Florence and the Duomo · Tuscany, Italy
City Guide · Italy
Florence
A small city that produced the Renaissance and still fits inside a morning’s walk — with the queues that follow from both.
Best seasonApr – Jun, Sep – Oct
Ideal stay2 – 3 nights
Known forThe Duomo · the Uffizi · Michelangelo’s David
StationSanta Maria Novella, inside the centre
Getting aboutEntirely on foot
BookingUffizi and Accademia sell out — book ahead
About
Florence
A city you can cross on foot in half an hour that holds more Renaissance art than most countries, which is both the attraction and the whole logistical problem.
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Things to do
Beyond the temples
One dome, two galleries, a bridge full of goldsmiths, and the quieter half across the river.
The Duomo complex
- Santa Maria del Fiore — the Duomo — is the centre of the city, and Brunelleschi’s dome, completed in 1436, is still the largest masonry dome ever built. The climb goes up between its two shells and is not for the claustrophobic.
- Giotto’s campanile beside it is the other climb, with the advantage that the view from it includes the dome. The Baptistery opposite holds the gilded bronze doors Michelangelo called the Gates of Paradise — the panels outside are copies; the originals are in the cathedral museum.
- The Museo dell’Opera del Duomo is the most underrated visit in the city: the original doors, Donatello’s Magdalene and Michelangelo’s late Pietà, in a building most visitors walk straight past.
The galleries
- The Uffizi holds the Renaissance in sequence — Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Primavera, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian — in a corridor building over the river. It is large; choose what matters to you rather than walking all of it.
- The Accademia is essentially one room and one statue: Michelangelo’s David, with the unfinished Prisoners in the hall leading to it, which many people find the more affecting half.
- Both are timed entry and both sell out. Booking is not an optimisation here, it is the difference between seeing them and not.
The city and the Oltrarno
- The Ponte Vecchio is the bridge that survived, still lined with goldsmiths, with the Vasari Corridor running above the shops. Best crossed early, before it becomes a single slow file of people.
- Piazza della Signoria and the Palazzo Vecchio are the civic centre, with a loggia of sculpture that functions as an open-air gallery. Santa Croce holds the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli.
- Across the river, the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens are the Medici at their grandest, and the streets of San Frediano and Santo Spirito are where the workshops and the evening are.
- Piazzale Michelangelo, up the hill on the south bank, is the view of the whole city with the dome at its centre. Walk up for sunset; it is the picture people come home with.
How to spend it
Two days in Florence
Day 1
The Duomo and the centre
The cathedral complex first — baptistery, campanile or dome on a booked slot, and the Opera del Duomo museum — then Piazza della Signoria, Santa Croce and the Ponte Vecchio in the late afternoon.
Day 2
The galleries
The Uffizi in the morning on a booked slot, with one wing chosen in advance rather than all of it; the Accademia and the David in the afternoon. An evening walk up to Piazzale Michelangelo.
Day 3
The Oltrarno, or out
The Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens, then the workshops of San Frediano and Santo Spirito — or the day trip to Siena, or the car south into the Val d’Orcia.
Getting there and around
Arriving & getting around
A station inside the centre, and after that your feet.
Arriving
- Santa Maria Novella is the main station and it sits inside the historic centre, so arrival by train is a walk to the hotel rather than a transfer. High-speed lines run to Rome, Venice, Milan and Bologna.
- Florence (FLR) and Pisa (PSA) are the regional airports; long-haul arrivals from India generally route through Rome or Milan and continue by train, which is faster and simpler than it sounds.
- Indian passport holders need a Schengen visa, arranged as part of the booking and started early.
Around the city
- Everything is walkable. There is no meaningful transport decision to make inside the centre, and the streets are the reason to be here. Cobbles again — bring proper shoes.
- The historic centre is a restricted traffic zone monitored by camera, so a hire car is parked outside it and left there. If the trip continues into the Tuscan countryside, collect the car on the day you leave rather than on the day you arrive.
Booking ahead
- The Uffizi, the Accademia and the Duomo dome climb are the three that must be booked. Everything else in Florence can be decided on the morning.
- Museums here have their own closing days and they differ from one another, so the order of your days is set by what is open rather than by preference.
Practical
Florence in practice
Four things that decide whether Florence is a pleasure or a queue.
Book the threeUffizi, Accademia, dome climb
All three are timed and all three sell out in season; the dome climb has the smallest capacity. These fix the shape of the stay and everything else is arranged around them.
SeasonApr – Jun and Sep – Oct
Comfortable walking weather and long evenings. July and August are hot and very crowded in a city this small, and Florence feels the summer more than the surrounding countryside does.
Go early or lateThe centre empties either side of the day
The Ponte Vecchio, the Duomo square and Piazzale Michelangelo are different places at eight in the morning and after seven in the evening. The middle of the day is the worst of Florence.
Base here for TuscanyThen move, rather than day-tripping
Florence is the natural first base for the region, but the countryside deserves its own nights. Three here and two or three in the Val d’Orcia beats five here with drives out and back.
Culture
How to be a good guest
A Tuscan city with a strong sense of itself and a long memory.
Manners and language
- Greet on entering — buongiorno or buonasera. Churches expect shoulders and knees covered, which includes the Duomo.
- Florence is compact and busy, and the centre belongs to visitors for much of the day. The city Florentines use is across the river and after eight in the evening.
Eating
- Tuscan cooking is plainer and better than its reputation: ribollita, pappa al pomodoro, beans, unsalted bread and the bistecca alla fiorentina, which is a shared cut rather than a portion.
- The Mercato Centrale is the food market and its upper floor is a good, unfussy lunch. Wine is Tuscan by default — Chianti at the table, Brunello and Vino Nobile if the meal justifies it.
- Vegetarian travellers are well served: the soups, the bean dishes and the vegetable antipasti are naturally meat-free, though it is worth checking for pork fat in the soups. Tell your specialist and it goes into the bookings.
What to bring back
- Leather and paper are the Florentine crafts, and the Oltrarno workshops are where they are still made rather than merely sold. The San Lorenzo stalls are the tourist version of the same idea.
Good to know
Insider tips
What regular visitors do differently.
Before you go
- Book the Uffizi, the Accademia and the dome climb as soon as the dates are fixed, and build the days around those slots.
- If Tuscany follows, arrange the hire car for the day you leave Florence — a car sitting outside the walls for three nights is money and worry for nothing.
On the ground
- Walk up to Piazzale Michelangelo rather than taking the bus. The climb through the rose garden is short and the view arrives properly earned.
- Cross into the Oltrarno for dinner. Two bridges away from the Uffizi the prices fall and the rooms fill with people who live here.
- The Museo dell’Opera del Duomo is the visit almost everyone skips and almost everyone would have liked most. It is also indoors, which makes it the obvious rain day.
Nearby
Out into Tuscany
Florence is the gateway to the region — the cities by train, the hills by car.
Siena
The Campo and the Gothic city Florence never absorbed
Pisa and Lucca
The leaning tower and a walled town, easily paired in a day
The Val d’Orcia
Cypress avenues and clay hills — the drive is the point
Chianti
The wine country between Florence and Siena
Rome
South on the high-speed line, and the usual other half of an Italian trip
Continue Planning
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Common questions
Two at a minimum and three if the trip allows. Two nights gives one day for the Duomo complex and the centre and one for the Uffizi and the Accademia, which covers the headline city. A third night adds the Oltrarno — the Pitti, the Boboli and the artisan streets — and an unhurried evening walk to Piazzale Michelangelo, which is the part people describe afterwards. If Tuscany follows, three nights here and then a move into the countryside works far better than five nights here with drives out and back.
Yes, in any season worth visiting in. Both work on timed entry and both sell out, and arriving without a slot means either a very long queue or missing them. The Duomo dome climb is a third booking, made separately from the cathedral ticket and with the smallest capacity of the three. Everything else in Florence can be decided on the morning. Museums also have their own closing days that differ from one another, so which day you do what is set by what is open.
Completely — it is one of the most walkable cities in Europe and there is no transport decision to make inside the centre. The Duomo, the Uffizi, the Ponte Vecchio and the Accademia are all within a few minutes of one another, and the walk between them through the streets is a large part of the point. Bring shoes for cobbles. The historic centre is a camera-monitored restricted traffic zone, so if you are hiring a car for Tuscany, collect it on the day you leave rather than parking it outside the walls for the whole stay.
The Oltrarno is the quarter on the south bank — the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens at one end, and the working streets of San Frediano and Santo Spirito around them, where the leather and paper workshops still are. It is worth crossing for twice: once in the day for the palace and gardens, and once in the evening, because two bridges from the Uffizi the prices fall and the restaurants fill with people who live in the city rather than visit it.
April to June and September to October, for comfortable walking weather and long evenings. July and August are hot and extremely crowded — a small city feels high season more sharply than a large one, and Florence suffers more than the Tuscan countryside does. Winter is quiet, cool and often wet, with the galleries at their calmest and the city at its cheapest, which suits a trip built around art rather than around the landscape.
For the cities, yes: Siena, Pisa and Lucca are all comfortable day trips by train from Santa Maria Novella, which sits inside the centre. For the countryside, no — the Val d’Orcia and the Chianti hills are scattered villages joined by roads that are themselves the attraction, and day-tripping out and back wastes the best part of them. The shape that works is three nights in Florence, then a car and two or three nights in the hills.
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