The Ponte Vecchio or ‘Old Bridge’, that joins the centre of city with the district of Oltrarno on the south bank of the river Arno, is surely one of the great icons of Florence and one of the most famous bridges in the world.It crosses the river at its narrowest point within the city, and a series of bridges – of which this the fifth – have stood on or around this spot since the days of the Ancient Romans. The current bridge was finished by 1350, built after a catastrophic flood in 1333 carried away its predecessor. It is best known today for the wooden-shuttered goldsmiths’ shops that line both sides of it, and for the Vasari Corridor that runs over it (a private aerial walkway built in 1561 so the Medici family could move between the Palazzo Pitti and the Palazzo Vecchio, safe from risk of assassination in the streets below).