Florence in Three Days: The Perfect Route Through the Heart of Tuscany

Florence is wonderfully compact. The historic centre is barely two kilometres across, nearly everything worth seeing is walkable, and three days genuinely cover the classics. But only on one condition: you book the timed tickets before you leave home. The Uffizi, the Accademia and the climb up Brunelleschi's dome no longer admit anyone who simply turns up, and in high season the dome slots go weeks ahead. Get the booking right and the city opens easily on foot. Get it wrong and you will spend three days in queues, looking at the backs of other people's heads.

Plan around these four facts

The two great galleries close on Mondays. The Uffizi and the Accademia are state museums and both shut every Monday, as well as 1 January and 25 December. Arriving on a Monday is no problem — spend it on churches, markets and the cathedral complex, none of which close. A Monday in the middle of your three days will break the itinerary below. Check which weekday your second day falls on before you book anything else.

The dome is the ticket that runs out first. The climb is sold only inside the Brunelleschi Pass, which costs around EUR 30 and also covers Giotto's bell tower, the Baptistery, the cathedral museum and the Santa Reparata crypt beneath the nave. The pass typically stays valid for about 72 hours, but the reserved climb itself has to happen on your first day. Turn up roughly fifteen minutes early; arriving more than about five minutes late usually means forfeiting the slot, and names on passes are generally checked at the gate. If the climb is gone, or if 463 narrow steps with no lift sound unappealing, the Giotto Pass at around EUR 20 swaps the dome for the bell tower, and the Ghiberti Pass at roughly EUR 15 covers the rest. The cathedral nave is free to enter, but security limits numbers, so the queue outside is for screening rather than tickets and moves slowly in the middle of the day.

Book online and swallow the fee. A full Uffizi ticket runs to about EUR 25 bought at the counter and around EUR 29 online once the reservation fee of roughly EUR 4 is added. The Accademia is about EUR 16 at the door and around EUR 20 booked ahead. Since the start of 2026 the Uffizi has also sold a cheaper late ticket for entry from about four in the afternoon, at roughly EUR 16 on site or about EUR 20 online. That fee is a poor reason to gamble a morning.

Do not drive in. The historic centre is a restricted traffic zone, cameras enforce it, and fines reach rental customers by post months later. Come by train to Santa Maria Novella, which sits a short walk from the cathedral, or take the tram line from the airport, which typically takes around twenty minutes into the centre.

When to go, and when not to

April to June and September to October remain the right windows: warm enough to eat outside, cool enough to climb a bell tower without suffering. Late April and May bring the wisteria in the Bardini Garden, which is reason enough on its own.

August is hot and heaving, and a good number of family-run trattorie close for part of the month around the mid-August holiday. July is not much better. If those are your only dates, invert the day: sights at opening, a long lunch and a rest through the worst heat, then everything else after five.

Winter is the underrated season. November through February is cold and occasionally wet, but hotel rates fall sharply, the galleries are calm, and the low light on the Arno is, to our eye, the finest of the year. Some sites keep shorter winter hours, so confirm times rather than assuming.

Three dates fill the centre to bursting: the Scoppio del Carro on Easter morning, when a mechanical dove ignites a cart of fireworks in front of the cathedral; Calcio Storico, the bruising historic football tournament held in Piazza Santa Croce in June; and the feast of Saint John on 24 June, which ends in fireworks over the river.

Where to base yourself

The historic centre puts you inside walking distance of everything, at the price of noise, scooter traffic and higher rates. The Oltrarno, across the river, is the better call for a second visit or anyone who would rather live among workshops and neighbourhood bars than gift shops: Santo Spirito and San Frediano are ten to fifteen minutes on foot from the cathedral and feel like a different city after dark. Santa Croce splits the difference. The blocks immediately around the station are convenient and dull; fine for one night before an early train, not for three.

Day 1: The Duomo, the Uffizi, and across the river at dusk

Morning. Take the earliest dome slot you can get, typically shortly after opening. The climb runs between the two shells of the cupola, past Vasari's Last Judgement frescoes at close range, and emerges on a lantern balcony with the whole city and the Tuscan hills below — the view most visitors come for, and the reason the slots sell out. Afterwards, the Baptistery. Note that the gilded panels on the doors outside are copies; Ghiberti's originals, the ones Michelangelo is said to have called the Gates of Paradise, are indoors in the cathedral museum, which your pass already covers. Give that museum half an hour at least: it holds Michelangelo's late, unfinished Pietà and Donatello's gaunt wooden Magdalene.

Lunch. Eat lampredotto, the slow-simmered tripe sandwich that is Florence's own street food. The stand at the Mercato Nuovo, near the bronze boar, sells a straightforward panino for around EUR 5; a long-running tripe cart in the centre charges closer to EUR 10 for a sandwich with a glass of wine. Order it bagnato — the top of the bun dipped in the cooking broth — with salsa verde and a spoon of chilli.

Afternoon. Book the Uffizi for around two o'clock and give it two and a half to three hours, no more. The collection is enormous and trying to see all of it is how people end up remembering none of it. Aim for the Botticelli rooms with the Birth of Venus and the Primavera, the Leonardo room, Caravaggio's Medusa, and the corridor windows over the Arno. The Vasari Corridor, the elevated Medici passage running above the Ponte Vecchio, reopened after restoration and can be added on a guided, timed basis; expect a combined ticket of around EUR 47, and note that it closes on Mondays with the gallery.

Evening. Leave the Uffizi into Piazza della Signoria and spend twenty free minutes under the Loggia dei Lanzi, an open-air sculpture hall with Cellini's bronze Perseus and no ticket at all. The David outside Palazzo Vecchio is a copy standing where the original stood. Then cross the Ponte Vecchio, still lined with goldsmiths as it has been since the sixteenth century, and eat in the Oltrarno. For the photograph of the bridge itself, walk one bridge downstream to the Ponte Santa Trinita at dusk.

Day 2: David, the Pitti, and the climb to San Miniato

Morning. Be at the Accademia for opening. The museum is small and most people go straight to David, all 5.17 metres of him, but the corridor leading up to him holds Michelangelo's unfinished Prisoners, figures still half-buried in their blocks, and a good number of visitors find them the more affecting room. An hour and a half is plenty. If the Accademia is sold out, the Bargello is the substitute nobody regrets: Donatello's bronze David and Michelangelo's Bacchus, in a fraction of the crowd. A combined Accademia and Bargello pass has been running at around EUR 26 plus the booking fee.

Afternoon. Walk south across the river to Palazzo Pitti. A combined ticket covering the palace, the Boboli Gardens and the Bardini Garden typically costs about EUR 22 bought on the day and around EUR 25 in advance, valid for a single day. Be honest about your appetite here: Boboli is vast, steep and almost entirely shadeless, which in July is punishing. The Bardini Garden next door is smaller, better kept, and has the terrace view plus the wisteria tunnel in spring.

Sunset. Piazzale Michelangelo delivers the postcard: the whole city, the river and the hills in low gold light. Walk up in roughly twenty minutes by the ramps from the Ponte alle Grazie side, or take bus 12 up and 13 back down for around EUR 1.70. Then keep going. Five minutes further uphill stands San Miniato al Monte, a twelfth-century basilica faced in white Carrara and green Prato marble, free to enter and far quieter than anything below it. The Benedictine community sings Gregorian vespers in the late afternoon, usually around half past five, though the hour shifts with the season and the liturgical calendar. Of everything you could add to the standard three days, this is our pick.

Dinner. Stay on this side of the river. Piazza Santo Spirito fills with people after dark and is the square we would choose for it, and a family trattoria running just off it since the early 1960s still serves plain Tuscan cooking at sane prices. Look out, too, for the buchette del vino, the small arched wine windows cut into palace walls centuries ago for selling flasks to the street; several are working again and serve a glass through the hatch.

Day 3: Markets, Santa Croce, and what you leave out

Morning. The Mercato Centrale is two markets stacked on each other. The ground floor is a real produce and butcher's market, busiest in the morning and largely finished by early afternoon; the upper floor is a food hall that stays open into the evening. Taste pecorino, truffle and Chianina, the enormous pale cattle breed behind bistecca alla fiorentina. A long-established stall downstairs is the place for boiled beef and lampredotto if you skipped it on day one. For a quieter, more residential market, Sant'Ambrogio east of the centre is the local alternative.

If the steak is the point of your trip, understand how it is sold: by weight, rarely under a kilo, and served properly rare with no negotiation. Reckon on somewhere around EUR 50 to EUR 60 per kilo in a traditional place, split between two people. A famously cramped trattoria beside the San Lorenzo market does it at lunch only, with shared tables and no dinner service, and closes Sundays — queue before it opens or eat elsewhere.

Afternoon. Santa Croce holds the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli and Rossini, plus a monument to Dante that is a cenotaph rather than a grave, since Dante is buried in Ravenna and Ravenna has declined to give him back. Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel sits in the cloister, and markers on the walls record how high the 1966 flood reached. Entry runs to around EUR 10, with a small extra charge to book online. Watch the hours: Monday to Saturday it typically opens mid-morning and closes in the late afternoon, but on Sundays and religious holidays it does not open until around two.

Last evening. Gelato, properly. The giveaways are covered metal tins rather than mounded plastic tubs, muted colours, and a pistachio that is dull khaki rather than bright green. A family business near Santa Croce, going since 1930 and widely described by Florentine guides as the city's oldest gelateria, is the traditional stop; there are excellent alternatives on the Oltrarno bank and along the river. Then the passeggiata along the Arno and a glass of Chianti Classico to finish.

What to skip, and why

Skip the day trip. Pisa and Siena are both reachable by train, and both will cost you a third of your Florence.

Skip any restaurant with photographs on the menu or a man outside inviting you in, particularly in the streets immediately around the cathedral and the Ponte Vecchio. Walk five minutes in any direction and prices fall while quality rises.

Treat the leather-school sales pitch and the San Lorenzo street stalls with scepticism. Genuine workshops exist in the Oltrarno and will happily let you watch someone work.

And be careful with the free first Sunday of the month, when state museums including the Uffizi, the Accademia, Pitti and Boboli admit everyone at no charge. Free tickets are issued only at the counter on the day and cannot be reserved, waits of two to four hours are normal from spring through autumn, and the Duomo complex and Santa Croce are not state-run, so they charge as usual. In January it is a gift. In June it will cost you a day.

What it costs and how you move

Budget roughly EUR 90 to EUR 110 per person for the sightseeing in this itinerary — the Brunelleschi Pass, the Uffizi, the Accademia and the Pitti combination, plus Santa Croce — before food. The genuinely free layer is large: the cathedral nave, the Loggia dei Lanzi, San Miniato, Piazzale Michelangelo, Santo Spirito and every bridge in the city.

You will walk almost all of it. Buses cost around EUR 1.70 a ride and you will realistically use them once, to come down from the viewpoint. Taxis wait at ranks and are not hailed in the street. Cobbles and stone stairs make this a bad city for wheeled luggage and a worse one for new shoes.

Three days is enough here, but only because Florence is small, not because it is shallow. Book early, start at opening, and let the afternoons go slowly.