Ponte Vecchio

Icon of the city of Florence, it is one of the best known bridges in the world. The bridge was built in Roman times, for the crossing of the Arno river. Over the centuries it has also become a place of commerce, there were many meat shops. The corridor that passes above it, Corridoio Vesariano, was commissioned by Duke Cosimo I de 'Medici (1565), to avoid walking among the bad smells of the shops and to connect Palazzo Vecchio with Palazzo Pitti. Subsequently the butchers' shops were granted to the goldsmiths, as they paid higher taxes, and in this way the hygienic problem of that time was solved. During the Second World War, the bridge was not damaged, not because the Germans spared it, but because a goldsmith was able to discover the day and time of the detonation of the explosives to destroy it, and the night before, he sabotaged the military plans. Currently the bridge houses various types of shops, and is visited by many tourists due to its notoriety.