Boutique Hotels in Florence

East of the Piazza della Signoria, the quarter takes its name from the Basilica of Santa Croce, burial church of Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli. Two streets north is the Sant'Ambrogio market, where the city shops, and four streets further east lies the Piazza Massimo d'Azeglio, a leafy nineteenth-century square the tour routes never reach. Hotel Regency faces it: two villas united into one family's hotel since 1960, restored by hotelier Amedeo Ottaviani, with Tito Chini's stained glass in the dining room, chef Claudio Lopopolo's Le Jardin restaurant on the garden courtyard, and breakfast under the magnolia.

Book the Uffizi and the Accademia before you travel; slots vanish a week or two ahead in season, and walk-ups face hours of queue. Give one full day to the Uffizi and the Duomo complex, where the dome climb is a separate ticket, sold out months ahead. Give the other to the David at the Accademia and then the Bargello, the sculpture museum the coaches skip, for Donatello's bronze David and the young Michelangelo's Bacchus.

Tuscan cooking is austere: bread soups, beans, olive oil, and bistecca alla fiorentina, the T-bone grilled rare over the coals, salt only, ordered by the kilo. The test of any Florentine grill is simple. If they ask how you would like it cooked, they are catering to tourists; proper places serve it one way. Trattoria Mario by the Mercato Centrale passes, the Nerbone stall inside the market does the lampredotto tripe sandwich, the city's working lunch, and Sant'Ambrogio's surrounding streets keep honest neighbourhood tables.

The day-trip crush fits inside barely six hectares. Step out of it and Florence recovers its manners. The Oltrarno keeps the gold-leaf and restoration workshops along Via di Santo Spirito; Santa Croce keeps the residents. In the hills, San Miniato al Monte offers the famous panorama without the famous crowd, and Fiesole, a short bus ride north, is the Etruscan hilltop where Florence itself retreats in August.

April and May are the city's best months, wisteria out and the centre still walkable in the afternoon; mid-September to October runs them close as harvest fills the markets. June to August is punishing: temperatures past 35°C, peak rates, and many trattorias shut around Ferragosto. November to March is the underrated window. The galleries empty, rates fall sharply, and the kitchens turn to game and bistecca.