Florence in March

[dickdarstardlymuttley]

Please can I have your recommendations for a mini break in Florence? My 19 year old is completely with us. Where to stay, where to eat? Thanks so much

I stayed here:
www.hotelexecutiveflorence.com/ with DD who was 17 at the time. It was great, really good hotel and just out of the centre so very quiet at night. 10 minute walk along the banks of the river to get to the centre. Would absolutely stay there again.

We were there for 4 days so managed to pull in Siena and Pisa as well.

The Uffizi is a must (buy tickets in advance) and the Accademia is too to look at David's meat and two veg. But tbh, just walking round is magnificent.

Go up Brunelleschi's dome, but if pushed for time don't bother going inside the duomo itself as it's not like the cathedrals in Pisa or Siena which are full of artwork etc.

To eat:

Presuming you're meat eaters you need a Fiorentina. We ate at the Trattoria dell'oste and it was, with no shadow of a doubt, the best steak I've had in my life. We also ate twice in a trattoria called Nutino (just along from Trattoria dell'oste, and further along the same road and on the corner there's a trattoria called iirc San Lorenzo where we ate one night - upstairs with the windows open looking over the square. Lovely.

I recommend taking the bus from the Piazza San Marco up to Fiesole. There's a fantastic open-air museum with extensive Etruscan/Roman ruins, a monastery full of mummies and other cool stuff picked up by the travelling monks over the years, and a beautiful view over Florence.

We've just had a long weekend there, and loved it. We walked miles every day just wandering around taking in the city. We planned it in so far as we knew we wanted to visit the Accademia and Uffizi, and we knew that most museums and galleries are closed on Monday so needed to plan around that, but otherwise just played it by ear.

We stayed here, on the recommendation of a friend. Central, comfortable, good breakfast and walking distance to everywhere we wanted to go, and - added bonus - has a roof terrace with great views where you can BYOB for a sundowner.

We didn't pre-book, so did have to queue a bit for the Accademia and Uffizi but nothing too excessive.

We really enjoyed the Duomo museum (we bought a combined ticket for the museum, baptistry, crypt and clock tower). If you do that, worth going to the museum first. The ticket lasts all day so if the queues for the other bits are long you can go off, do something else, and come back later.

We also visited Santa Croce - hadn't planned to but we were wandering around the area and decided to go in - well worth it.

Most of the museums are closed on Mondays, so we walked over to Piazzale Michaelangelo for the views, then visited the Boboli Gardens, and had a long walk along the river.

We got tickets for the opera at the Teatro Maggio Musicale - again very central. It's a modern auditorium with great acoustics.

We didn't have a bad meal all the time we were there, but had a really good dinner at Il Desco and also at Oliveiro (sorry, couldn't find a website for the restaurant itself).

Enjoy!