The apartment in downtown Florence was excellent. We stayed at Francesca's loft in early June and you simply can't beat the location. It is in between the Palazzo Vecchio and Duomo (the 2 main areas of Florence). The only problem for us was being so close to Palazzo Vecchio it could get noisy at night when we were trying to sleep (although this may have been due to Republic Day being over our stay during the week). Overall I would highly recommend staying here.