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GayCityNews.com | April 7 - April 20, 2022
Travel
Queer Travel Destination: Florence, Italy
A complete guide to LGBTQ adventures in the Renaissance City
BY HEATHER CASSELL
Florence, the birthplace of art,
style, and food — and Italy’s
gay center — is going to be
gayer this spring, and LGBTQ
Florentines are ready.
Tuscany’s capital, Florence, is coming
back to life, according to Angelo Alterio,
who served as my gay tour guide
with Gaily Tour right before the global
pandemic hit Italy in 2020. He said
tourists are slowly returning to the
Renaissance City.
“There is a sense of a kind of a need
of the Florentines to be in touch with the
rest of the world after being closed out,”
he said. “We need to come back to life.”
There is no better time than now to
visit the Renaissance City — home to
gay artists Michelangelo, Leonardo da
Vinci, Donatello, Benvenuto Cellini,
and Sandro Botticelli, who put Florence
on the map with the patronage of
the Cosimo de’ Medici and the family
in the 15th century.
The largest exhibition of master
bronze and marble sculptor Donatello
(Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi), one of
Florence’s gay sons, is on display in “Donatello,
The Renaissance” at Fondazione
Palazzo Strozzi now through July 31.
More than 130 of Donatello’s sculptures,
paintings, and drawings, including
his famous bronze statue of
“David,” are on display in a once-in-alifetime
exhibit.
Where to Play Night & Day
A UNESCO World Heritage Site,
Florence is filled with art inside and
outside, from Michelangelo’s “David”
at the Accademia Gallery to Botticelli’s
“Birth of Venus” at the Uffizi Gallery
to the city’s Gothic, Romanesque, and
Renaissance architecture. The city is
also home to cathedrals to Italy’s only
fashion museum, the Galleria del Costume,
as well as Gucci and Salvatore
Ferragamo museums.
The best way to experience popular
museums and sites is to get the Firenzecard.
To get to know the city, hire a guide,
like Alterio, a native Florentine.
The best view of Florence is from Piazzale
Michelangelo, where you get a
stunning overview of the city with the
Tuscany countryside in the backdrop.
Other great views are at the top of the
Duomo at the Cathedral of Santa Maria
del Fiore and the Ponte Vecchio.
Forget Milan, Florence is home to Italy’s
famous fashion houses, like Gucci. It
also hosts fashion fairs, like the Pitti Immagine
Uomo, which will turn Florence
into a men’s fashion runway June 14 –
17 for the first time since COVID-19.
“They wear the most extravagant,
elegant, unique outfits,” Alterio said.
“They’re all gorgeous.”
From fashion houses to boutiques,
Florence is the perfect city to pick up
something new for a night on the town.
The hottest places to show off your
style are at the nightclubs, like Crisco
Club, The Mamamia at the Viper Theatre,
or queer-friendly Tenax Discoteca
Club.Popular LGBTQ bars are Queer
and Bossy at Soul Kitchen. Pride Park
NCS and XTRA Revolutionary Clubbing
produce queer events not to miss
when visiting Florence.
Boys can relax at Florence’s newly
renovated gay sauna, Florence Baths.
Where to Eat & Drink
Florence is a city of style and taste, but
it’s a little window, “buchettas,” unique to
Florence and Tuscany, that made a historic
comeback during the pandemic.
“I love when habits of the past are
coming back,” Alterio said about the
“buchettas,” which translates to “little
hole,” that Florentines took out of remission
in 2020. “It’s a way to play with
the past to make it more updated.”
According to “Wine Windows in Florence
and Tuscany,” there are nearly
300 wine windows that operated for
five centuries. The windows allowed
aristocrats to keep their distance while
refilling peasants’ flasks with wine,
which proved beneficial during the Bubonic
plague and COVID-19.
Many of the windows can be found in
the Santo Spirito area of Florence.Visitors
love them. Taking a picture when
ordering wine from a “buchetta” is a fun
way to capture a moment in history.
La Buchetta Restaurant, one of Florence’s
most popular restaurants, which
took its namesake from the historic
wine window, has one that looks into
the kitchen through its “buchetta.”
Diners at Babae can order a glass of
wine delivered through its wine window.
Florence is filled with great places to
eat. I loved grabbing an artisanal sandwich
for lunch at celebrity chef Alessandro
Frassica’s Ino. I enjoyed great
dinners at Le Antiche Carrozze, Osteria
Vecchio Cancello, the aforementioned
La Buchetta Restaurant, and had the
best experience when I hired chef Elisa
Berghi, co-owner of Chianti Cooking
Experience, to host a private dinner at
my girlfriend and my vacation rental.
I top the night off with the best gelato
in Florence at Gelateria Santa Trinita.
Where to Stay
Bears & Breakfast offers a comfortable
gay stay in Florence. The city is
filled with LGBTQ-friendly hotels, such
as the newly opened 25Hours Hotel, a
European boutique chain, and familyowned
Florentine Residence Hilda and
Cellai Boutique Hotel.
Traveling to Italy
COVID-19 isn’t over, but starting
March 1, Italy dropped quarantine requirements
for American travelers who
have been vaccinated, tested negative,
or have proof of recovery from the virus
up to 90-days prior to travel.
Mask mandates remain in place, but
Italy also started rolling back verifying
proof of vaccination in public places
April 1. Italy recognizes CDC’s vaccination
cards as equivalent to Europe’s
Green Card, the European Union’s
vaccination digital passport, which
is separate of Italy’s Green Pass, the
country’s vaccination pass.
Heather Cassell
The view of Florence from the Piazzale Michealangelo.
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/GayCityNews.com
