Nightlife

The Performing Arts

Florence doesn't have the musical cachet or grand opera houses of Milan, Venice, or Rome, but there are two symphony orchestras and a fine music school in Fiesole. The city's public theaters are certainly respectable, and most major touring companies stop in town on their way through Italy. Get tickets to all cultural and musical events at the city's main clearinghouse, Box Office, Via Alamanni 39 (tel. 055-210-804; www.boxol.it). In addition to tickets for year-round events of all genres, they handle the summertime Calcio in Costume folkloric festival and the Maggio Musicale.

Many concerts and recitals staged in major halls and private spaces across town are sponsored by the Amici della Musica (tel. 055-607-440 or 055-608-420; www.amicimusica.fi.it), so contact them to see what "hidden" concert might be on while you're in town. When Florentines really want a fine night out at the theater, they skip town and head to nearby Prato for the Teatro Metastasio, one of Italy's finest.

Church Concerts -- Many Florentine churches fill the autumn with organ, choir, and chamber orchestra concerts, mainly of classical music. The tiny Santa Maria de' Ricci (tel. 055-215-044) on Via del Corso seems always to have music wafting out of it; slipping inside to occupy a pew is occasionally free, but sometimes there's a small charge. Around the corner at Santa Margherita 7, the Chiesa di Dante (tel. 055-289-367) puts on quality concerts of music for, and often played by, youths and children (tickets required). The Florentine Chamber Orchestra, Via E. Poggi 6 (tel. 055-783-374), also runs an autumn season in the Orsanmichele; tickets are available at Box Office or at the door an hour before the 9pm shows.

Concert Halls & Opera -- One of Italy's busiest stages, Florence's contemporary Teatro Comunale, Corso Italia 12 (tel. 055-213-535 or 055-211-158; www.maggiofiorentino.com), offers everything from symphonies to ballet to plays, opera, and concerts. The large main theater seats 2,000, with orchestra rows topped by horseshoe-shaped first and second galleries. Its smaller Piccolo Teatro, seating 500, is rectangular, offering good sightlines from most any seat. The Teatro Comunale is the seat of the annual prestigious Maggio Musicale.

The Teatro Verdi, Via Ghibellina 99-101 (tel. 055-212-320 or 055-263-877; www.teatroverdifirenze.it), is Florence's opera and ballet house, with the nice ritual of staging Sunday-afternoon shows during the January-through-April season. The Orchestra della Toscana (tel. 055-280-670; www.orchestradellatoscana.it) plays classical concerts here December through May. Like the Teatro Comunale, they do a bit of theater, but not of the caliber of La Pergola .

The only requirement for membership, besides a 5€ fee, at the Teatro del Sale, Via dei Macci 111r (tel. 055-200-1492; www.teatrodelsale.com), is that you must be "a pleasant person." If you qualify, you can enjoy nightly concerts, from jazz pianists to dance, preceded by a countless-course meal courtesy of Cibrèo chef and owner Fabio Picchi.

Theater -- The biggest national and international touring companies stop in Florence's major playhouse, the Teatro della Pergola, Via della Pergola 12 (tel. 055-226-4335; www.pergola.firenze.it). La Pergola is the city's chief purveyor of classical and classic plays from the Greeks and Shakespeare through Pirandello, Samuel Beckett, and Italian modern playwrights. Performances are professional and of high quality, if not always terribly innovative. (Of course, all are in Italian.)

The Club & Music Scenes

Italian clubs are rather cliquey -- people usually go in groups to hang out and dance only with one another. There's plenty of flesh showing, but no meat market. Singles hoping to find random dance partners will often be disappointed.

Live Music -- For live bands you can dance to in the center, head to Dolce Zucchero, Via dei Pandolfini 36-38r (tel. 055-247-7894). "Sweet Sugar" is one of the better recent efforts to spice up Florence's nightlife and is popular with all ages. Under high ceilings are a long bar and a small dance floor with a stage for the nightly live musicians, usually a fairly talented cover act cranking out American and Italian dance songs for the packed crowd. At the Chiodo Fisso (Via Alighieri Dante 16r; tel. 055-238-1290), pull up a chair at the saloon-like bar and listen to the tunes of Andrea Ardia, a Capri-born singer/songwriter and guitarist who achieved some fame in the 1970s with his slightly raspy voice and Dire Straits-like riffs. It's open every day from 10pm to the last song, cocktails are 6€, the clientele is pensive student types, and the entertainment is all Ardia, all the time.

Dance Clubs & Nightclubs -- Florence's clubs have a "minimum consumption" charge of 10€ to 16€. Universale, Via Pisana 77r (tel. 055-221-122; www.universalefirenze.it), is still the biggest thing in town for the under-22 set, housed in a converted 1940s cinema. From 8pm it's a popular restaurant in the balcony and a pizzeria on the main floor. Around 11pm a live band takes the main-floor stage for an hour or so, after which a DJ comes on board to conduct the disco until 3am.

In the city center near Santa Croce, Full-Up, Via della Vigna Vecchia 25r (tel. 055-293-006; www.fullupclub.com), is a long-enduring disco/piano bar that's one of the top (and more restrained) dance spaces in Florence for the postcollegiate set. There are plenty of theme evenings (revival, samba, punk), so call to find out what's on.

Not exactly cutting edge, but the most centrally located is Yab, Via Sassetti 5r (tel. 055-215-160; www.yab.it), just behind the main post office on Piazza della Repubblica. This dance club for 20-somethings is a perennial favorite, a relic of a 1980s disco complete with velvet rope and surly bouncers.

A balanced combination of visitors and Italians -- teenagers, students, and an under-30 crowd -- fills the two-floor Space, Via Palazzuolo 37 (tel. 055-293-082). On the first floor are a video karaoke bar, a pub, an American-style bar, and a conversation area. Head upstairs for the dance floor.

Cafe Culture

Florence no longer has a glitterati or intellectuals' cafe scene, and when it did -- from the late-19th-century Italian Risorgimento era through the dolce vita of the 1950s -- it was basically copying the idea from Paris. Although they're often overpriced tourist spots today, Florence's high-toned cafes are fine if you want designer pastries and hot cappuccino served to you while you sit on a piazza and people-watch.

At the refined, wood-paneled, stucco-ceilinged, and very expensive 1733 cafe Gilli, Piazza della Repubblica 36-39r/Via Roma 1r (tel. 055-213-896; www.gilli.it), tourists gather to sit with the ghosts of Italy's Risorgimento, when the cafe became an important meeting place of the heroes and thinkers of the unification movement from the 1850s to the 1870s. The red-jacketed waiters at Giubbe Rosse, Piazza della Repubblica 13-14r (tel. 055-212-280; www.giubberosse.it), must have been popular during the 19th-century glory days of Garibaldi's red-shirt soldiers. This was once a meeting place of the Florentine futurists, but aside from organized literary encounters on Wednesdays, today it too is mainly a tourists' cafe with ridiculous prices.

Once full of history and now mainly full of tourists, Rivoire, Piazza della Signoria/Via Vacchereccia 5r (tel. 055-214-412; www.rivoire.it), has a chunk of prime real estate on Piazza della Signoria. Smartly dressed waiters serve smartly priced sandwiches to cappuccino-sipping patrons. Giacosa, Via de' Tornabuoni 83r (tel. 055-239-6226), was a 19th-century hangout for literati and intellectual clutches as elegant as any of the others, but today it's really more of a high-class bar, with no outside tables. It makes a good shopping break, though, with panini, pastries, cold salads, and hot pasta dishes.

Pubs, Bars, & Wine Bars

Pubs & Bars -- There's an unsurprising degree of similarity among Florence's half-dozen Irish-style pubs' dark, woody interiors usually with several back rooms and plenty of smoke; and a crowd (stuffed to the gills on weekends) of students and 20- and 30-something Americans and Brits along with their Italian counterparts. The better ones are the Florence branch of the successful Italian chain Fiddler's Elbow, Piazza Santa Maria Novella 7r (tel. 055-215-056; www.thefiddlerselbow.com); The Old Stove, Via Pellicceria 4r (tel. 055-284-640; www.theoldstovepub.com), just down from Piazza della Repubblica; and, under the same management, The Lion's Fountain, Borgo Albizi 34r (tel. 055-234-4412; www.thelionsfountain.com), on the tiny but lively Piazza San Pier Maggiore near Santa Croce. You'll find plenty of others around town -- they pop up like mushrooms these days, but often disappear just as quickly.

Red Garter, Via de' Benci 33r (tel. 055-234-4904), is a speak-easy attracting a 20s-to-30s crowd of Italians and some Americans, Australians, and English. There's a small bi-level theater room in the back with live music some nights, karaoke others, nearly always with a one-man band with a guitar playing American and Italian rock hits with some blues mixed in.

For a swanky cocktail with a panoramic view of the city, check out the rooftop terrace of the Hotel Continentale, Vicolo dell'Oro 6r (next to the entrance of the Ponte Vecchio; tel. 055-272-62; www.lungarnohotels.com). The music is New Age lounge with a tropical feel. Sunset is the best time to visit. The million-dollar view is amortized by the steep price of a martini.

Wine Bars -- The most traditional wine bars are called fiaschetterie, after the word for a flask of chianti. They tend to be hole-in-the-wall joints serving sandwiches or simple food along with glasses filled to the brim -- usually with a house wine, though finer vintages are often available. Some of the best include I Fratellini, Via dei Cimatori 38r (tel. 055-239-6096), and La Mescita, Via degli Alfani 70r (tel. 347-795-1604). There's also a traditional wine shop in the Oltrarno called simply La Fiaschetteria, Via de' Serragli 47r (tel. 055-287-420), which, like many, doubles as a small locals' wine bar.

A more high-toned spot is the Cantinetta Antinori, Piazza Antinori 3 (tel. 055-292-234; www.cantinetta-antinori.com). It's housed in the palace headquarters of the Antinori wine empire at the top of Florence's main fashion drag, Via Tornabuoni. For a trendier wine bar focusing on handpicked labels offered with plates of cheese and other snacks, head to the Oltrarno and a real oenophile's hangout, Il Volpe e L'Uva, Piazza de' Rossi, behind Piazza Santa Felícita off Via Guicciardini (tel. 055-239-8132; www.levolpieluva.com). The Avuris, who run the Hotel Torre Guelfa, also own a great little wine bar right across from the Pitti Palace called Pitti Gola e Cantina, Piazza Pitti 16 (tel. 055-212-704), with glasses of wine from 4€ to 9€. The restaurant also has light dishes, meat and cheese platters, and cakes for 7€ to 15€.

The Gay & Lesbian Scene

The gay nightlife scene in Florence is gradually growing, and for lesbians it's pretty much just the Thursday through Saturday nights mixed gay-and-lesbian party at the Flamingo Bar, Via Pandolfini 26r (tel. 055-243-356), whereas the rest of the week it's men only. The main bar is downstairs, where an international gay crowd shows up in everything from jeans and T-shirts to full leather. Upstairs are a lounge and a theater showing videos and the occasional show. September through June, the ground floor becomes a dance floor Friday and Saturday nights pumping out commercial pop and lots of disco. The bar is open Sunday through Thursday from 10pm to 4am (until 6am Fri-Sat).

One of Florence's dark rooms is the Crisco Club, Via Sant'Egidio 43r, east of the Duomo (tel. 055-248-0580; www.criscoclub.it), for men only. Its 18th-century building contains a bar and a dance floor open Wednesday through Monday from 9pm to 3am (until 5am weekends). They also have male strippers and drag shows some weekends.

The only real gay dance floor of note is at the Tabasco Bar, Piazza Santa Cecilia 3r (tel. 055-213-000; www.tabascogay.it). Italy's first gay disco attracts crowds of men (mostly in their 20s and 30s) from all over the country. The music is techno, disco, and retro rock, but entertainment offerings also include cabaret, art shows, and the occasional transvestite comedy. In summer, foreigners arrive in droves. It's open Sunday through Thursday from 10pm to 3 or 4am (until 6am Fri-Sat). Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday it's all disco; Wednesday is leather night.

Recently, the owners of the Tabasco Bar opened Hard Bar 85 at Via Guelfa 85r (tel. 055-264-5461; www.tabascogay.it/bar85), which every night lives by their motto "Free your fantasies." Directly next door is Florence Baths (Via Guelfa 93r; (tel. 055-216050), which has saunas for men only. It's open daily from 2pm to 1am.