01 August 08

Features

Little Italy

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The waiters at the café up at Palazzo Pitti even bring Sophie out a free coffee when we stop to take in the magical view across the city below. Of course, all they look at is the car.

“I think Florentines sometimes think their city is becoming a fossil to them – that they’ve been excluded from the central zone, what with all the tourist traffic and souvenir shops,” Sophie explains. “None of that is much fun for them, but the 500 Club is – it’s genuine.”

Sophie’s routes are well devised and easy to follow, despite one over-eager couple who radio in to say they’ve found themselves on a motorway headed for Milan. Sure, the traffic is a little daunting at first, but driving in Italy is as much a cultural experience as spaghetti.

Once the dark arts of double-declutching and hand gestures have been mastered you’re away. It certainly gives you a sense of superiority over the other tourists – perspiring legions of conspicuously uncool out-oftowners, riding around the sights on Segways (try looking chic on one of those).

The classic tour
Sophie offers several different tours in her Fiats, so I decide to try a couple. The classic tour (€35 per person, based on four people sharing a car) is about an hour long. Leaving Santa Croce, the largest medieval quarter, we trundle over the Arno river and up to Michaelangelo’s piazza for a panoramic view. Winding down past Florence’s ancient fortifications, we enter via the Porta San Miniato and through picturesque San Niccolo. We stop off at Caffè Rifrullo in time for aperitivo and, for passengers not driving, try a Negroni – gin, Campari, red Martini and soda. It’s the hippest snifter in town right now.

Passing the southern end of the iconic Ponte Vecchio, and hanging a right after crossing Ponte Santa Trinita brings us up to the other end of Ponte Vecchio, where the crowds photograph us with the verve of paparazzi snapping a 1960s film legend.

The famous Vasari corridor was the Medici family’s 1km-long private passageway built across the top of the city. It swings off the bridge and runs above the arched street. Whizzing past the Uffizi Gallery, it then passes overhead on its way to the Palazzo Vecchio and we drive it all the way. Turning left at the Biblioteca Nazionale, home to original works by Dante, the tour burrows back into Santa Croce, past the Piazza and then behind the Palazzo Vecchio on the final straight before swerving back into the garage.

Then we’re just in time to walk over to Piazza Santo Spirito’s laid-back bars to quench our driving thirst.

Picnic and wine-tasting tour
This trip costs €155 per person, plus €15 each for children aged under 13, when accompanied by at least two adults. There’s also a maximium of three adults per car due to the steep hills.