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But also the heat and humidity; trying to avoid not only the tourist streams but also the workers carrying out street repairs; and coping with obstinate bureaucrats and the occasional smell of sewage.
In the baking hot Boboli Gardens behind the Pitti Palace one identifies in more than one way with the protagonists in Dan Brown's thriller 'Inferno', which is set primarily in Florence.
A passage built by Giorgio Vasari starts at the gardens.
Running along the top of the Ponte Vecchio, it allowed the Medici dukes, and the more recent heroes, to pass from the Pitti Palace all the way to the administrative offices in the Palazzo Vecchio.
It is instructive to compare two similar churches by the Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi, the earlier one, San Lorenzo near the cathedral, and the other, Santo Spirito just across the square from our apartment on the southern side of the Arno.
Both have harmonious rows of classical columns and arches in shades of grey, a return to the Roman basilica style after the long excursion into Romanesque and Gothic.
San Lorenzo is the grander of the two, with pilastered transepts.
Santo Spirito emphasises spatial relationships and offers fascinating vistas from all parts of the building because of the double row of grey columns with Corinthian capitals which continues right round the church, including the apse and transepts.
The outer aisles are lower as in a Mediaeval church, but this only enhances the sense of space elsewhere.
Inside that church is a lyrical early Crucifixion by Michelangelo, not muscular at all, more in the style of Donatello.
Apparently it was a gift to the monks for allowing him to do anatomical studies on corpses from the monastery hospital.
Michelangelo's reclining female figures Dusk and Night in the Medici Chapel are magnificent; they somewhat overshadow the other figures, including the fine seated statues of the dukes entombed there.
The building itself, despite Vasari's additions, is very harmonious.
In Santa Maria Novella you can spend hours admiring the vast frescoes by Filippino Lippi, Domenico Ghirlandaio and the fourteenth-century Bonaiuto, as well as an expressive Brunelleschi Crucifixion and the famous Masaccio Trinity with its perfect perspective.
Ghirlandaio is a master of architectural features in the backgrounds of his frescoes, notably in his Life of Mary cycle in the Cappella Maggiore behind the high altar; the whole on three walls makes an overwhelming impression.
Sometimes you come across something so unexpected, so extraordinary, that it remains burned into the memory.
A Last Supper by the same Ghirlandaio at Ognisanti, one of four he painted in and around Florence, is one of those items.
It is on the far wall of the cenacolo or refectory of the monks and one is instantly struck by the similarities to Leonardo's Last Supper in Milan, which was clearly influenced by the Ghirlandaio, painted two years before Leonardo left Florence for Milan in 1482.
The fresco is rich and colourful, owing to good restoration, especially after the floods of 1966, and makes a strong impact the minute you come into the room.
It depicts the same 'Lord, is it I' moment when Jesus speaks of betrayal; in this version, Judas is placed away from the other disciples at the front of the table.
Every apostle is a personality with a different reaction to the situation.
The detail of the objects on the table is unexpectedly fine, more what one would expect from the Flemish masters like van Eyck.
In the background are citrus trees and birds, all of which have a symbolic significance.
Orsanmichele is another church of interest.
It began life as a granary, hence its tall rectangular form with open space underneath for the buying and selling of grain.
Then the ground floor arches were replaced with decorated-style Gothic windows for the church.
There are still grain chutes in some of the columns inside.
The Bargello, basically a mediaeval castle with courtyard, contains a rich collection of mainly Renaissance sculpture including youthful works by Michelangelo, powerful human figures and true-to-life birds by Giambologna, impressive works in bronze by Benvenuto Cellini, and Donatello's naked David with hat, John the Baptist and St George.
In addition we saw a sculpture I've known for a long time but never seen 'in the flesh', Bernini's sensual bust of his mistress Costanza Bonarelli caught in the act of breathing.
Savonarola's Dominican monastery of San Marco is of course famous primarily for Fra Angelico's earlier frescoes and other paintings, of which the best is undoubtedly the Annunciation, a jewel of Renaissance art.
Every cell of the monastery still has a fresco designed to help each monk concentrate on his prayers.
Another interesting feature is the Last Supper painted by Ghirlandaio in the late 1470s, which I do not find as spiritual or as dramatic as the very similar one dated 1480 at Ognisanti.
Michelangelo's late Pietà, planned for his own tomb, can be visited at the Cathedral Museum.
It is an incomplete work of considerable power and a very personal statement.
He has given Nicodemus his own features under a hood.
Nicodemus asks in the Bible: I am old, how can I be born again? Michelangelo's dead Christ answers that question archetypally with a body of youthful strength.
The original Paradise Doors by Ghiberti from the Baptistery are also on display in the Museum.
They are astonishingly free of the Gothic influence in his earlier Baptistery doors and are rightly hailed as a masterpiece.
The vast space of the duomo rang with the chatter of tourists, and anything of interest was roped off.
At least Vasari's Last Judgment frescoes could be seen gracing the interior of Brunelleschi's dome.
Of interest in the crypt, however, was the mosaic floor from the original Roman building on the site.
The Baptistery, despite the large tourist groups, was overpowering.
The elevations of the octagonal interior (paired arches over Corinthian pilasters and columns) are extremely graceful Roman work from the fifth century AD.
The remarkable mosaics on the eight ceiling segments date from the thirteenth century and are attributable to Jacopo, a Franciscan friar.
They depict biblical scenes and a powerful Last Judgment crowned by an enormous Pantocrator (deity) and a ring of similarly-sized dark-coloured angels on a gold background.
We went to the Uffizi early to avoid the crowds and got the groups.
A number of important works were missing.
Entry with our 'Friends' card posed few problems though.
And it was a pleasure to see the Portinari Altarpiece of van der Goes again along with works by Duerer, Giotto, the Lippis, father and son, Titian, Raphael and Botticelli and a naughty Eve by Cranach the Elder.
I called in to our local church, Santo Spirito, and again enjoyed Brunelleschi's genius in placing Corinthian columns all the way around the interior of the building.
He heightened the harmonious consistency of this concept by designing a continuous row of chapels on the outer walls behind the inner columns.
His signature rounded clerestory windows flood the building with light; the church is the epitome of classical restraint.
We made a visit to the Brancacci Chapel near our apartment to see Masaccio's seminal frescoes.
The realism and plasticity of his early fifteenth-century human figures is astounding.
While the perspective and proportions of the buildings behind are more or less correct, Masaccio, like his more primitive predecessors, is not interested in the textures of their surfaces (or perhaps they were painted by his collaborator Masolino).
The verisimilitude, drama and emotions of the action in the foreground are his new concern.
Santa Croce is a treasure-house of Mediaeval and Renaissance art and a necropolis for great Italians like Dante, Galileo, Michelangelo and Rossini.
The Giotto frescoes in the Bardi Chapel are a bit the worse for wear, but all the Taddeo Gaddi frescoes can be enjoyed fully.
There is also an extraordinary Bronzino in the refectory ('The descent of Christ into Limbo' from 1552, restored recently in rich colour after damage caused by the 1966 floods - a wild Mannerist orgy).
The graceful second cloister is a Renaissance jewel, but most exciting of all is Brunelleschi's grand Pazzi Chapel, which surely uses the Golden Section for its classical proportions.
It has a Corinthian order porch facade with central arch, Corinthian pilasters on the inner facade, and a perfect interior with dark grey ('serena') classical features.
After the luxury evident throughout the Medicis' Pitti Palace, the stern, restrained lines of the externally similar Palazzo Strozzi are quite a relief.
It houses at present a learned and well-curated special exhibition about the genesis and development of Renaissance sculpture, with impressive examples from Donatello, Ghiberti and their contemporaries.
A further pilgrimage to works by Michelangelo's teacher Domenico Ghirlandaio, this time in Santa Trinità, just over the bridge from our apartment: in addition to some attractive 14th-century altarpieces, the Gothic church boasts a chapel frescoed by Ghirlandaio and a charming altar painting by him as well (The Adoration of the Shepherds).
All his works are exceedingly detailed, displaying that Flemish influence I already mentioned, and have richly-worked backgrounds.
The Palazzo Vecchio 'improvements' by Vasari are interesting as a document of the period, particularly the notion of the godlike attributes of Cosimo I (1519-1574) - a whole allegorical programme.
And some of Vasari's Mannerist frescoes are rather fine.
I should also mention Ghirlandaio's earlier Medici fresco, full of worldly self-confidence.
San Miniato, the Romanesque church on a hill behind the Pitti Palace, has the typical facade of green and white marble and an evocative interior.
It is one of our last ports of call.
The walk to the church via the Piazzale Michelangelo is up ancient, wide steps from the river.
Spinello from Arezzo and Taddeo Gaddi respectively supplied fourteenth-century frescoes in the church sacristy and in the many-columned eleventh-century crypt under the monks' presbytery and apse (the latter decorated with a mosaic Pantocrator).
To conclude our stay in Florence, a perfect experience: listening to the last three of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos (virtuoso playing on modern instruments) in the ancient courtyard of the Bargello and walking home afterwards at 11pm past the floodlit statues dedicated to Medici power in the Piazza della Signoria.
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