Author: Lourdes Flores

I'm from California but have called Florence my home for over a decade. I love to explore Italy; it is a lot of fun to try to see everything like I'm seeing it for the first time, keeping you, our readers, always in mind. I enjoy sharing what I know and helping others as they make their travel plans for Tuscany through our Forum. If you have itinerary-related questions, please post them there and I'll answer!

Welcoming in 2021

December 31, 2020

Here in Florence, the last day of the year is full of expectation of the new year, we bundle up into jackets and head out to one of the main squares to hear some lovely music (music genres vary across the piazzas, so you can head to Piazza della Signoria for classical, to Santissima Annunziata…

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Covid-19: New Rules in Italy Starting November 6

November 6, 2020

Nationwide curfew and clamping down by region On Tuesday night, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte signed a new presidential decree in an effort to curb the growing Covid-19 numbers throughout Italy. The Prime Minister explained these measures in a live address in the evening of November 4, with measures to go into force today Friday,…

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Dante 700: Portraits of Dante and his places

October 30, 2020

A photographic exhibition by Massimo Sestini Santa Maria Novella, from October 29, 2020 to January 6, 2021 Update 2020-11-06: the exhibit is closed from November 6th, as are all museums and exhibitions nationwide. Don’t worry, you can still see the virtual tour of the exhibit (while it was in Rome) on Musefirenze’s website. In what…

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Bundles and a Movie for the Family

October 17, 2020

UPDATE NOV. 16, 2020: As of today, the Cafe is also closed to the public for lunch and both the Family Bundles and Cinema are not available. We hope once Tuscany scales down from a “red” zone, the Cafe will once again offer special initiatives as this one. The Cafe is open for delivery, you…

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Celebrating Freddie this weekend

September 4, 2020

Every year, as lifelong Queen fans, we love the special event the Hard Rock Cafe promotes to celebrate Freddie Mercury’s birthday. This year, given the current situation across the world, the celebrations have been changed and prolonged…. from a day to the entire weekend! From today until Sunday, September 6th, the Hard Rock has a…

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Hard Rock Festival 2020

August 29, 2020

Who says summer 2020 is canceled?! While many summer events here in Tuscany and Florence have been cancelled these months, there are also many that have gone on ahead with safety precautions in place…. or being completely re-imagined to adapt to the current bizarre world we are living in. Summer is music and thus we’d…

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A Happy belated birthday celebrating @HardRockCafeFlorence

July 26, 2020

Happy belated birthday wishes! We are always on the lookout for positive initiatives after these strange months since the start of the pandemic and are happy to share ways in which to get back to living and celebrating life. Our blog will focus on these sort of events that will remind us to enjoy the…

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June 24th, St. John the Baptist Feast Day in times of Covid19

June 23, 2020

This year, Florence is celebrating it’s patron saint’s feast day with “San Giovanni X 3“, a virtual festival that replaces the city’s usual June 24 celebrations given the safeguards Covid19 has imposed on everyone. “San Giovanni X 3” is a joint celebration organized by Florence, Genova and Turin, who share a patron saint in San…

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Living in Florence with the Lockdown – Day 2

March 11, 2020

On the evening of Tuesday, March 9, the Italian central government decided to extend restrictions on the movement of people across the entire country to limit the spread of coronavirus, effective as of March 10. The special quarantine measures affect the entire nation of over 60 million people. We have been told to stay at…

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Coronavirus in Florence and Tuscany

March 4, 2020

We have created a post to answer some of the most pressing questions regarding traveling to or planning to visit Florence & Tuscany, please read it here: https://www.discovertuscany.com/blog/coronavirus-in-florence-tuscany-update-5014/ Yesterday, we shared on Facebook a screenshot of a letter Florence city mayor Dario Nardella sent to the US universities with study abroad programs in Florence. It…

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