HOW ARRIVE TO PONTE VECCHIO:
Exit from your B&B Home in Palace in Florence and going towards the centre, after 240 meters turn left onto Via della Colonna, after 220 meters turn right into Via della Pergola, after 400 meters turn right into Via Sant'Egidio, after 100 meters turn left onto Via Folco Portinari After 90 metres turn right into Via dell'Oriuolo after 90 meters turn left on Via del Proconsolo, after 190 meters turn right into Via Dante Alighieri, after 90 meters turn left in Piazza di San Martino, after 40 mt continues in Via dei Magazzini, after 80 meters turn right into Piazza della Signoria, after 140 meters turn right into Via Vacchereccia after 70 meters turn left onto Via Por Santa Maria, after 150 meters You have arrived in Ponte Vecchio.

HISTORY OF PONTE VECCHIO:
The bridge spans the Arno at its narrowest point where it is believed that a bridge was first built in Roman times, when the via Cassia crossed the river at this point. The Roman piers were of stone, the superstructure of wood. The bridge first appears in a document of 996. After being destroyed by a flood in 1117 it was reconstructed in stone but swept away again in 1333 save two of its central piers, as noted by Giovanni Villani in his Nuova Cronica. It was rebuilt in 1345, Giorgio Vasari recorded the tradition in his day, that attributed its design to Taddeo Gaddi, besides Giotto one of the few artistic names of the trecento still recalled two hundred years later. Modern historians present Neri di Fioravanti as a possible candidate.[10] Sheltered in a little loggia at the central opening of the bridge is a weathered dedication stone, which once read Nel trentatrè dopo il mille-trecento, il ponte cadde, per diluvio dell' acque: poi dieci anni, come al Comun piacque, rifatto fu con questo adornamento

The bridge consists of three segmental arches: the main arch has a span of 30 meters (98 ft) the two side arches each span 27 meters (88 ft). The rise of the arches is between 3.5 and 4.4 meters (11½ to 14½ feet), and the span-to-rise ratio 5:1.

It has always hosted shops and merchants who displayed their goods on tables before their premises, after authorization of the Bargello (a sort of a lord mayor, a magistrate and a police authority). The back shops (retrobotteghe) that may be seen from upriver, were added in the seventeenth century.

It is said that the economic concept of bankruptcy originated here: when a merchant could not pay his debts, the table on which he sold his wares (the "banco") was physically broken ("rotto") by soldiers, and this practice was called "bancorotto" (broken table; possibly it can come from "banca rotta" which means "broken bank"). Not having a table anymore, the merchant was not able to sell anything.