Living in Florence

This beautiful, ancient city, provides an atmospheric setting for your Italian adventures. Its historic piazzas remain largely unchanged from their medieval beginnings, enabling you to tread the same streets as illustrious persons such as Michelangelo, Dante, Boccaccio, Brunelleschi, Machiavelli, Leonardo Da Vinci, Galileo, to mention just a few. Yet despite its cultural grandeur, its size is actually very limited, making it possible to traverse the center of the city in less than thirty minutes by foot. It is also extremely well serviced by buses, trains, supermarkets, high fashion and many other sorts of stores. Therefore, you will find everything that you need practically at your door step.

Florence’s world contribution to arts, science, politics and humanities, together with its manageable size, makes it very popular with students. To give you some idea, there are more than 30 American study programs running in Florence and forty thousand Italian students studying at the University of Florence, not to mention the countless international language schools.

Florence was built in a valley surrounded by picturesque hills. A twenty minute bus ride will take you to the near hill peak of Fiesole, with its Etruscan roots and archaeological sites. Or a ten minute vigorous hike, up steps leading upwards from the river Arno, will take you to the even nearer hilltop of Piazzale Michelangelo, which provides one of the best views of this magnificent city.