Location! Location! Location! I don’t think its possible to find a better location to stay in Florence. It provides equal access to everything on both sides of the river. The apartment is situated right next to the Uffizi Gallery, Palazzo Vecchio and Ponte Vecchio. It’s about 8 min to walk to the Duomo and 10 min to walk to Pitti Palace. We even walked to the Piazza della Michelangelo, which took about 20 min - highly recommended, but a lot of climbing if you go on foot!
The apartment is very quaint and full of character, as befits a home in a 400-year old building. Due to the old style design - which the owner has tried to preserve nicely - there is a slight lack of privacy in terms of sounds from the kitchen, main bath, and one of the bedrooms, but we really had no problem with that. Everything worked fine, and our stay was very comfortable. The apartment was very clean. The one amenity that should be added is a microwave oven. There is a regular oven but it isn’t worth heating it up just for a cup of tea.
One nice touch in the apartment are the books - English novels and Florence guides. We didn’t have time to read much, but it could be really useful.
Diego (the owner) was extremely kind to let us check in at 1:00 instead of 3:00, which helped a lot. One clarification: When you get to the Piazza dei Saltarelli, you will find two apartment doors on the left marked as “4”. This apartment is the second one - close to the alley exiting from the square.
The apartment is situated in an area with lots if great eating places from fancy restaurants to street food places - and many gelaterias. Here are some strong recommendations:
Come out of the apartment building and turn immediately left. Pass through the narrow alley looking into the kitchen of a restaurant and turn right. On your right you will see Mangia Pizzeria. You should not leave Florence without eating there. It takes about 45 seconds to walk there from the apartment.
2. Even closer is the Buca Poldo restaurant which is in the same courtyard as the apartment. It isn’t much to look at - the indoor seating is in a cellar! - but thd food is top notch. No wonder it has a 4.8 rating on Trip Advisor!
3. There are gelaterias all around, but look for Gelateria Venchi on the street over from the apartment. They have the best selections and prices.
One final pointer. We were a bit worried about how to get to the train station with all our luggage on the morning of our departure. We had heard horror stories a out the difficulty of calling a cab in Florence. However, we found an app called “IT Taxi” (both iphone and Android) that allowed us to make a taxi reservation the night before. And presto! the cab showed up at 7 am as requested.
Anyway, enjoy your stay in Florence and in the apartment! We did.