Three charming itineraries of fantasy that lead the attentive tourist in the footsteps of Pinocchio thanks to a guide and a bespoke route created by the Florence City Council, Quartiere 5 and the Borough Council of Sesto Fiorentino.

So yes, Florence isn’t solely rich in stories and characters in the city centre alone. You just need to move into the suburbs, which are often ignored, to discover a lesser known Florence that is just as fascinating. Among these out-of-town areas, Carlo Lorenzini, known better to everyone with the pseudonym of Collodi (from the village near to Pistoia where his mother was born) took the inspiration for his extremely famous fairytale that is still one of the best-known books worldwide today.

The wooden puppet that has made generation of children dream tells tales about the characters and issues of the 18th century Florentine suburbs, thereby restoring tourism to an area that was wrongly regarded as marginal.

A trip that isn’t just for kids – after all, it would be incorrect to consider Pinocchio as a children’s book – but a route that makes us discover places and lets us be swayed by their charms – why not?

The guide book, simple and well done, retraces the fairytale, winding around the three routes that all start from Villa Il Bel Riposo, where Carlo Lorenzini stayed for a long time as the guest of his brother Paolo, director of Antica Manifattura Ginori di Doccia and which was marked with a plaque as from April of last year. Right from the tower of this villa, Collodi would have seen the Great Oak, the river Arno, which was the “Great Sea” for the Florentines in the last century, the blonde-haired baby girl that became the Blue Fairy in his imagination and who had a first name and a surname: Giovanna Ragionieri, who lived to be 94 years old in Castello and died a few years ago.

Collodi loved to walk around these places, talking with people, crossing the plains, which were often swampy and definitely very dark at night – "a meeting place for vagrants, thieves and murderers".

The 12 stages of the three different routes that wind around Castello, Peretola and Sesto Fiorentino are marked with signs that offer striking scenery with the stories of Pinocchio and lots of news on historical and popular mementos, as well as a map with details. Here are the three different routes and the locations of the fairytales:

Itinerary 1: Castello - "The workshop of Mastro Ciliegia", "The large oak", "The village street", "The school".
Itinerary 2: Peretola and Osmannoro - "The sea", "The fire-eaters’ theatre", "The meeting between the fox and the cat", "The island of the hard-working bees".
Itinerary 3: Sesto Fiorentino - "The village of toys", "The theatre of the ass Pinocchio", “The restaurant of Gambero Rosso", "The field of miracles".

Every place where you stop and close your eyes, imagining that you are alongside the wooden puppet will take you to an unusual Florence that is fascinating in itself, suspended between fairytale and reality.