Florence Transport Strikes: What Still Runs

Italy does not spring strikes on people. Law 146 of 1990 treats transport as an essential public service, and article 2 sets the two rules a visitor benefits from. The notice period "cannot be less than ten days", and the proclamation must state the duration up front — so a strike is a dated, timed, published object well before it happens.

The operator then carries a second duty: to tell users, at least five days before the strike begins, how the service will run and when normal service resumes. That is why Trenitalia, Autolinee Toscane and GEST each post a notice with hours about a week ahead.

The source that outranks all of them is the Ministry's register: a filterable table of every strike proclaimed in transport, with the unions that called it, the sector, the company and staff group, the exact hours — "24 ORE: DALLE 21.18 DEL 7/9 ALLE 21.17 DELL'8/9" reads as a 24-hour rail strike from 21:18 on 7 September to 21:17 on 8 September — and the region. Filters run from national scope down to one company. It is in Italian only, and the headings are the only Italian you need: Inizio start, Fine end, Modalità hours, Regione region.

The one habit that saves the day

Proclaimed is not the same as held. Strikes are revoked, postponed and merged constantly, and new ones land right up to the ten-day deadline. Read the register when you book, again the evening before, then read the operator's own homepage on the morning — only the operator knows how many staff actually walked out.

Before the general strike of 28 November 2025, GEST published that turnout in comparable strikes by the same unions had averaged 13.18%, which is why so many strike days end up looking almost normal.

One gap worth naming. The sector agreements also fix franchigia periods, stretches of the calendar in which a strike in that sector cannot be called. The coordinated rail text listing them refused to serve on 30 August 2026, so no franchigia dates are printed here — treat the register as the authority.

Every Italian transport strike is fought inside a cage. The company and the unions agree in advance which services are indispensable, and those run whatever the turnout. The cage has a practical shape: two windows a day, morning and evening, sized around commuting rather than sightseeing.

That decides which half of your plan survives. An 08:00 departure and a 19:00 return are usually fine. A 12:30 train back from Pisa is the one that does not exist.

What the small print does to a train already moving

Trenitalia's rule for a train caught by the start of a strike is worth carrying in your head: a train under way when the stoppage begins reaches its final destination if that is reachable within one hour of the start, and past that hour it may terminate short of where you were going. So the risk on a strike starting at 21:00 is not that your 20:40 to Pisa is cancelled — it will run — but that a longer run drops you somewhere you did not plan to sleep.

The two long-distance tables are not the same thing

Trenitalia guarantees named long-distance trains rather than a time window. Table A lists 146 trains and covers strikes on working days and holidays alike; Table B lists 62 trains and applies only to a national general strike held on a holiday for a labour-contract renewal, lasting no more than 24 hours and starting at 21:00 the evening before. Both give train number, origin, departure time and destination and nothing else — no intermediate stops, so whether a guaranteed Milan–Naples service calls at Santa Maria Novella is a question for the app.

Both were valid from 14 June to 12 December 2026.

The bands are a floor, not a forecast. Outside them, Autolinee Toscane and GEST say the same thing in the same words: regularity depends on how many staff join.

This is where a strike actually costs money, and the trap is that the two halves of Trenitalia work to different clocks. For a Freccia or an Intercity, a strike entitles you to the refund of the ticket without any deduction of part of the price, claimable from the declaration of the strike until the departure of the booked train — you can stand on the concourse watching the board and decide then. For a Regionale the annex shuts earlier: the claim may be submitted only until 23:59 on the day before.

Miss that and you are holding a worthless piece of paper.

The version of this that is not on any Trenitalia page

If your seat that day is on a tour rather than a train, the rules are the operator's. Every card here cancels free up to 24 hours before the start — and since a strike is public ten days out, you can almost always cancel a coach day in full once the register tells you the date is bad. A claim can be made up to a year after the event, but the strike deadlines above decide whether it is eligible at all.

The T2 line from Peretola into the centre is run by GEST, so it lives under the tram bands rather than the rail ones: guaranteed 06:30–09:30 and 17:00–20:00, everything in between depending on turnout. A 09:00 landing or a 07:30 check-in needs no plan B. A flight at 14:00, which means leaving the centre around 11:30, sits in the hole in the middle of the day.

Solving the hole in the middle of the day

The honest fix is dull: move yourself, not the flight. Take the mid-morning tram and get to the airport absurdly early, or take a taxi. Florence taxis run on the city's own tariff table, still dated 1 January 2024 when we read it: the meter starts at €3.60 (about $4.20) on an ordinary weekday, €5.80 (about $6.80) on a Sunday or holiday and €7.30 (about $8.50) at night, then per-kilometre bands.

The airport is about five kilometres out, and no official fixed airport fare is published — the €28 figure that circulates online is not on the Comune's table.

When the airport itself is the strike

A tram strike and an airport strike are separate lines in the register, and the second is worse. Ground handling at Pisa and Florence had a four-hour stoppage from 11:00 to 15:00 proclaimed for 13 September 2026, called by three unions on the same slot, one of them adding an overtime ban to 12 October. Air traffic control is a third layer: ENAV had national four-hour actions from 13:00 to 17:00 on 30 September and 16 October.

On air strikes the airline tells you what happened to your seat, and the protected windows above are irrelevant. The check-in deadline never moves either, so if the register shows anything at all on your departure date, leave an hour earlier.

The pattern in the guaranteed list is not random. It is built for a commuter who leaves a Tuscan town early, works in Florence and goes home in the evening — the opposite of what a visitor wants. That is why the outbound leg of most day trips is comfortable and the return leg is where the day dies.

Siena — go

The only destination the guaranteed list serves properly in both directions: out of Florence at 06:20, back out of Siena at 18:18. A long day and an early alarm, but a complete one, and being inside the walls at eight in the morning is a gift rather than a penance. Siena as a day trip has the rest.

Pisa — go, and accept the 19:32

Five guaranteed trains out of Florence between 05:35 and 08:28, then a single guaranteed evening return leaving Pisa Centrale at 19:32. Everything in between is at the mercy of the turnout. If the tower slot is booked and non-refundable, go on the earliest train and plan an unhurried dinner in Pisa rather than a nervous afternoon at the station — Pisa as a day trip covers the tower timing.

Lucca — do not go by train

The list is lopsided the wrong way: four guaranteed departures from Florence to Lucca, and exactly one guaranteed departure back, at 06:49, which is no use to anybody who spent the day there. Move Lucca to another date, or take the Pisa and Lucca coach day, which does both towns in nine hours and is not part of a rail strike. Lucca as a day trip has the walkable version.

Cinque Terre — the risk is at the far end

Getting into Liguria is covered: Florence to Pisa at 06:08, Pisa to La Spezia at 06:23 or 07:02, and a guaranteed return leaving La Spezia at 19:16. What is not covered is the shuttle between La Spezia and the five villages, which belongs to a different regional list — and that is the leg the day depends on. The guided Cinque Terre day is no safer, because its price includes the park and train ticket. Move this one; the Cinque Terre from Florence explains why.

Bologna — postpone it

The Bologna line's guaranteed list is written around Prato: the outbound entry a visitor could use leaves Firenze Campo di Marte at 08:32, and the evening services from Bologna terminate at Prato Centrale rather than Florence. A day trip with a guaranteed way out and no guaranteed way home — Bologna deserves a different date.

The version that ignores the railway entirely

A coach day trip runs on a private vehicle for a private operator and is not part of a rail or city-transport strike. It can be slowed by a demonstration — a general strike in Florence usually comes with a march — but the tour goes. That is why the cards below are the sensible booking for a spoiled date: the Pisa, Siena and San Gimignano day at €49 (about $57) covers three of these destinations in one coach.

A transport strike does not close the Uffizi. It makes you late for a named, timed, dated entry the museum has no obligation to move. Neither the Uffizi nor the Accademia publishes a strike clause of any kind: the advance ticket is dated and timed, the Vasari Corridor reservation is "nominative, personal, non-transferable, non-refundable", and nothing on either site says what happens if a strike strands you across the city.

Not stated is the honest answer, and not one to test on the day.

What to actually do

If the strike is a city one and your slot is in the centre, walk. Santa Maria Novella station to the Duomo is about thirteen minutes on foot, the Duomo to the Uffizi about nine, and the whole one-day route works without a ticket: a bus strike costs you a viewpoint, not a museum. What you move instead is the slot on the day you were meant to arrive by train — and the movable version is the reseller's: the reserved-entry cards on Uffizi tickets cancel free up to 24 hours ahead, exactly the window a strike gives you.

One thing the register will not tell you: museum staff strike too, and those actions are not in it. A museum stoppage is announced by the museum itself, usually a few days ahead. If your date already carries a general strike, check the museum's own page as well.

The reflex on a strike day is to take a taxi, and it works, with two caveats. Demand triples and the rank at Santa Maria Novella empties, so book by phone or app instead of walking to a rank. And taxi drivers strike too: taxi is its own sector on the Ministry's register, checkable the same way as rail — and it is the one strike that leaves you with nothing but your feet.

Prices, when you do get one, are the ordinary metered ones. Nothing about a strike changes the tariff.

The mistake that outlasts the strike

Hiring a car to beat a strike is the expensive answer. The camera gates keep their ordinary hours whatever the unions are doing — Monday to Friday 7:30–20:00 and Saturday 7:30–16:00, plus Thursday to Saturday 23:00–03:00 through the summer — and nothing on the city's ZTL page provides for a suspension on strike days. The gate photographs the plate, the hire company forwards the fine months later with its own charge on top, and one afternoon of independence costs more than a week of tickets.

The full ZTL picture is on getting around Florence.