Talk:Florence/Archive

Apartments
Hello, could I know why the Sleeps/Apartments section is not allowed? I read the guidelines (http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Apt#Rental_listings) and I can say that in my area (Florence Ponte Vecchio/S.Spirito/S.Niccolò) there are many many tourists which choose this form of accomodation for short vacations. You may look also at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacation_rental for example, or try google with vacation rentals: it seems demonstrated that apartments are a common form of accomodations, here in Florence as in the other main touristic towns of the world... —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 217.133.19.64 (talk • contribs)


 * The first bullet point of the Apt guideline is "Consensus must be achieved on the article's talk page that rental listings should be allowed". Since there was no such agreement, and since apartment listings tend to be problematic at Wikivoyage, I removed the section.  If there is broad agreement that the Florence article would benefit from having such a section then I definitely wouldn't be opposed to seeing one added, but there needs to be an agreement to include one first. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 13:30, 15 April 2011 (EDT)

The listing below was moved across here as per the explanation above. -- (WT-en) felix 14:13, 8 September 2011 (EDT)


 * Florence Apartments, Via del Bufalini, 15. ☎ +39 055 9061404, . Choose from our 150 Availabilities. Serviced apartments since 2001. €14-100 per night. Instant confirmations.

Hotels
Most of the hotels in the mid-range section have been added by the same user. That user has also added hotels to the pages of many other Italian cities. ALL these links point to hotel sites made by the same web designer/agency. Looks like large-scale advertising to me.

Stendhal Syndrome
Hi, I'm not sure why the below was removed:


 * Beware of Stendhal syndrome, dizzyness caused by being overwhelmed by Florence's fantastically beautiful art! Take a break, have a gellato or a capuccino or a glass of Tuscan wine.

If you think this was just some sillyness I made up, that is not so, and a number of guide books mention it. See also Stendhal syndrome. -- (WT-en) Infrogmation 15:03, 25 May 2004 (EDT)


 * Aha. Yes, I thought it was some silliness you made up. I'll reinstate it! --(WT-en) Evan 17:03, 25 May 2004 (EDT)


 * Modern medicine would describe it as "Some silliness that Stendhal made up". It's now in an infobox. Grahamsands (talk) 14:37, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Cars
"Florence is connected by good highways to the rest of Italy. Cars aren't allowed in the old town center, so plan on parking your car and leaving it for a while."

and

"Much of the town center is blocked off to automobiles; motor-bikes are common."


 * I was highly irritated by the amount of cars in Florence. But I must say I was in Venice the days before... But still, I found the part where cars aren't allowed ridicilously small. (WT-en) Guaka 13:30, 27 May 2004 (EDT)

It's not the amount of cars, it's the ridiculously narrow sidewalk for all the pedestrians. -Charles

Internet
It's difficult to find a hotel with an Internet connection in the room. The Hotel Inn offers it in their executive rooms, but it has port-blocking on 25 (email) and telnet/ssh.

The bed and breakfast listed looks like it has full internet, I wish I'd booked with them in advance. For those of you who don't need a connection at one in the morning, there are many internet points open from 10am to 10pm.

Machiavelli has internet in the lobby, in their hotel next door.. Calzaiuli has it in-room -- they cost twice as much. Starhotel has recently disabled internet access for "security" reasons.

-Charles

See
A good article but there are vitually no links. Links from the museums and main sites (Ponte Vecchio, etc) to wikipedia articles would be nice.

What is the deal on external links?
Why would a completely relevant external link be removed? Yes I am talking about Florence-Journal.com This whole Florence page is very weak and reads like it was written by a high school student. Adding a link to a site with relevant, factual information seems to be in the interest of the general public. It is called "External Links" after all - no one is forcing you to click on it, but people should be given a chance, no?


 * See Project:External links. The short answer is that we would like to have complete articles here.  Even in incomplete articles, we are uninterested in external links as we assume the traveller can figure out how to use Google or purchase a Lonely Planet guide without any handholding from us. -- (WT-en) Colin 17:16, 2 Jan 2006 (EST)

The my question remains - why have them (External Links) at all? A "complete" article is a great goal, but it is never going to have everything - or the features or timeliness of something like a blog. The web is ABOUT finding new and relevant things - a web of information. The above quote sounds like it doesn't believe in the spirit of the web in the first place. It is a little strange to think that the official language of this Wiki is that it assumes users are going to turn to Google or a guide book - they have already turned to WikiTravel - why not allow the links and let the user decide...


 * If you read Project:External links you will see that one of our goals is to have information for printed guide, or off-line reader. While the web is about information, Wikivoyage is about consolidating that information here. If you can stick florence-journal.com into a meaningful place in the article as part of the text then it doesn't need to go into the External links section. In fact we have found that section so unhelpful that we now take them out of articles as our article templates don't have them.


 * And if you feel the article can be improved, plunge forward and edit it so it reads like you want it to. You don't even need to log on, you can do it right now! -- (WT-en) Huttite 07:39, 4 Jan 2006 (EST)

reserving Uffizi
Can't find anything on the museum site about making reservations. Any chance of a link for that?


 * http://www.polomuseale.firenze.it/english/musei/uffizi/Default.asp - "Information and Booking    Contact Firenze Musei, Tel: +39 055294883. Booking charge : € 3,00 per person." --(WT-en) Ricardo (Rmx) 11:12, 9 April 2006 (EDT)

Tour Listings
The tour listings are a mess. If you think it's important to have WikiTravel articles including listings of commercial tours (and I think this is a problem area, as are unreliable promotional hotel listings in many WikiTravel articles), shouldn't there at least be a separate section that includes only those? Right now, I see a bunch of listings at the end of "Get Around" and more at the beginning of "See." I am creating a "Tours" section after "Other Sites," and moving all these listings there. Feel free to move the section wherever you think best. Michael 08:36, 14 September 2008 (EDT)


 * This is Michael again, posting now as a registered user. I think the "Tours" section should be deleted, following the example of the "Rome" article (see http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Talk:Rome, where "Tours" is currently the last topic on the page). Does anyone have any objections unrelated to a commercial desire to advertise your tour company? (WT-en) Ikan Kekek 20:54, 1 August 2009 (EDT)


 * Tour listings in Florence should be reserved for those companies that offer a view of the city different in substance from what you get from visiting the attractions independently, or those able to take you places that you couldn't simply visit yourself. --(WT-en) inas 21:06, 1 August 2009 (EDT)

World War II Florence American Cemetery and Memorial
Because this cemetery is a bit outside of the city, I have moved a reference to it from the "other sights" section to the "get out section."

User opinion on Florence For Fun
User 67.86.160.157 made the following comments regarding Florence for Fun. I removed them since it was more describing a personal experience that a listing and it wasn't relevant to touring around Florence (the section it was listed in), but have posted it here for reference in case someone is considering them for getting out of Florence. (WT-en) Shaund 14:32, 22 December 2008 (EST)


 * Edit: Although they offer trips to places such as Prague and the Swiss Alps, the prices of these trips are quite inflated. For example, as recent as November of 2008, a trip to Prague leaving Friday morning and leaving Prague Sunday night cost 250€.  This cost covered a 14 hour bus ride there and back, as well as two nights accomodations at a 3 star hotel.  You might want to explore other options, such as flying to Prague out of Pisa for much cheaper rates, and booking a hotel in advance for much cheaper prices.

Sleep listings
The list of hotels on this article had become longer than most complete WT articles, courtesy of the vast hordes of Italian hotel touts/spammers, so I went and removed all listings lacking prices. As usual, that method has been a fairly useful proxy to weed out the entries left by business promoters, and those that have normal, human descriptions.

Aside from a handful of clear external links and rental agency violations, I put all of the deleted listings in this archive, in case anyone wants to look through them and salvage any good material (there isn't much). I salvaged the only two that seemed of any particular interest for the splurge section, since it had become almost empty. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 00:14, 15 July 2009 (EDT)

Sleep listings deleted
Apparently Giardino di Leopolda Florence is no longer open, although the website is still functional. A one tripadvisor entry from October 2010 corroborates this and if you attempt to check availability, a prompt indicates the place is closed. It should be removed from the list. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 79.219.83.59 (talk • contribs) 15:24, 21 February 2011

Removed Giardino di Leopolda Florence on 21 feb 2011-- from a booking enq attempt --"We are currently not taking bookings for this property - this BandB is closed until further notice" url= http://www.giardinodileopolda.com  --  (WT-en) felix 11:19, 22 February 2011 (EST)

Breadcrumb trail not displaying
Does anyone else see the breadcrumb trail as "Florence (province) : Florence", without the full preceding hierarchy? I haven't seen this problem before, since all articles higher up display the trail properly. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 18:57, 9 October 2009 (EDT)


 * I had this problem with some city down on the Amalfi coast, just played around with it, until it suddenly worked. --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) Talk 19:02, 9 October 2009 (EDT)

Learn
Cooking class. At one point the whole LEARN section was deleted as "full of spam". With no indication of what was spam and what wasn't. Cooking classes are not spam. The are a reality of florence dating back to the 80ties. They are as important as the Fiorentina (the steak!)I decided to reinstate a generic text with no links so that people would know about the existance of this interesting activity. Indianapolis has art class on Wikivoyage, San Sebastian surfing lessons so I believe Florence is entitled for cooking class. If someone believes the spelling or writing still is advertising, please change text AND NOT DELETE THE WHOLE THING. —The preceding comment was added by 82.85.241.32 (talk • contribs)
 * Hi! You must be pretty lazy because if you would have even a tiny look around (and would care for Wikivoyage) you could easily find out about our policies. E.g. see don't tout and welcome, business owners as a starting point. Your listing is not in line with our standards so it is very unlike to stay. (WT-en) jan 05:31, 15 June 2010 (EDT)

Messed-up "Sleep" section
Someone seems to have added a lot of listings, some of them touty, in an incorrect format at some point. I did my best to fix and alphabetize the "Budget" section, but there are so many listings (too many?), and most of them have their addresses and rates (which undoubtedly need updating) in their "description" tabs plus, in many instances, excessive location touting and just plain imperfectly translated promotional language. If this is ever going to become a Guide, fixing the "Sleep" section is a necessary - though tedious and mind-numbingly boring - task. So whoever wants to do a little bit, so that we can get this done bit by bit: Your work is much appreciated! Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:04, 1 August 2014 (UTC)


 * OK, I finished the tedious job of detouting, copy editing, reformatting, and alphabetizing all the hotel listings (I did not take articles - la, il, the - or "di" into account in alphabetizing). Your mission now, if you choose to take it on, is to update the prices of the hotels and check the descriptions of any hotels you are familiar with. Thank you very much to whomever takes this task on! It's greatly needed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:40, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

That seems to have been done, as reviewing these in Oct 2018, few further updates were necessary, ditto in Pisa & Lucca. My main difficulty was picking representative mid-shoulder prices at a time of year that plunges between half-term peak, November lull and Xmas rush. There were several embedded warnings about not deleting empty fields from listings, which perhaps stem from the 2014 updates. Those warnings apply everywhere, does this continue to be a particular problem for Tuscany? Grahamsands (talk) 14:53, 9 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't know. Perhaps no longer, and thanks. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:03, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

"Learn" listing moved from article
Given that no short courses are mentioned, I'm moving this listing here:


 * Liberal Academy of Fine Arts. Offers academic courses of 3 plus 2 years (restructured duration) for diplomas at 1st and 2nd level (equivalent to the short degree and specialization degree) in five subjects: Photography, graphic design and multimedia, design, painting and restoration.

If you know of any short courses (2 weeks or less, or at least not longer than a summer) that this school gives, mention them and restore the listing to the article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:02, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Neighborhoods section
I moved the neighbourhood section from the main page to here (see the nowiki part). Most - if not all - of the listings seem to be in "Centro Storico", so the section doesn't seem relevant. Besides, it doesn't contain any additional info other than just mentioning that there are several neighbourhoods. If you disagree, feel free to add it back in. 14 January 2016 (UTC)