After I spent a week working in Rome, I spent a night in Venice followed by 3 nights in Florence. Venice, though a fantastic place to explore on foot, is not great for running. At least, not the main island. There are no cars. If you have to move a lot of heavy things, the cargo gets moved by boats. Most people walk everywhere on extremely narrow streets. At times, it was shoulder-to-shoulder pedestrian traffic in the trafficked main corridors. I knew what to expect, and I had planned accordingly - meaning, I didn’t even try to go for a run in Venice. Instead, I thoroughly enjoyed walking for miles to one side of the island and back, several times over the 24 hours that I spent there.
Florence, in contrast with Rome and Venice, felt like a runner’s city. Like Rome, there’s a river that runs through the middle of the city. Like Rome, most of the central city streets are built around historic buildings and sites that are nearly 2000 years old. Like Rome, many of the streets and sidewalks are made of stone, not concrete. Yet, unlike Rome, it’s easy in Florence to run for miles and miles, intuitively linking up stretches of the historic downtown area with the quiet riverfront.
Thousands of runners and cyclists were out exercising each day that I visited. The prioritization of outdoor exercise space in Florence is obvious. The Parco delle Cascine stretches for more than a mile along the Arno River, with paths on both sides for running and cycling. Multiple bridges, some pedestrian-only and all with pedestrian walkways, allow for multiple route lengths that loop on both sides of the river. On the other side of downtown from the Parco delle Cascine, there’s another riverfront green space called the Albereta which has more pedestrian and cycling paths. There are even paths built alongside the canals that enter into the river. There are many different ways to create interesting and beautiful routes on dedicated pedestrian and cycling paths.
After becoming familiar with my various path options over the first couple days, I started crafting my “ideal” way to experience the city via running. My favorite route, at least for those few days, started along the riverfront on the Northwest side and took me into the downtown shopping district before most businesses opened (before 9am). I would continue past downtown and spot the bridge for Via Marco Polo in the distance. After running to this bridge, I would cross to the other side of the river, and run back through the Albereta in the direction from which I came. At Ponte Vecchio, the pedestrian bridge in the city center with jewelry shops on the bridge itself, I would cross back. I would continue running west until I reached the Parco delle Cascine and the bridge that only has pedestrian and rail tracks. From this point, I would cross the river again and do a loop around the western part of the river according to the length of run that I wanted. Using this route, I could run 6-10 miles with minimal retracing of my steps, and I would experience a varity of sights in Florence.
During travel, the point at which I start to pick and choose my “favorite” routes in a city is something that I look forward to. When cities give me several obvious options, especially after just a few days’ of exploration, I tend to think highly of the city. I did not have this experience in Rome during the week prior. In Florence, I began to have this experience very quickly after arriving. Cities such as Florence that embrace outdoor recreation tend to have populations that take advantage - there wasn’t a single day where I saw fewer than a hundred runners enjoying their runs along the riverfront paths while I was out on my own run. This is the kind of place that makes you feel as though you’ve found a community, as a runner, even when you don’t speak the local language.
When a runner is able to connect with a city in this way - when they’re able to remember why they loved a certain route, or a certain side of a waterway, or running at a specific time of day - it establishes a relationship with the place that inspires future visitation. I will forever remember Florence as a place that I will enjoy running for miles along the Arno River. When I have a chance to visit in the future, even if I’m not able to run, I’ll still be able to recall the downtown riverfront and jewelry shops on the Ponte Vecchio as places that I enjoyed when I first explored the city on foot.
I never expected running to be such a gateway to establish relationships with cities during my travels. When I was training for my first marathon, I had barely visited places outside California. When I was training for my second marathon, I was swimming in student loan debt that was more than twice my annual salary at my first job. I never dreamed of traveling to Europe, much less for work, on a regular basis. I’m fortunate to be able to experience these places, but it feels so much more special to be able to travel for miles on foot to places that most tourists don’t see.
Having run along miles of the Florence riverfront during a rainy evening, and miles of Rome’s longest bike path on a misty, frigid morning, it feels like I’ve seen some “real” parts of the cities. These are places that aren’t groomed for foreigners, without curated experiences and English-speaking service workers. There are many ways to get an authentic experience of a place, and running is one of them.