Rome versus Florence, which city is better? I battled a City Smackdown with Florence-based writer Nicky Swallow to prove which Italian city is the best. From food and fashion to art and architecture, we breakdown why you love Rome and Florence. It’s up to you to decide which the winner. I know who I choose.
Florence
According to Nicky, Florence is “one of the world’s great art repositories, Florence proudly holds its own against Rome in spite of its diminutive size. ”
Florence is so much more than just museums and monuments, and foodies, fashionistas, and fans of the good life will all be blown away by this compact gem of a city. You can walk almost everywhere that’s worth going, and central Florence boasts one of the largest traffic-free urban areas in Europe, so you don’t have to contend with the fume-belching buses and bumper-to-bumper jams that are a constant in Rome. And if you want to combine your city break with a day in the country, a 10-minute drive will have you surrounded by vineyards and olive groves. It can take hours to escape from Rome…
You could spend a month in Florence and not see all of the art. “The Cradle of the Renaissance,” the city has a concentration of fabulous art packed into a small space that is second to none. The churches are stuffed full of fabulous frescoes, and the streets and piazzas are lined with elegant palaces and architectural masterpieces.
The heavy hitters are: The Uffizi Gallery, one of the world’s greatest collections of paintings, Galleria dell’Accademia home to “David,” the most famous nude statue on the planet; and. Museo dell’Opera del Duomo home to Ghiberti’s great bronze “Doors of Paradise”.
Fabulous Food
Simple, earthy, and satisfying,traditional Florentine cuisine is based on seasonal local ingredients prepared with lashings of peppery Tuscan olive oil. Meals start with hearty bread, bean, and veg combos such as ribollita and pappa al pomodoro or pasta sauced with hare or wild boar. Next up is the city’s famous signature dish, bistecca alla Fiorentina, a vast T-bone eaten almost raw. Street food Florentine style means tripe and lampredotto (cow intestines), so man up and join the locals at one of the mobile trippaio stalls in the city center.
Bonus Points
Milan may grab the headlines when it comes to the catwalk, but Florence is traditionally the home of moda Italiana. Italy’s first fashion show was held in Florence in 1951 and it’s no coincidence that some of Italy’s top labels are Florentine: Gucci, Roberto Cavalli, Pucci, and, of course (by adoption), Ferragamo. Via Tornabuoni is the spot for fabulous fashion.
Likewise, the city is epicenter of Tuscany which means you can take a day trip anywhere-Chianti, Siena, Arezzo, Montepulciano, Pisa, Montalcino. It really doesn’t get any better unless you want to go to the beach and due west to the strip of coast known as the Versilia, where neat rows of deck chairs, sun beds, and parasols occupy the wide swaths of sand – Forte dei Marmi and Argentario are favorites.
Catch Florence in films like “I Vitelloni” (Federico Fellini, 1953), “Obsession” (Brian de Palma, 1976), “A Room With a View” (James Ivory, 1986), “Tea With Mussolini” (Franco Zeffirelli, 1999), “Hannibal” (Ridley Scott, 2001).
Rome
According to everyone, Florence is pretty, but everyone really wants is to live in Rome. Who wouldn’t? 3000 chaotic years of beauty, history, culture, and conflict converging to create an incredible city, and just the necessary amount of humor to make the good, bad, and ugly practically perfect. Rome’s is undeniably independent, a vibe you see in all its neighborhoods, like Testaccio, Monti, Trastevere, the historic center and Borgo. And for that, Rome embraces you like a small town. In other words, it’s a 21st-century capital city with a hometown vibe.
In Rome, you can’t walk around without stumbling across a masterpiece and monumentThe city has an endless amount of museums, collections, and cultural sites covering a range of eras and genres from ancient to avant-garde. Rome has bragging rights to the best of everything every studied in an art history survey class: underground first-century houses, a chapel decorated by Michelangelo, a tiny villa by Raphael, a collection of Caravaggio paintings, and Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI (21st-century art). Must-sees include the Vatican Museums,Capitoline Museums, Palazzo Massimo, Richard Meier’s Museum of the Ara Pacis, and the neoclassical National Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery. And that’s just the beginning.
Fabulous Food
Cacio e pepe, carbonara, amatriciana. Yep, that’s Roman. Rome’s cucina povera (“poor” cuisine made from cooking staples and leftovers) are our favorite dishes and ours. And they can be found all over the city. Even with the food revolution that has taken over the city, we still have great restaurants and even a niche foodie neighborhood.
Bonus Points
Let’s be honest Roman style is not that stylish, but it is definitely not as conservative as Florence. It’s all about the three S’s — sunglasses, sparkles, and shoes, for men and women alike. Whatever the walk of life, Romans never leave home without good hair, pressed clothing, bright colors, and a great personality.
If you think you want to daytrip from Rome (seriously, there is so much in the Eternal City, why do you need to leave?), Lazio is rich for exploration with hill towns like Tivoli and the Castelli Romani, lakes like Martignano and Bracciano, and even a coastal vibe stretching from the dark sands of Palo Laziale to city beaches like Fregene, Maccarese, and Ostia (which I’d skip) to the southern and prettier sands of Sperlonga, Circeo and Terracina.
Can’t decide who wins? I think the silver screen tally of amazing films decides. Rome is epic, Fellini showed off its never-a-dull moment nature in “La Dolce Vita” (1960) and the city has made an apperance in every genre and generation from “Roman Holiday” (William Wyler, 1953), “Spartacus” (Stanley Kubrick, 1960) and “The Conformist” (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970) to “Mahogany” (Berry Gordy, 1975), “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (Anthony Minghella, 1999), “Gladiator” (Ridley Scott, 2000), “The Lizzie McGuire Movie” (Walt Disney Pictures, 2003), “Ocean’s Twelve” (Steven Soderbergh, 2004), “Romanzo Criminale” (Michele Placido, 2005), “Mission: Impossible III” (J.J. Abrams, 2006), “Angels & Demons” (Ron Howard, 2009), “Eat Pray Love” (Ryan Murphy, 2010), “To Rome With Love” (Woody Allen, 2012), John Wick II (2017). Tom Cruise even came back for the upcoming “Dead Reckoning.”
