Is Florence safe?

Theft in Florence tends to be quiet and fast, and the same spots come up again and again: teams appear to work the ticket machines and platform ends at Santa Maria Novella station, the T2 tram from Peretola airport, and the C1 minibus when it is packed to the doors. The queue for the Florence Cathedral dome climb and the narrow middle of Ponte Vecchio are the other two pinch points, mostly between 10am and 4pm, when tour groups stand shoulder to shoulder between the gold shops. At San Lorenzo the leather stalls smell of dye and polish and the aisles are barely a metre wide, so a backpack worn on your back is an open invitation. We'd carry a cross-body bag zipped to the front and keep the phone off the cafe tables in Piazza della Repubblica. The rate seems lower than at Rome's Termini or on Barcelona's La Rambla, though a solo traveller has no second pair of eyes on the bag while feeding coins into a ticket machine.

The scams are low-stakes and repetitive. Poster sellers lay prints flat on the paving of Via dei Calzaiuoli and outside the Uffizi Gallery, and a visitor who steps on one might be asked for 20 euros. Keep walking. Bracelet sellers at Piazzale Michelangelo tie a thread on your wrist first and name a price second, so keep your hands in your pockets on the terrace. Clipboard petitions in Piazza del Duomo are likely a distraction for a second pair of hands. Worth noting, Italian law fines the buyer of a counterfeit bag, not only the seller, and the penalty can run to thousands of euros. Taxis cannot be hailed on the street in Florence. You'll find ranks at Santa Maria Novella station and Piazza della Repubblica, or you can phone 055 4242 or 055 4390 and wait for the white car with the number the dispatcher gives you.

After dark, the streets between the Duomo and Piazza della Signoria stay lit and walked until past midnight, the stone still holding the day's warmth. On 13 October at 7pm it was 18.7°C and clear, which is walking weather. From the station, take Via dei Panzani and Via de' Cerretani, both wide and busy, and skip Via Palazzuolo and the station underpass late at night. The Cascine park and the Fortezza da Basso gardens are also worth avoiding once the light goes. Santa Croce is loud, not dangerous, though the bars on Via de' Benci fill with study-abroad students until about 2am, so keep a hand over your glass there. Across the Arno, Piazza Santo Spirito hums until midnight; a few dealers tend to sit on the church steps late, and they mostly leave visitors alone. Solo women report that harassment in Florence is verbal and brief, and the Lungarno riverside is the open, lit route home to San Frediano.

Eating alone is easy here. The upstairs food hall at Mercato Centrale seats single diners at shared tables without a booking, currently until around midnight. At the Mercato Nuovo loggia, the lampredotto cart sells a tripe sandwich for about 5 euros; you eat it standing, with the broth steaming in the cold. Small-group Chianti day tours usually run in minibuses of 8 to 14 and tend to price per person with no single supplement, and we rate them the quickest way to find dinner company for the same evening. Mind you, the paving on Via dei Neri is uneven and slick after rain, and electric scooters pass silently through the pedestrian zone. For medical help, the Santa Maria Nuova hospital sits about 300 metres east of the Duomo and has a 24-hour emergency department, and the pharmacy inside Santa Maria Novella station has long kept round-the-clock hours. Tap water is safe to drink, and the public fountain in Piazza della Signoria dispenses it free, still or sparkling.