This expedition penetrates the historic nucleus of Florence among palaces and churches where the spoils of the Renaissance are gathered. In distance it is not long: you could stride around the course in an hour or so. Eight or nine absolutely un-missable sights are dotted along the route, however, not to mention a few of the best and busiest shopping streets. Even if you merely admire the architecture from the outside and only look at the open-air statuary, you will have to add on the time you spend staring in stupefaction before unchal­lengeable genius.

In one day’s walk you will not give more than perhaps two places the attention they deserve – the obvious choices would be the Uffizi gallery and the Santa Maria Novella church – and it is hard, in the tourist season, to avoid standing for an hour or more in a queue at the famous galleries unless you book online. But you will surely resolve to come back again and again until you and Florence are properly acquainted.

Start: in Piazza Santa Croce on the east side of the city centre – see map. It is a square of sensible proportions, the venue over seven centuries for Florence’s outdoor entertainments. The famous Calcio, the 16thC football game in fancy dress in which the rules were flexible enough to permit the paying-off of old scores and sometimes kicking your opponent to death, has always been played here. (St John’s week, around June 24th, sees one game here, one in Piazza Signoria and one in the Boboli gardens.)

With the large piazza goes the great Gothic church of Santa Croce, not in the top flight for artistic riches (though the Giotto frescos, done when the place was new in about 1300, are important enough) but visited because it is a shrine of celebrities. Ghiberti, Michelangelo and Machiavelli are buried here; also Galileo, who had to wait a century for Christian burial on account of his heretical tendencies. Visit the Museo (see www.santacroceopera.it), between two cloisters, to see a marvellous work of restora­tion: Cimabue’s Crucifixion, rescued from almost total ruin in the Arno floods of 1966.

Via dei Benci takes you to the Arno bank, where you turn right for the Uffizi, headquarters of an enormous medieval bureaucracy (the word means ‘offices’) and the first public picture gallery of modern times. The last of the Medici bequeathed the building and its collections to the citizens in 1737. In international prestige it runs second only to the Louvre in Paris. See below for more information.

If you haven’t walked on the Ponte Vecchio, now is the time. An arcade on the riverbank, rebuilt after the 1966 floods like the houses around it, makes a covered way from the Uffizi. The ‘Old Bridge’ of Florence was much knocked about in flood and war but is now restored to its 14thC shape. The jewellers who work in shops jutting out over the river from both sides of the walkway are the heirs of those from whom Ghiberti and Donatello learned their trades. A bust, half way across the bridge, commemorates Benvenuto Cellini, most famous of them.

Retracing your footsteps from Ponte Vecchio, turn into the Uffizi (www.uffizi.com). The vast picture gallery is of course too much for one day. Concentrate instead on your favourite Old Masters – they are all here, divided into their schools. Of the 45 rooms, the first eight are devoted to Gothic and early Renaissance painters; the section 10-14, usually the most crowded one, is mainly Botticelli. Check opening times and book tickets online to avoid waiting in the very long queue.

Emerging on the north side, pausing under the arcades to rummage for souvenirs, trinkets, art works and picture postcards, you enter the renowned medieval square, Piazza della Signoria, flanked by the Palazzo Vecchio, 13thC parliament hall of Florence, and the beautiful Loggia dei Lanzi. (Signoria is government; the Lanzi were the Medici’s personal bodyguards.) Both Loggia and Piazza display open-air sculptures of great beauty and technical interest, Cellini’s bronze Perseus among them; but it is Michelangelo’s David which rivets the eye. Florence commissioned this 4-m marble statue in 1501 and with it Michelangelo declared his genius. ‘The nose is too long,’ a councillor objected. The artist obediently went up the scaffold with a chisel and a handful of marble dust. As he pretended to chip, he let the dust trickle down. ‘Perfect,’ said the gonfaloniere, ‘you have given it life.’

Not all are aware that this David is a copy; the original is in the fine arts museum of the Accademia on Via Ricasoli, north of the Duomo, along with six other remarkable but unfinished statues by Michelangelo (see www.accademia.org).

Ammanati’s fountain group on the piazza is no accomplishment of genius, but Florence has its own opinions about art: Neptune, nicknamed II Biancone (‘the big white guy’), is a popular figure.

Turn right along Palazzo Vecchio (much art and history inside, if only you had time) and left into Piazza San Firenze. The stern battlemented fort of the Bargello blocks your path. It is the national museum, a repository of sculptures as priceless as the Uffizi paintings, the best place in the world for studying Donatello, Verrocchio and the della Robbias. Opposite is the slim tower of the abbey church of Florence, the Badia, with decorative porticoes, loggia and ‘cloister of the oranges’ worth inspecting, though it is many a long year since fruit was grown there.

Continuing north on Via del Proconsolo you approach Piazza del Duomo and there before you is Brunelleschi’s dome, as unmistakable as the Taj Mahal. Dedicated to Santa Maria del Fiore, this cathedral took 140 years to build (1296-1436). Brunelleschi’s crowning glory, the terracotta and coloured marble cupola, bigger and brighter than anything seen before, was said to ‘shelter all the people of Tuscany’. As you enter the piazza, another marvel takes shape on the left – Giotto’s box-like bell-tower, jazz-striped in green and white marble. The two apparently incongruous buildings form a miracle of harmony. Stamp Florence on your mind for ever by climbing the Duomo (463 steps) or the campanile (414 steps) and gazing on the rusty old city inside the blue girdle of the Florentine hills. At ground level, remember to look at Ghiberti’s bronze doors to the Baptistery, especially the east door (1452) which Michelangelo likened to the gateway to Paradise.

Continue north on Via Martelli to the Medici Riccardi Palace, a noble building by Michelozzo and probably Michelangelo too. Its great treasure is Benozzo Gozzoli’s well-known Journey of the Magi (1459), frescoed on the first-floor chapel walls. Between this palace and San Lorenzo’s church, on Piazza San Lorenzo, is the antidote to cultural indigestion, a bustling street-market for clothes, handbags, woven bags, jewellery and leather boxes, open early am to late pm daily except on Sat in summer and Mon in winter. North of here on Piazza San Marco, beyond the Accademia, is another lively rendezvous, cheerful with students from the nearby University.

Turn west on to Via Giglio for Santa Maria Novella and its green marbled monumental cloisters with Paolo Uccello’s quaint frescos. Returning to the Arno bank on Via Porcellana you may just have time to slip into the Ognissanti church to see works by Ghirlandaio and Botticelli. The latter is buried here.

Return to the river on Lungarno Vespucci and walk upstream along Lungarno Corsini where  Palazzo Corsini (www.palazzocorsini.com) has a fine private art collection but is these days open only for upmarket events. Return to the Ponte Vecchio. The gridiron of narrow streets on the left is the smart shopping district. Via Tornabuoni and its intersections, especially Via Vigna Nuova, are the axis; all-pedestrian, always crowded between Easter and September.

Refined taste and careful workmanship are the hallmarks of Florentine goods. Straw, skins, silks, gold, silver and semi-precious stones are typical raw materials. Glassware, filigree, embroidered lingerie and ready-to-wear clothes are sought after for their fine detail and stylishness.