Tourists eager to do more than sightsee gain new skills and insights from schools’ intensive courses.
The neighborhood of San Frediano once resounded with the hammers of leather workers, hat makers and numerous other artisans, but today the soundtrack of its streets is the gabbing of tourists and rumble of their suitcases’ wheels over the cobblestones.
In the search for a true experience in the city, some of those same vacationers have been discovering courses in traditional crafts, like those at the Alchimia Contemporary Jewelry School, on a back street in San Frediano. Here, the hammer clangs carry on — the classroom’s aural backdrop as students learn the art of goldsmithing,
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