Florence in 2 Days

For the six entries most people come for, yes. Two days holds the Uffizi, David, Brunelleschi's dome, Palazzo Vecchio, the Bargello and the Pitti with Boboli, plus Santa Croce, the Ponte Vecchio and a sunset, and it holds them without running — because the longest walk in the plan is about twenty-one minutes and everything else is under ten.

What falls off is Tuscany and the small rooms. A day trip to Siena or the Chianti needs a third day, not an afternoon: the coach tours leave around 07:30 and come back after dark, and every day trip compared with the train shows why. The Brancacci Chapel, which admits ten people at a time for thirty minutes, does not fit either. Neither does the Museo di San Marco, whose official page we could not reach on 28 August 2026 and whose figures we therefore do not print.

The difference between one, two and three days is really a difference in how many timed slots you have to juggle. One day holds exactly one museum and the dome. Two days holds three timed entries and two walk-ups. Three days adds the quieter museums — the Medici Chapels, the Galileo, the Brancacci — or a coach into the countryside. If you are still choosing, the honest line is that two days is the point where Florence stops feeling like a stopover.

Three things in this plan are sold as a fixed hour: the dome, the Accademia and the Uffizi. Two of them cluster naturally on the same morning — the Porta della Mandorla and Via Ricasoli are about nine minutes apart — and the third does not, because the Uffizi's 08:15 slot is the only one worth having and it collides with the dome's.

So the Uffizi takes day one, alone, and everything after it that day walks up: Palazzo Vecchio takes the tickets it sells at the door, the Bargello's €4 reservation is optional for individuals, Santa Croce sells online for a €1 fee but does not sell out. Day two carries both remaining slots, and it is allowed to run long because the Boboli Gardens close later than anything else in Florence — 19:10 from June to August, against 16:30 in January, February, November and December.

The sunset therefore belongs to day one, not day two. It is the only evening in the plan with nothing timed after it, and Santa Croce sits fifteen minutes from the foot of the Rampe del Poggi, which is the stairway up to the Piazzale.

Saturday is the smaller problem. The only thing that moves is the dome, whose last slot on a Saturday is 16:30 instead of the weekday 18:45 — irrelevant if you climb at 08:15 as the plan says, and fatal if you were planning to climb after lunch.

Sunday moves more. The cathedral nave is closed to visitors and belongs to worship, so the free interior comes off the list. The dome does not open until 12:45 and closes at 16:30, which pushes the whole of day two back by four hours. Santa Croce does not open until 14:00. The San Lorenzo basilica is closed altogether. And on the first Sunday of the month the Baptistery shuts at 13:30.

• Our order for a Saturday and Sunday weekend: make Saturday the timed day — dome at 08:15, Baptistery, Accademia at 11:30, Pitti and Boboli — and give Sunday to the Uffizi at 08:15, the Bargello and Santa Croce from 14:00, with the sunset after it.
• For a Friday and Saturday weekend, run the plan exactly as written; both days are full weekdays for every venue on it.
• For a Sunday and Monday weekend, do not: Monday closes five of the paid stops and Sunday closes two more. Move one of the days if the flights allow it, or use the swap table.

The first Sunday of the month is its own case. Every state museum on this plan — the Uffizi, the Accademia, the Pitti, Boboli and the Bargello — is free that day with no reservation and no booking possible, and the queue at each gate is the longest of the month. The Bargello and the Medici Chapels are also free on 25 April and 4 November.

If your weekend lands on a first Sunday, the saving is real, about €69 of the plan's fees, but the 08:15 start becomes a 07:30 start in a line and no ticket you already hold will move you up it. Santa Croce runs its own free dates in 2026: 15 August, 14 September, 26 and 27 September, 4 October, 8 November, 20 December and 26 December, with no online booking and last entry at 16:30.

Just about, and only on this exact route. The card costs €85 and runs 72 hours from your first museum entry, one entry per museum across more than sixty of them. On the plan above it replaces the Uffizi at €25, Palazzo Vecchio at €18, the Bargello at €12, Santa Croce at €10, the Accademia at €20 and Pitti with Boboli at €22 — €107 of same-day tickets for €85, a saving of about €22 before the booking fees you no longer pay, and about €26 once the €4 Uffizi advance premium and the €1 Santa Croce fee are counted in.

The catch is the €30 Duomo pass, which the card does not cover: the Opera del Duomo is absent from all six pages of the Firenze Card museum list. The Vasari Corridor is excluded too and costs €20 extra with the card. Public transport is not included. And reservations remain obligatory at the Uffizi, the Accademia and Palazzo Vecchio even when you hold the card, so the three booking calls this plan opens with do not go away.

On a two-day visit the 72-hour window is comfortable and there is a €28 restart that adds 48 hours to an expired card, digital only, since 1 March 2026. Drop one paid museum from the plan and the card stops paying. The full museum list and the rules are on the Firenze Card page.

Cut the Bargello first. It is the best hour of day one and also the only paid stop on that day with no booking attached, which means it costs nothing to lose except €12 you have not spent. If the Uffizi ran long, drop it and go straight from Palazzo Vecchio to Santa Croce.

Cut the Opera del Duomo Museum second. It is already paid for inside the €30 pass, so skipping it wastes nothing you can get back, and 60 to 90 minutes is the biggest single block on day two after the Accademia.

Cut the Palatine Gallery third and keep the Boboli Gardens. Contrary to how the ticket is priced, the gardens are the part of the Pitti that a tired late afternoon actually rewards, and they stay open an hour after the palace stops admitting.

• Never moves: the dome slot. Unchangeable, unrefundable, five minutes of tolerance, ID checked at the door.
• Never moves: the Accademia time. The €4 fee bought a specific hour, and the walk-up queue is the thing the gallery itself warns about.
• Moves cheaply: the Uffizi, if you hold the reserved entry rather than an official advance ticket — the reseller version cancels free 24 hours before, the official one does not.
• If day two collapses entirely, the €30 pass stays valid for three calendar days from the dome date, so the Baptistery and the museum can be picked up the next morning before a train.

Three bookings decide two days. Everything else on this page sells at the door.

• 1. The dome slot for day two at 08:15. It sells out first and cannot be changed; the sale window ran to 2 January when we looked on 28 August 2026. Buy it through the three Duomo passes compared, or take the dome climb ticket, which holds its own allocation and cancels free.
• 2. The Accademia at 11:30. €20 plus the €4 reservation fee, on B-Ticket, which is the only channel the ministry authorises — the Accademia tickets page has the detail. The timed David entry with audio app is the reseller version with 24-hour cancellation.
• 3. The Uffizi at 08:15 on day one. €29 in advance against €25 on the day; in April, May, September and October the first slots go a fortnight ahead. Prices, free days and reduced categories are on the Uffizi tickets page; the reserved entry with audio app is the cancellable alternative.
• 4. Optional, same week: Palazzo Vecchio online if you want the tower on a clear day, and the Pitti and Boboli ticket if you want the €22 same-day price fixed — it is non-refundable, so only once the date is certain.
• 5. Nothing else. The Bargello, Santa Croce, the Mercato Centrale, the Piazzale and San Miniato all take you as you arrive.

It can be done, but only by trading half of day one. The full-day coach trips — Pisa, Siena and San Gimignano in one run, or the Cinque Terre — leave around 07:30 and come back after dark at 12 to 13 hours door to door, which does not fit inside two days without deleting a whole day of the city. Those belong to a third day, and every day trip compared with the train does the arithmetic.

What does fit is a half-day in the Chianti. A Chianti wineries tour with tasting runs 5 to 6.5 hours at $57.34, rated 4.5 by 11,454 travellers, and a small-group wine tasting version runs 4.5 hours; either replaces the Bargello and Santa Croce block of day one and leaves the Uffizi morning and the Piazzale evening intact. You lose the sculpture museum and Michelangelo's tomb. You gain vineyards forty minutes south of the ZTL.

As for whether Siena is nicer than Florence: they are different sizes of the same century, Siena being a half-day of the Campo and a striped cathedral rather than a city of galleries. On two days, stay in Florence.

Everything in these two days is inside the ZTL, and inside the ZTL walking wins. The figures come from the entrance coordinates of each stop and are approximations.

Two rides are worth the fare. Bus 12 from Santa Maria Novella station goes up to Piazzale Michelangelo, which turns the Rampe del Poggi climb into a seat, and it comes back down after dark. Tram T2 runs from Amerigo Vespucci airport into the centre on the same ticket — there is no separate airport fare. An urban ticket is €2 and valid 90 minutes on the fares in force since 1 August 2026, €3 if you buy it from the driver, and a carnet of ten is €18.20. Validate on boarding.

If you are driving in, do not drive in. The ZTL covers the whole route and its cameras run Monday to Friday 07:30–20:00 and Saturday 07:30–16:00, plus a night ZTL from Thursday to Saturday 23:00–03:00 between April and October. Give your plate to the hotel on arrival and use the park-and-ride car parks on the edge. The getting around page has the fares and the map.

Every venue named on this page has its own page here with the hours, the doors and the ticket rules in full,; the rest of the city sits on the pages linked throughout this plan.