Arezzo: an introductory stroll

Porta de San Lorentino

We have just arrived for a week’s holiday based in Arezzo and decided to immediately go for a walk to get our bearings. The hotel is out to the west of the town, so the first task was discover where the road that we are on enters the city. 10 minutes later we discovered that it was at the Porta de San Lorentino (St Lawrence).

This was one of four gates in the town walls erected by the Medici rulers in 1664 and the bit of wall next to it seems to be all that remains of them. 

Once inside we walked straight ahead, gradually uphill, in the direction of the Duomo. We emerged into a delightful piazza with the cathedral on the left on a high plinth, reached by steps. It was begun from 1278 and mostly finished by 1510, but the facade was only finally completed in 1914.

To the right was the imposing complex of the Palazzo Communale.

We carried on in the same direction, passing the Cathedral on our left. We went briefly in to the Park il Prato to see if there was a view from its belvedere. There was, but it was not especially interesting.

We now headed right, aiming for the Piazza Grande. We passed the very undistinguished-looking house where the poet Petrach was born and headed down the street towards the tower of the Church of Santa Maria della Pieve. This remarkable romanesque church will feature again in this walk, but for the moment I will note that the "tower of a hundred holes" dates from 1330.

On the right was a fine palazzo with an extraordinary facade. This is the Palazzo Pretorio, now the city library. Rather wonderfully, just to the right is a public cloister with tables and chairs where you can go to work. There is even WiFi.

Now we turned into Vasari’s loggia, the beautiful renaissance arcade designed by the Arezzo-born Georgio Vasari, famous still for his Lives of the Artists, but also a painter and architect of some renown in his own day. It is his 500th anniversary and there is an exhibition to celebrate. We plan to visit his house later in the week.

The loggia forms the north side of the Piazza Grande and we paused for a light lunch and a read in the late afternoon sunshine. First we studied the view across the Piazza, which being on a slope reminded us of the famous one in Sienna. On the left is the apse of Santa Maria della Pieve and to the right is the Palazzetto della Fraternita dei Laici, with Vasari’s loggia completing the picture. We noticed that one of the many columns in the wonderful apse had a kink in it (bottom row, third from the left).

Finally, we headed downhill to just see the church of San Francesco, the site of the famous fresco cycle by Pierro della Francesca, the Legend of the True Cross. This is what brought us to Arezzo in the first place, and will be our first stop tomorrow. The facade is dreadfully plain, but what riches lie within!

After an early dinner we headed back to the hotel impressed with what we had seen and looking forward to a further exploration tomorrow and later in the week.

Conditions: hazy sunshine, 28 degrees.

Distance: about four miles.

Rating: four stars.