I’ve been enjoying contributing to Florence’s wonderful English-language monthly magazine The Florentine with some stories about family life in Italy.  My latest – in the July issue – gives a taste of the outdoor city pools around Florence, which many visitors and even residents are not so familiar with.

From Costoli with its big diving board once tackled by my daughter, to the beautiful Pavoniere pool in the Cascine park in the west, these pools offer an easy way to beat the heat all summer in Florence.

Here is a link to my story in The Florentine.

If you’re travelling with kids to Florence you might want to check out some of these pools for an inexpensive afternoon to cool off and get to see how the locals live.

Costoli has one big pool for serious swimmers, a wonderful deep diving pool, and a smaller pool for kids. And of course a bar.

You can read more about how my daughter beat the local boys to jump from the top!

Functional changing room area

With the inevitable turtles

The “Magnificent Le Pavoniere” in the Cascine park is a lovely pool and restaurant during the day, nightclub by night. There is a playground adjoining it and of course plenty of space in the park outside for rollerblading, or you can enjoy the Tuesday morning market, the biggest in Florence.

It’s called Le Pavoniere after the peacock motif you see in the mock temples around the pool. Classy!

Hidron pool is further out from Florence, in Campi Bisenzio, further west from Ikea and the airport and not far from the huge shopping centre I Gigli. You can reach it by bus but it’s easier by car. In winter it’s a great indoor pool/water park and in the summer this fabulous outdoor pool is open – no slides or anything fancy, just a lovely big, relatively-shallow pool. I guess this nice little bar opens sometimes?

This gorgeous pool, Rari Nantes, is right on the south side of the Arno river just east of central Florence. Unfortunately it’s not usually open to the public, but reserved for members, waterpolo players, and swimming classes. My kids did a June intensive course here and I got to enjoy a bit of sun and views while waiting for them (in the bar).