Florence, Italy: An Independent City Guide

1. The Duomo complex: Cathedral, Dome, Bell Tower, Baptistery, Museum

The Cathedral nave is free and needs no ticket, Monday to Saturday 10:15 to 15:45, closed to visitors on Sundays. Everything else in Piazza del Duomo runs on one of three passes from the Opera del Duomo, and only the Brunelleschi Pass includes the Dome. The Dome is 463 steps and the Bell Tower 414, with no lift for either; under-18s climb only with an adult.

The dress code is enforced at the Cathedral and Baptistery doors: shoulders covered, knees covered, no flip-flops. Jeans are fine. In 2026 the Dome closes for maintenance 16–20 November and the Bell Tower 9–13 November.

Full hours for all five monuments are on the Duomo complex page; the pass comparison is on the tickets page.

2. Uffizi Gallery

Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo's Doni Tondo and Caravaggio in the corridors that Vasari built for the Medici offices. Open Tuesday to Sunday 8:15 to 18:30, ticket office closes 17:30, closed Monday, 1 January and 25 December. Adult €25 (about $29) same-day at the door, €29 (about $34) booked ahead, and since 1 January 2026 a €16 (about $19) ticket for entry from 4 pm.

Two hours covers the first-floor rooms without running. What to see and the room numbers are on the Uffizi page; the official ticket against the resellers is on the Uffizi tickets page.

3. Accademia and the David

One statue justifies the visit, and the Prisoners in the corridor leading to it are the second reason. Adult €20 plus a €4 reservation fee (about $28 together), timed entry, Tuesday to Sunday 8:15 to 18:50, last admission 18:10. There is no cloakroom, so leave the big bag at the hotel; water bottles above 0.5 litres are refused. The Accademia page covers the rooms; the Accademia tickets page covers the reseller options; the card most readers book is the timed entry to Michelangelo's David.

4. Palazzo Vecchio and Piazza della Signoria

The piazza, the Loggia dei Lanzi and the copy of David outside the door are free and open all night. Inside, the museum is €18 (about $21) and the Torre di Arnolfo €20 (about $23); the palace is a civic museum, so it opens on Monday, 9:00 to 19:00, with a short Thursday to 14:00. The tower closes in rain.

Details and the Secret Passages tour are on the Palazzo Vecchio page.

5. Ponte Vecchio

Cross it once in the day for the goldsmiths and once at night when the shutters are down and the bridge is almost empty. The best photograph of it is from Ponte Santa Trinita, one bridge downstream, not from the bridge itself. The Ponte Vecchio page has the history and the Vasari Corridor that runs over the shops.

6. Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens

Over the river, the Medici's second palace holds the Palatine Gallery, and the garden behind it climbs to the Belvedere. Pitti €16 same-day / €19 advance, Boboli €10 / €13, the two together €22 same-day / €25 advance (about $26 / $29). Boboli closes on the first and last Monday of the month.

Pages: Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens.

7. Santa Croce

Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli are buried here, and Giotto's frescoes are in the chapels by the altar, though the Bardi Chapel is under restoration. Ticket €10 (about $12), plus €1 if you book online, and the Opera says the visit takes about 50 minutes. Monday to Saturday 9:30 to 17:30, Sunday 14:00 to 17:30. The Santa Croce page lists the free days for 2026.

8. Piazzale Michelangelo and San Miniato al Monte

Both are free. The piazzale is the view everyone photographs; feelflorence calls it the most visited view point in the city. San Miniato, the church five minutes further up, is open Monday to Saturday 9:30 to 13:00 and 15:30 to 19:00, and the monks sing vespers with Gregorian chant at 18:30 every day.

Bus 12 from Santa Maria Novella station saves the climb; the walk up the Rampe del Poggi from Piazza Poggi takes about fifteen minutes. Piazzale Michelangelo page.

The Florentine steak is a thick T-bone from Chianina cattle, grilled rare and priced by weight, so the figure on the menu is per hundred grams and one cut normally feeds two or more people. Ask what the piece weighs before it goes on the grill, not after it reaches the table. The city's own fast food is offal: lampredotto, the fourth stomach of a cow simmered for hours in broth and stuffed into a roll whose crown has been dipped in the cooking liquid, and trippa alla fiorentina, both sold at market counters and from street carts.

Schiacciata, the salted flatbread split and filled to order, is also sold by weight, at bakeries. Two habits worth learning before you sit down: the coperto, the per-person cover charge, belongs printed on the menu, and a wine bar legitimately charges less at the counter than at a table. Some palazzo walls have reopened their buchette del vino, the arched wine windows cut for selling by the flask.

What to order and where is on what to eat and where, the guided version on tastings and cooking classes, and the easiest first meal upstairs at Mercato Centrale, open to 23:00.

Four fixtures move the whole city. On Easter Sunday the Scoppio del Carro sends a dove-shaped rocket down a wire from the cathedral altar into a cart of fireworks in Piazza del Duomo, late in the morning — 28 March in 2027 — and the Duomo complex is closed to visitors that day. In June the four historic quarters play the Calcio Storico in Piazza Santa Croce, and the final falls on 24 June, the feast of San Giovanni, the city's patron, which ends with fireworks fired from Piazzale Michelangelo at night.

Pitti Uomo fills the Fortezza da Basso twice a year, 12 to 15 January and 15 to 18 June in 2027, and hotel rates across the centre rise with it, so fix your dates against the fair calendar rather than after booking. The fourth is quieter and in your favour: the first Sunday of every month is free at the state museums with no reservation, which also means a queue from before opening. Dates in full on the events calendar, the room-rate side on where to stay, and the closures on what is open on a Monday.

Four things, none of them dramatic. Outside the Baptistery someone will knot a bracelet onto your wrist as a gift and then ask to be paid for it; hands down, keep walking. Pickpocketing is reported in dense crowds rather than in bad districts — the Piazzale Michelangelo terrace before sunset, the strip between the cathedral and Piazza della Signoria, the station, and the small C-line minibuses that thread the centre.

The comune publishes no crime figures by district, so we quote none. Drivers get caught by the ZTL cameras, which run Monday to Friday and on Saturday mornings: a hotel inside the zone has to register your plate on arrival, the fine amount is not published, and the notice travels through the hire company, so it does not reach you in Italy. Restaurants surprise people with the coperto, the cover charge that belongs on the menu before you sit down.

One thing that is not a problem: the tap water is drinkable, and the fontanelli, the city's high-quality drinking fountains, pour the same water refined for taste. How each approach works is on the scams page; the driving rules are on the ZTL and park-and-ride.

You walk almost all of it. The Duomo to Piazzale Michelangelo is thirty minutes on foot, and no two sights on the must-see list are more than twenty apart. For the airport and the hill, use the tram and the bus: a single urban ticket costs €2.00 (about $2.30) and is valid 90 minutes on trams and city buses from 1 August 2026, or €3.00 (about $3.50) if you buy it on board; a carnet of 10 is €18.20. Tram T2 links Amerigo Vespucci airport to the centre on that same ticket, so the €2 ride is the airport transfer. The 2026 fare sheet lists no 24-hour pass.

Do not drive into the centre. The ZTL cameras run Monday to Friday 7:30 to 20:00 and Saturday 7:30 to 16:00, off on Sundays and holidays, and from the first Thursday of April to the first Sunday of October a summer night ZTL adds Thursday to Saturday 23:00 to 03:00. A hotel inside the zone can register you: give your plate to reception on arrival and they transmit it to the Municipal Police. The fine amount is not stated on the city's page. Otherwise leave the car at a Parcheggi Scambiatori park-and-ride on the edge and ride in. Routes, stops and the walking times between areas are on tram, bus and the ZTL.

Tourist tax per person per night (2025 table, current)

Charged by the hotel at checkout, for up to 7 nights, with children under 12 exempt. The B&B and holiday-flat rate is the same as a 3-star hotel.

A first-timer's 3-day ticket bill

Official adult prices as published on 29 August 2026, buying in advance where a slot is needed. The Firenzecard at €85 (about $99) for 72 hours does not cover the Duomo complex and still requires reservations for the Uffizi, Accademia and Palazzo Vecchio, so on this list it saves nothing; it starts to pay when you add Bargello, the Medici Chapels and Museo Galileo on top. The €28 restart adds 48 hours to an expired card.

The maths is on whether the Firenzecard pays off in 72 hours.

Florence has two museum systems and they close on different days. The state museums, which means the Uffizi, the Accademia, the Bargello, the Medici Chapels and the Pitti Palace, shut every Monday. The civic museums stay open: Palazzo Vecchio runs Monday 9:00 to 19:00, and the Brancacci Chapel takes its day off on Tuesday instead. Boboli is its own case, closed on the first and last Monday of the month. So a Monday arrival goes to Palazzo Vecchio, the Duomo complex, Santa Croce and the Oltrarno streets, and the Uffizi waits for Tuesday.

Sunday inverts it. The state museums are open, and on the first Sunday of every month they are free with no reservation, which means a queue at the gate from before 8:15. The Cathedral nave, free on every other day, is closed to visitors on Sundays for services, and the Dome opens late, 12:45 to 16:30. The Museo di San Marco, with Fra Angelico's cells, belongs on any museum list, but its official page could not be reached when we checked, so no price or hours are printed here. Every museum with its hours and closed days is on what is open on a Monday.

Every area worth sleeping in is under twenty minutes' walk from the Duomo, so the choice is about evenings and noise, not distance: the Centro Storico for a first visit, Santa Maria Novella for train days, the Oltrarno for dinner streets that empty of day-trippers at six. The six areas are compared, with tourist tax and the ZTL rule for drivers, on neighbourhoods compared by walk time to the Duomo.