From hotels in downtown Florence, one of the routes is to not miss the Plaza de Santa Croce, one of the most beautiful square in Florence. The square is in the historic centre, not far from the Duomo (15 minutes), passing through Piazza della Signoria and Borgo dei Greci. Although a city map is available free of charge in all rooms of hotels in the center of Florence. If your accommodation is not as close to the centre many services are available to reach the center: taxi, driven by car rentals, buses and trains to reach the suburbs.
Piazza Santa Croce is located in front of the church of Santa Croce in downtown Florence, and take their name from the same plaza that was built in medieval times to accommodate the large number of people who attended the ceremonies religius . In times of the Renaissance Square was also used for fun activities in Florence, such as festivals, shows, rides and games as the Calcio storico (Historical Football). This game, more similar to Rugby for modern football is played on the day of San Giovanni (June 24) in 3 games in 4 teams, one for each team of the historic center of Florence ( “white” for the team Holy Spirito, “blue” for the team of Santa Croce, “red” team of Santa Maria Novella and “green” team of San Giovanni).
Overlooking the plaza is the church of Santa Croce, which was built from the Friars between 13 and 14 century, with only a facade built in the 19 century in neogothical style, to them left the monumental statue Dante Alighieri. Dated from the same period of the facade and the Dante of the statue of the square, on the opposite side of the church, there is a source baroque, originally done by Pietro Maria Bardi and REM in the 19 century by Roberto Manetti. Upon entering the main door of the church, walking down the main aisle, there is immediate austerity and vastenss of environments, and at the perimeter of many chapels (some with frescoes by Giotto, Maso di Bank, etc. .) Destined to bury the noble Florence (Peruzzi, Bardi, Baroncelli, Pulci.Bardi) who pays, with their donations, the construction of the church. Santa Croce is famous in the world to be the burial of many very important people of politics, history and the litterture in Italy, here are the burial of Ugo Foscolo, Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei, Gioacchino Rossini, Leon Battista Alberti, Vittorio Alfieri.
Beside the church is one of the main convent in Florence, now home of a beautiful museum, where they are exposed ancient treasures of the church, like the crufix of Cimabue.