Parco della Cascine

A beautiful public park stretched along the Arno just outside the cetner of Florence

Florence’s main city park stretches along the Arno at the west end of the historic center. Originally a wild delta of land where the Arno and Mugnone rivers met, the area later became a Medici hunting reserve and eventually a pasture for the grand duke's milk cows.

Today, the Cascine is home to tennis courts, pools, a horse racetrack, and some odd late-18th- and early-19th-century features like an incongruous pyramid and funky neoclassical fountains. There's a flea market here every Tuesday morning.

Though perfectly safe in the daylight—and has some nightclubs at its eastern end—this park becomes a bit of a den of thieves and hangout for heroin addicts after dark, as do many sections of the Arno's banks, so steer clear.

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