Things to Do in Florence: What Is Worth Your Time

Florence is small. You can walk across the historic centre in half an hour, and on a map it looks like a city you could exhaust in a weekend. That is exactly why people get it wrong: they plan by distance, when the thing that actually rations your time here is timed entry tickets and queues.

This guide is ordered the way you would actually move through the city on foot, not as a ranked list of 35 attractions. Where something needs booking, it says so and says how far ahead. Where something is overrated, it says that too.

What to do first, by how long you have

Almost every guide to Florence gives you a list of twenty-five things and leaves the hard part to you. The hard part is choosing. Here is what realistically fits.

If you are still deciding how long to stay, the longer version of this question is its own guide: how many days you actually need in Florence, including why the nights you book are not the days you get and why a Monday can cost you both galleries.

What you have to book before you fly

This is the part that decides whether your trip works. Florence runs on timed entry, and in high season the good slots go days ahead. The rest you can walk into.

The Duomo complex, and how it actually works

The most common misunderstanding in Florence is thinking that “the Duomo” is one ticket. It is six separate monuments in one square: the cathedral, the dome, Giotto’s bell tower, the Baptistery, the Opera del Duomo Museum and the crypt of Santa Reparata.

The cathedral is free. Everything else needs one of three passes, named Brunelleschi, Giotto and Ghiberti, sold on the official site. The Brunelleschi is the only one that includes the dome climb, and it covers all the monuments for three calendar days from the date you pick.

The detail that catches people out: only the dome has a fixed time slot. The bell tower, Baptistery and museum can be visited any time within those three days without booking a slot. And your dome reservation is tied to the first day of the pass, so do not buy a pass starting Monday and plan to climb on Wednesday.

Before you climb the dome

Five things the official rules make clear and most guides do not mention:

• 463 steps and no lift. Entry is from the Porta della Mandorla on the north side of the cathedral, not from the main façade
• You need photo ID. Since March 2025 an identity document is required alongside the ticket to climb
• You have five minutes of grace on your slot. Not fifteen. Reservations cannot be changed or cancelled once issued
• Bags go in the luggage store at Piazza Duomo 38/r before you enter. Turn up with a backpack and you will not be let in
• Not advised for anyone with heart problems, vertigo or claustrophobia, and under-18s cannot go up without an adult

The climb takes about 45 minutes including the queue at the top. What makes it worth the stairs is not the view, which the bell tower matches, but the fact that you pass within arm’s reach of the frescoes on the inside of the dome on the way up. You cannot see them that closely from anywhere else.

Giotto’s bell tower, the honest alternative

414 steps, also no lift, but no reservation required. If the dome slots are sold out or you would rather not commit to a fixed time, the bell tower gives you a comparable view of the city and a better view of the dome itself, for the obvious reason that you are not standing on it.

One thing that is currently missing

The mosaics on the vault of the Baptistery are not visible. They are under restoration, and the Baptistery is the one monument in the complex whose whole point is the ceiling. It is still included in the pass and still worth the fifteen minutes for the doors, but go in knowing that. No other guide in the search results mentions this.

The Uffizi and the Accademia

If you only have time for one, the answer depends on what you want rather than which is better. The Uffizi is a collection: Botticelli, Leonardo, Caravaggio, room after room, and it takes three hours to do at a civilised pace. The Accademia is one object: Michelangelo’s David, plus the unfinished Prisoners in the corridor leading to it, and you can be through it in an hour.

First-time visitors who like art should do the Uffizi. Anyone travelling with children, or short on time, should do the Accademia. Doing both on the same day is possible and almost always a mistake: it is five hours of standing indoors in a city you came to walk around.

One thing worth saying plainly, because most guides tiptoe around it: the David is one of the few famous objects that is genuinely better in person than in photographs. The scale does not come across on a screen. It is five metres tall, it was carved from a block another sculptor had already given up on, and it was meant to stand on the cathedral roofline, which is why the hands and head are deliberately oversized: they were designed to be seen from below.

What to actually look for in the Uffizi

The Uffizi is arranged chronologically and the temptation is to walk it end to end at an even pace. Do not. Three hours of even attention leaves you remembering nothing. The rooms that reward slowing down:

• Botticelli. The Birth of Venus and the Primavera hang in the same room, and it is the busiest room in the building. Go there first thing if your slot is early, or last if it is late
• Leonardo. The Annunciation and the unfinished Adoration of the Magi. The second is more interesting than the first precisely because it is unfinished: you see the underdrawing and how he worked
• Caravaggio. Later, quieter rooms, and after two hours of Renaissance serenity the contrast does the work for you
• The corridor windows. The building is a sixteenth century office block, which is what uffizi means, and the views down to the Arno from the west corridor are part of the visit

Practical: the cloakroom is compulsory for bags of any size and the queue for it is separate from the entry queue. Budget fifteen minutes on top of your slot.

The Accademia in an hour

The Accademia is a small museum with one enormous object, and the standard mistake is walking straight to the David. The corridor leading up to it holds Michelangelo’s unfinished Prisoners, figures that look like they are fighting their way out of the marble. Seeing them first is what makes the David land: you have just watched the process, and then you turn a corner into the finished result.

An hour is enough. Ninety minutes if you also want the musical instrument collection, which is better than it sounds and completely empty.

The rest of the centre, on foot

From the Duomo, everything below is within a fifteen-minute walk, and this is roughly the order that makes sense.

• Piazza della Signoria. An open-air sculpture gallery you can walk through for free, with the Loggia dei Lanzi at one end. The David here is a copy; the original is in the Accademia
• Palazzo Vecchio. Worth it for the Salone dei Cinquecento. The tower climb is a third viewpoint if you have not had enough stairs
• Ponte Vecchio. Ten minutes, busy at all hours, and better looked at from the next bridge along than walked across
• The Oltrarno. Across the river. Cheaper, better food, artisan workshops, and where you should eat at least once
• Mercato Centrale. Ground floor is a real food market, first floor is a food hall. Go for lunch, not dinner
• Santa Croce. The burial church of Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli. Quieter than the Duomo and, for many people, more moving

Across the river: Pitti, Boboli and the Oltrarno

Most visitors cross the Ponte Vecchio, take a photograph and turn back. That is a mistake, because the Oltrarno is where Florence stops performing for tourists and starts being a city again: the artisan workshops are real, the restaurants are cheaper, and it is a ten-minute walk from the Duomo.

Palazzo Pitti

The Medici moved here when the Palazzo Vecchio stopped being grand enough, and the scale shows. The Palatine Gallery upstairs hangs paintings the way an eighteenth century palace did, floor to ceiling and frame to frame, which after the ordered rooms of the Uffizi is either overwhelming or a relief depending on your mood.

It is the least crowded of the major museums, and the Uffizi Galleries recently opened a new entrance to it. If the Uffizi is fully booked for your dates, this is the substitute nobody thinks of.

The Boboli Gardens

Behind the palace, and the reason to combine the two into one afternoon. Boboli is a sixteenth century formal garden built up a hillside, which means the payoff for the climb is a view back over the city with almost nobody in it. Take water in summer: there is very little shade on the upper terraces.

One practical note that matters more than it sounds: it is a garden, not a park. It closes in the late afternoon, earlier in winter, so it does not work as a sunset plan.

The museums nobody queues for

The Uffizi and the Accademia absorb almost all the demand in Florence, which leaves three genuinely first-rank collections that you can usually walk into.

• The Bargello. If the David gave you a taste for Renaissance sculpture, this is where the rest of it is: Donatello, Michelangelo, Cellini, in a medieval building that was once a prison. It is the single best value-for-queue ratio in the city
• The Medici Chapels. Michelangelo designed the New Sacristy, and it is one of the few places where you see his architecture and his sculpture working as one thing. Ten minutes from the Duomo, a fraction of the visitors
• Santa Maria Novella. The church next to the station, with a façade by Alberti and frescoes by Ghirlandaio. Most people walk past it with a suitcase

And one that is not a museum but belongs here: the Vasari Corridor, the elevated passage the Medici used to cross the city without touching the street. It reopened to visitors and currently runs a Friday evening opening. It is sold as an add-on to the Uffizi ticket.

Where to eat, and where not to

Florence has a specific food identity and it is not generic Italian. Bistecca alla fiorentina is a thick T-bone from Chianina cattle, served rare, sold by weight and meant for two people. If a restaurant offers you one cooked well done, or portions it for one, you are not in a Florentine restaurant.

The everyday version of the city’s food is cheaper and better than the tourist version: schiacciata, the flat salted bread used for sandwiches; lampredotto, the tripe sandwich sold from street carts that is the genuine local street food; and ribollita, a bread and vegetable soup that exists because nobody threw stale bread away.

Mercato Centrale is the easy answer for lunch. The ground floor is a working produce market, the first floor is a food hall. It is not a secret and it is not cheap by local standards, but the quality holds up.

The rule that saves you the most money and disappointment: walk two streets away from any monument before you sit down. The difference in both price and quality between a table with a view of the Duomo and one three minutes away is not small.

Getting around, and where to stay

Florence is a walking city and you should not need transport at all. The historic centre is roughly two kilometres across. There are buses and a tram, but for a normal visit to the sights you will not use them, and much of the centre is a restricted traffic zone anyway.

That restricted zone matters if you are driving: it is enforced by camera and the fines arrive months later, at home. If you are renting a car for Tuscany, the sane approach is to pick it up on the day you leave Florence, not the day you arrive.

For where to sleep, the short version: the historic centre between the cathedral and Santa Croce puts everything within walking distance and is quiet once the day visitors leave. The Oltrarno is cheaper, has better food and is ten minutes further out. Near the station is the cheapest and the least pleasant.

Where to watch the sunset

Piazzale Michelangelo is the famous answer and it is the right one, with a caveat: it is crowded, and the walk up takes 20 to 25 minutes from the river. Go early enough to get a spot on the wall.

If you want the same view with a third of the people, keep walking uphill for another ten minutes to San Miniato al Monte. It is higher, it is a working Romanesque church, and if your timing is right you may catch the monks singing vespers.

Day trips from Florence

If you have a third or fourth day, Florence is the best base in Tuscany for a day out. The four that actually work, and what each one is for:

The honest ranking: if you only take one, Chianti, because it is the landscape people picture when they think of Tuscany and it is 40 minutes away. Our wine guides cover which tours are worth it.

What to skip, and why

Every guide tells you what to do. Fewer are willing to say what is not worth it, which is more useful when you have two days.

• Restaurants on the perimeter of the Duomo and the Signoria. Not a scam, just the worst value in the city. Two streets away the same meal is a third less
• The leather “schools” and factory outlets that people steer you into from the street. There are real leather workshops in the Oltrarno, and they are not the ones sending someone to find you
• Doing the Uffizi and the Accademia on the same day. Covered above, and the single most common way visitors ruin a two-day trip
• A guided tour of the city centre on your first morning. Florence is walkable and legible. Save the guide budget for the Uffizi, where context genuinely changes what you see

When to go, and what changes

Florence has no bad season, but it has one genuinely difficult one. July and August combine peak heat with peak crowds in a city with very little shade and a lot of stone. Queues that take twenty minutes in April take an hour in August, and the dome climb becomes a serious physical proposition rather than a brisk one.

Two dates worth knowing whatever month you pick: the state museums, including the Uffizi, are free on the first Sunday of every month, which is wonderful if you do not mind queues and miserable if you do. And the Duomo complex is closed on 25 December, 1 January and Easter Sunday, while the Opera del Duomo Museum closes on the first Tuesday of each month for maintenance.

Frequently asked questions