Free tour is nothing more than a worldwide organization made up of tour guides that offer guided tours of approximately three hours in the major cities of the world for free. At the end of the tour, the guide accepts tips from those who thought he did a good job and deserves it.
I had already done the free tour in Berlin and this time I did in Florence. In the Italian city, the tour is divided in two, one part of the morning from 11am to 12:30pm and another in the afternoon from 2pm to 3:30pm.
At 11am the Piazza Santa Maria Novella which was the meeting point was already very crowded, with about 50 people for the walk.
I did only part of the morning, because in the afternoon I took the time to visit the two viewpoints and interior of the building complex of the Duomo, which require some waiting time in rows. But I recommend leaving to do this a full day and enjoy the two free tours.
The experience was magnificent, because if you had not done this tour you would not know half the curiosities of the city. The first is about the construction of the houses, since at that time the rates were expensive, people bought small properties to pay less tax and spread their houses off the facade in order to gain more space. Throughout the city you can see this fact, including Ponte Vecchio, one of the main bridges in Florence. Another very interesting story is about the church Santa Croce, which is Catholic but has on its facade a star of david, which is a Jewish symbol. The person in charge of the construction of the facade was Jewish and put this symbol. There were several discussions about the ideology of this, but nobody wanted to pay to take the symbol.
This church is also a cemetery, and there are over 200 bodies of important names in history and art, including Galileo Galilei, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. In the end, after the death of the Jew, they buried his body in the entrance, outside the church and until nowadays the David star is still there.
Another curiosity is about the towers cut. The city is full of towers, because in an ancient time of war they were symbol of status and protection against enemies. After the end of a war between 2 groups of people, several towers were cut and today have modern finishes. The church Santa Maria Novella has on its facade the name of the businessman who at the time paid the renovation and took the opportunity to advertise his business.
And those were just one of the few details he mentioned on the tour, in an important Italian city that was once the capital of the country. Well worth it, especially in Florence, given its interesting history.
