Five nights in Florence

4 days ago

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It’s difficult to know where to start with Florence. Such a beautiful city. For the most part I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

We stayed at Firenze HU Camping Village in a wheelchair accessible chalet, which was fairly small but sufficient for us. It was located just south of the city and on a frequent bus route making it easy to get in and out of the city.

The chalet had two bedrooms, with en-suite shower rooms, either side of a central living area. The wall between the accessible bedroom and shower room slid right open to create a large space. There were no grab rails for the shower or toilet which is a basic requirement for accessibility, but didn’t hinder us. We found a space for our trusty trolley which carries all Racheal’s medical supplies, and there was room to have the changing table up and still manoeuvre the hoist. We used the smaller chair indoors and kept the Treki in the car. There was a pay laundry on site, a supermarket and restaurant.

Apart from a morning visiting to the most confusing supermarket ever, we spent our days and some evenings enjoying the sights, sounds and atmosphere of Florence.

The bus was easy to use and the drivers were helpful. Bus tickets have to be bought in advance, which we could purchase at the campsite reception. We got a street map showing accessible routes from the tourist information centre, but to be honest we didn’t really use it. Many pavements are not wide enough for wheelchairs, or they are blocked by bikes, vehicles, rubbish and other obstacles, but people just walk in the road in the city centre so we joined the trend.

Some of the accessibility features that impressed us in Florence were seatbelts to secure the wheelchair on the buses, Braille and raised plans in the train station, disabled parking spaces for rear access vehicles like ours, sign language videos in Galileo museum, and the accessible route map for the city.