Ponte Vecchio

The Ponte Vecchio crosses the Arno where Florence has had a bridge since Roman times, and the one standing there now is medieval: three shallow arches , the centre one spanning 30 metres , finished in 1345 after the flood of November 1333 carried its predecessor away. Shops have stood on it since the fourteenth century, so crossing it feels less like visiting a monument than walking a narrow street with the river hidden behind the shopfronts — until the buildings stop halfway and both banks open at once, downstream at the small square where a bronze Benvenuto Cellini has stood since 1900. In August 1944 the retreating German army destroyed every other bridge in Florence and left this one.

Visit if you:

• are drawn to goldsmiths' and jewellers' work, which has held these shops by decree since the sixteenth century
• want to stand under the Vasari Corridor and see where the Medici crossed the river without touching it

Skip it if you:

• came to photograph the bridge — that view is from the Ponte Santa Trinita next door, not from the deck you are standing on
• want to browse quietly: it is closed to cars but carries the whole pedestrian flow between the Duomo and the Palazzo Pitti
• were going to leave a love lock — 5,500 were cut off the Cellini railings in 2005-06 and adding one is now finable