Florence
A city the size of a neighbourhood where the Renaissance began
- When to go
- October 17° · 12 rainy days
- Per day
- ~41 · 106 · 131 €budget · mid · comfort, per person · checked 29 Sep 2026
- How many days
- 2days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 5 km Florence · 69 km Pisa
- Right now
Florence needs two days on foot and one booking before you travel — a slot to climb Brunelleschi's dome. The historic centre, UNESCO-listed since 1982, takes about twenty minutes to cross from Santa Maria Novella station to Santa Croce, so everything else arranges itself around that one slot.
Brunelleschi's dome is still the largest brick dome ever built, raised in the fifteenth century without wooden centring under the vault. The top is 463 steps up a narrow passage between the dome's two shells. There is no lift, so the climb does not suit anyone who dislikes enclosed spaces. The cathedral itself is free to enter without booking; the dome goes by timed slot only.
Florence works as a base for day trips into Tuscany. By car, Pienza in Val d'Orcia is about 120 kilometres away, a little over an hour and a half, close enough to be back for dinner, so three or four days in Florence become two days of city and two of Tuscany without changing hotels.
Guides for Florence
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
Florence in 2 days
→Two days by the hour: the dome in the first slot, the Uffizi after four at the lower price, the Accademia at opening…
Day trips from Florence
→Siena on the 131R bus, Pisa and Lucca by train, San Gimignano with a change, Chianti by car — travel time for each, and…
Where to stay in Florence
→The centre puts the Duomo and the Uffizi on the doorstep, crowds included; five minutes across the bridge changes both…
What Florence costs
→In Florence it's tickets, not accommodation, that set the budget — the Uffizi and the Accademia together cost more than…
Florence beyond the 200 metres: wine window, secret corridor
→A wine window, cells painted by a friar and a secret corridor over the river — seven Florence things that do not fit…
What to eat in Florence
→Lampredotto from a street stall, two soups built on the same stale bread, and a steak ordered by the kilo, not by the…
The best time to visit Florence
→Florence has no season when it's empty — only one when it's less full. If you only pick one month, it's September.
Mistakes everyone makes in Florence
→Five mistakes that cost time or a wasted ticket in Florence, and what to do instead.
Museums in Florence
→Of the five museums on this page, four shut on Mondays; only the Brancacci Chapel opens that day, and on Tuesdays it's…
From the airport to Florence
→Florence has its own airport five kilometres from the centre, but shares Pisa's too — an hour and a half longer for a…
What to see in Florence
The Duomo and Brunelleschi's dome
The cathedral is free; the dome goes by booked slot only. If the dome is sold out, Giotto's bell tower (414 steps) is the fallback with an advantage: you can see the dome from it, which you can't from the dome itself.
€30 · booking: timed slot
The Uffizi
Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Leonardo, Raphael, Caravaggio. It's enormous — plan three hours and don't try to finish it.
€25 · 3 h · closed Monday
The Accademia
Home to the original of Michelangelo's David; the one in Piazza della Signoria is a copy. The museum is small, so David is the reason to go in — book ahead.
€20 · closed Monday · booking: recommended
Ponte Vecchio and the Oltrarno
The only bridge in Florence the Germans did not blow up in 1944, lined with goldsmiths' shops. Across it is the Oltrarno — the left bank, with workshops and noticeably fewer people.
free
Piazzale Michelangelo
A terrace on the hill above the Oltrarno with the whole centre laid out and the dome in the middle. Walk up before sunset, as the last stop of the day.
free
Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens
Former residence of the Medici and later Italy's royal family, with a garden laid out behind it up the hill in the French style. €22 for both in a day, closed on Mondays — a break from the Uffizi crowds, among fountains and paths with a view of the dome.
€22 · closed Monday
Two things you probably did not know
Stendhal syndrome is named after the writer who described, in Florence in 1817, the dizziness and racing pulse brought on by too much art at once. The Santa Maria Nuova hospital still records several cases a year, mostly at the Uffizi.
The cathedral dome was built without scaffolding, because nobody knew how to make any. Brunelleschi won the 1418 competition with a plan for two shells and bricks laid in a herringbone pattern, and never wrote the method down.
Ready for Florence?
Within reach from here
Places sorted by straight-line distance from Florence — day trips or weekends.
Italy
→The cities on the high-speed line are an hour or two apart; the coast, Matera and the Tuscan hills lie off it
France
→From Paris the TGV reaches Lyon, Bordeaux and Strasbourg in about two hours — France is chosen by direction, not by city
Spain
→A country where dinner is at ten and the city wakes up as everywhere else turns the lights off
All 277 places we write about sit on one page — narrow them down by continent, country, price or what you are travelling for.
Within reach from here: San Gimignano, Siena and Pisa
See how much of that actually suits you — or pin Florence if you have been.
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