combo ticket also gives admission to Ethnographic Missionary and Bandini Museums (small but worth it for the painted panels).
Eating wise there are two good restaurants (l'Polpa particularly good) at the bus terminus on Piazza Mino or take a picnic on the panoramic terrace with wonderful views of Florence.

Take bus no. 7 either from outside the main railway station or from Piazza San Marco - about three an hour. Lots of hairpin bends up to the town. Double decker Florence sightseeing bus also goes there.
Ristorante l'Polpa:
Piazza Mino, 21/22, 50014 Fiesole, Italy
+39(0)55 59485
Google map: bit.ly/XDwbVI

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A secret hideaway! Found this place through a recommendation and went with the family. A few holiday apartments on a beautiful estate surrounded by vineyards, with a pool. We found the owners, who live there too, went out of their way to make us welcome and to give great tips on where to go to eat and how to avoid the tourist hoards! Local vineyard "Isole & Olena" visit was amazing! Also very close to Castellina in Chianti (great local market on a Saturday) and with views to San Gimingnano. We went last summer and are going back in August. The kids loved it as there were other kids there when we went and they made great friends. We easily visited Florence (hot!), Volterra (very winding roads) and Siena where Simon told us where to park and when to watch the horses training for the Palio (free and amazing!) Also they gave us directions to a free beach 'The White Sands' where we had a day trip which was brilliant. Ask Verity for some of her fresh eggs and Simon for some great wine! Roll on Summer! PS Hubby wants me to add - sunsets like I have never seen before - sat on terrace with wine and/or beer every night before going for dinner!

www.patrignone.com
Loc. Patrignone No.1, Barberino Val D'Elsa, 50021 FI, Italy
+39 331 733 8442
Google map: bit.ly/YlAl1h

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Just a remider to folk that you need to validate your train ticket before you board the train.
We bought tickets at Stazione Centrale di S. Maria Novella in Florence for a trip to Pisa.
We did not realise we had to validate the tickets on the platform before we got on the train. We could have incurred a fine, only that the ticket inspector let us off!

Stazione Centrale di S. Maria Novella

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A 'must see' to visit Michelangelo's statue of David at the Galleria dell'Accademia. Additionally you see half finished sculptures by Michelangelo so you get an opportunity to see how the process of creating David must have taken.
The most important thing is getting in and avoiding the queues. Sometimes there are small queues while other times the queues can be quite big.
You can call +39 055 294883 to make a reservation in advance which costs an extra €4 onto the €11 ticket price. The phone operator will give you a six digit extension number which you quote when you purchase tickets. All the operator takes is your name and asks what your chosen day / time slot is.
The reservation will then allow you to go to a different door avoiding the long queues. The real beauty of the phone reservation is that you do not pay until you turn up so if there are any unforeseen changes to your schedule you don't end up out of pocket. Additionally if there are small queues, you would simply queue up and avoid paying the €4 reservation fee.
Phone reservation available Mon - Fri 08.30 - 18.30 (Italian time) & Sat 08.30 - 12.30.
Tried the online booking service but gave up as it kept falling over as I input the details of my UK credit card.

www.uffizi.firenze.it/en/musei/?m=accademia
Galleria dell'Accademia, Via Ricasoli 58 - 60
50122 Florence
+39 055 294883
Google map: bit.ly/KLibF6

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Nice tree lined square surrounded by pavement cafes.
Plenty of seating in which to relax, away from the more tourist parts of Florence.
One end of the square has the church of Santo Spirito dating back to the 15th century.

On the south side of the Arno river on the right as you come over the Ponte Santa Trinita.
Google map: bit.ly/LTXFOw

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Great location to sit and drink and watch the world go by, on Piazza Santa Croce. The Santa Croce church is just yards away.
For such a prime location, the prices were surprisingly good. We only had drinks but at €3.50 per large glass of house white we were not complaining.
Service was good.

www.finisterraefirenze.com/
Piazza Santa Croce, 12 - 50122 Firenze
+39 055 2638675
(On Piazza Santa Croce with Santa Croce church only yards away)
Google map: bit.ly/MBannZ

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Decent 'Irish' bar in Florence. Drink prices for pints range from €5.20 - €6.00 depending on the drink. Guinness sells at €5.50 a pint with Magners bottles retailing at €6.00.
Wine per glass costs from €3.50.
Usual range of sports on TV as you'd expect.

www.thelionsfountain.com/
Borgo degli Albizi, 34 50123 Florence, Italy
+39(0)55 2344412
Google map: bit.ly/KvdElL

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Wonderful ice cream from this establishment. Three heaped scoops in a tub cost €3.80.
The girl behind the counter offered us samples of the wide array of flavours before we settled on our choices.
Some seating indoors but we sat on the Ponte Santa Trinita as we looked at the more famous Ponte Vecchio in the background.

www.gelateriasantatrinita.it
Piazza Frescobaldi 11-12/r Ponte Santa Trinita, 50125 Florence
Google map: bit.ly/KZxZlZ

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For a bar in the heart of Florence, it feels like a bar in a small town in Italy. Bar serves small tapa like portions (from 75c) as well as larger paninis.
What really struck me about this place was that people served themselves (both wine and food) and paid for it at the end. From the crowds of locals milling about the place on the road outside (as there is very little room inside) it seems like a popular spot.

Via de' Neri 65, 50122 Florence
+39(0)55 2382723
Google map: bit.ly/LPLoZ2

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For a bar in the heart of Florence, it feels like a bar in a small town in Italy. Bar serves small tapa like portions (from 75c) as well as larger paninis.
What really struck me about this place was that people served them selves (both wine and food) and paid for it at the end. From the crowds of locals milling about the place on the road outside (as there is very little room inside) it seems like a popular spot.

Via dei Neri, 65-red, 50122 Firenze, Italy
+39 055 238 2723
Google map: bit.ly/LCocAS

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Good find just off Piazza Santa Croce, this bar has a lot of outdoor seating along the roadside. For Florence the prices were very reasonable. Beer was about €4.50 a pint with wine about €4. The food menu is limited with meat and cheese platters served.

Centro Servizi Borgo Dei Greci Srl Piazza dei Peruzzi, 50122 Florence
Google map: bit.ly/LN2nNB

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Great trattoria and pizzeria in the heart of Florence just yards from the Santa Croce church. In our three days in the city, we had the best pizzas here.
Pizzas were between €6 and €8. For two pizzas and a bottle of white wine, we paid €29.
Surprisingly good value in a central location in Florence.

www.baldovino.com/
Via di San Giuseppe, 22 50122 Florence, Italy
+39(0)55 241773
Google map: bit.ly/OhfN6F

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