Florence Free Tour

Great tour! The Florence tour was recommended to me by one of the guests on my free tour of Venice, and I’m glad we stopped by for the afternoon Medici walk. The guide was on time, informative, and gave some interesting — and even funny — information I hadn’t learned in any guidebook. Well worth the € 20 I tipped him at the end.
What will you see? Like every free tour I’ve been on, you won’t be actually entering any buildings… but you’ll start at the Santa Maria Church and meander through town… past some of the old Medici residences, some Michaelangelo work (the unfinished façade of the San Lorenzo basilica), by the duomo, through the Piazza Repubilca, by the Palace Vecchio, down the river, and over to the Pitti Palace… and trust me, I’m forgetting a few things as I type this review.
Sound like a good introduction to Florence? It is, and you’ll learn something along the way. Just don’t be a terrible tourist and ditch halfway through to avoid offering a tip. So tacky, so lame. Be better — be a generous person! And have a wonderful time in Firenze!

WARNING: Bring a map. The tour starts in front of Santa Maria Novella steps in front of the train station and ends at Santa Croce about 20 minutes away. You will not know this till the tour is over, but they do NOT return you to where the tour started.
The tour guide itself, a man, was excellent. He has tons of knowledge and will answer questions while he walks to another location. Don’t be piggy and bother him when he is speaking during a stop, tho. He does not appreciate that as it probably throws him off his lecture.
The guide points out much that you probably would never think of, so I strongly urge you to take one of these tours.
AND tip the guy at the end. I gave him 10 euro, but some guy from Malta with his 3 family members gave him 10 euro for all 4 = what a cheapskate! Really, a euro is now worth about $ 1.39 USD so for 2 hours he gave him about $ 2.80 for the tour for each one. Really did get somewhat irritated at how creepy that was. The norm is 5 – 20 and the average tip should be around 10 euro if the guide is good, and he most definitely is.
I did the morning Renaissance tour. Next trip the afternoon one.
(I took off one star, because – I just happened to have a map on me – but if I didn’t I’d have been in deep trouble with all the non-​zoning there, each block having a different street name and so forth. Look at a map of innercity old town Florence, and you will understand.)