We were leaving for Siena at midday. That gave me the morning.
I was out of the door at quarter past seven, the city still dim and quiet, and headed northwest along streets that felt borrowed — too grand for this hour, too empty to feel real. Florence in February before the coaches arrive is a different city entirely. The stone is darker, the air is colder, and for a while you can almost believe it belongs to the people who actually live here.
The Arco di Trionfo at Piazza della Libertà. Baroque triumphal arch. Traffic lights blinking amber at nobody.
The first landmark came quickly — the Arco di Trionfo at Piazza della Libertà, a full baroque triumphal arch standing alone at an empty junction, traffic lights blinking amber at nobody. I’ve walked past things like this a hundred times in daylight and barely registered them. Running past at dawn, alone, you actually look.
From there the route swings west and drops into the Cascine — Florence’s long green lung stretching out along the Arno. The park swallowed me whole. Pine trees overhead, gravel paths underfoot, the city completely gone. I passed the terraced ornamental gardens, stone steps dropping down between clipped hedges and palm trees, wrought iron railings slick with rain. A park that’s been here long enough to grow properly wild at the edges.
Drainage canal along the southern park edge at dawn. The Arno’s working infrastructure. The sky was doing something useful with the still water.
Inside the Cascine. Three kilometres of park along the Arno — long enough that the city disappears completely.
Then the racecourse. I didn’t expect it — a full horse racing track, white rails curving away into the distance, the infield green and perfectly flat, a faint pink blush in the sky above the far treeline. Mountains just visible to the north. I ran the length of it along the outside fence, which felt faintly ridiculous and entirely brilliant.
The Ippodromo del Visarno — a full horse racing circuit, inside a city park, on the Arno. Nobody mentioned this would be here.
Past the fortress walls — the Fortezza da Basso, all diamond-point Medici stonework rising above the hedges — and back through streets that were finally starting to move. A coffee van. A man walking a dog. A tram.
The Fortezza da Basso. Diamond-point rustication, Medici commission, 1534. Five hundred years and it still looks like it means it.
Villa Fabbricotti, seen from the lower garden. Lion statues, a battlement, a flag. Found it on the way back up through the hills.
The dragon staircase, upper gardens. Part stone, part overgrown plant matter, entirely unexpected. Not in any guidebook we’d seen.
The ornamental lake stopped me near the end. A rusted metal sculpture rising from the reeds — part butterfly, part harp, chains hanging from curved arms — with a brick arched bridge behind it and the water completely still. I took the photo and stood there longer than I should have. We had a checkout time to make.
The lake near the eastern end of Cascine. Rusted iron sculpture, brick arched bridge, water completely still. Stood here longer than the checkout time allowed.
7.13 miles. A personal record on a segment I’ll probably never run again. Florence still asleep for most of it.
Two days later I’d be in the hills above Siena. But that’s another post.
Stone lion at the Cascine park entrance — someone has fixed a photograph of the real thing to its chest. Florence.
Distance: 7.13 mi · Moving time: 1:06:06 · Elevation: 262 ft · Avg pace: 9:16/mi