Things to see in Florence: 15 sights with prices and booking tips

1. The Duomo and Brunelleschi’s dome

The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore is the center of Florence, crowned by Filippo Brunelleschi’s terracotta dome (1420 to 1436), still the largest masonry dome ever built. The complex also includes Giotto’s Campanile (414 steps), the Baptistery with its gilded Gates of Paradise, and the Opera del Duomo Museum. Climbing the dome’s 463 steps, with no lift, gets you the classic view over the rooftops.

Practical tip: The cathedral itself is free to enter. The dome climb comes only with the Brunelleschi Pass (€30, valid three days, also covering the bell tower, Baptistery, museum and Santa Reparata crypt), with a timed dome slot that sells out weeks ahead in high season. Book early and arrive 15 minutes before your slot. Guided tours that include the climb are sold on Viator, such as the Florence Duomo Tour: Dome & Terraces or First Entry Dome Climb ($113, 4.8 from 1,189 reviews). The passes are compared in our Duomo tickets and passes guide.

2. Uffizi Gallery

The Uffizi is one of the world’s great art museums, home to Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Primavera, Leonardo’s Annunciation, Caravaggio’s Medusa and Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo. The Uffizi Galleries, which also run Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens, counted 5,294,968 visitors in 2024 in figures published by Italy’s Ministry of Culture in May 2025, and the walk-up queue at the Uffizi can take 45 to 90 minutes from April to October.

Practical tip: A standard ticket is €25 on the day or €29 booked online. From 1 January 2026, entry from 4 p.m. costs €16 (€20 booked), and the late afternoon is quieter too. A timed ticket skips the ticket line, though not the security check. The Uffizi Gallery ALL Collections Ticket & Audio App ($31, 4.2 from 7,342 reviews) is the cheapest reserved option, and the Uffizi Gallery: Renaissance Masterpieces Guided Tour ($84, 4.6 from 6,123 reviews) adds a guide for about 90 minutes. See our Uffizi tickets page and the opening hours and free days.

3. Accademia Gallery (Michelangelo’s David)

Most people come to the Galleria dell’Accademia for one work: Michelangelo’s David (1501 to 1504). The official gallery gives its height as 517 cm including the carved base and its weight as 5,560 kilos, cut from a single block of Carrara marble. You reach it past the Prisoners, figures Michelangelo left half-emerging from the stone, and the museum also holds paintings and a collection of musical instruments.

Practical tip: A full ticket is €20, plus a €4 booking fee, so €24 booked; EU citizens aged 18 to 25 pay €2 and under-18s enter free. Timed slots sell out weeks ahead in summer. The Florence: Timed Entry to Michelangelo’s David + Audio App ($32, 4.5 from 21,836 reviews) is the most reviewed reserved ticket. The David is not in the Uffizi; our Accademia and David tickets page explains where it is and how to book.

4. Ponte Vecchio

Florence’s medieval bridge has crossed the Arno since 1345, lined with goldsmiths’ and jewelers’ shops jutting out over the water. It was the only Florentine bridge to survive World War II intact. The Vasari Corridor runs along the top. The bridge is busiest at midday and at its best at dawn or dusk, when the light hits the river.

Practical tip: Crossing the bridge and window-shopping are free. For the classic photograph of the bridge, walk to the next bridge west, Ponte Santa Trinita, and go early in the morning, before the crowds.

5. Piazza della Signoria and Palazzo Vecchio

The square is Florence’s open-air sculpture gallery, dominated by the crenellated Palazzo Vecchio (the city hall since 1299) and its 94-meter Arnolfo Tower. The Loggia dei Lanzi next to it displays Cellini’s bronze Perseus and other statues, all free to see outdoors. Inside the palace, the vast Salone dei Cinquecento is covered in Vasari frescoes.

Practical tip: The square and the Loggia are free. On the city museums’ official site, musefirenze.it, the Palazzo Vecchio museum costs €18 and the tower and battlements €20; the tower is a stair climb, closes in rain and does not admit children under 6. For a guide inside, the Palazzo Vecchio guided experience with entrance ticket on Viator ($63, 4.7 from 273 reviews) takes about 90 minutes with the ticket included. Book the tower ahead in summer.

6. Piazzale Michelangelo

This terrace on the south bank has the postcard view of Florence: the whole city below you, with the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio and the Tuscan hills beyond, watched over by a bronze copy of David. It is the classic sunset spot, and it costs nothing.

Practical tip: It is free. Come 45 to 60 minutes before sunset to get a place on the wall. You can walk up through the Rose Garden in a short climb, or take bus 12 or 13.

7. Boboli Gardens and Pitti Palace

Across the Arno, the Pitti Palace was the Medici grand dukes’ residence and now houses the Palatine Gallery (Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Caravaggio), the royal apartments and more. Behind it rise the Boboli Gardens, a 16th-century Italian garden with grottoes, fountains and avenues lined with statues.

Practical tip: A combined Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens ticket is €22 on the day or €25 booked. The PassePartout 5 Days, €40, covers the Uffizi, Pitti and Boboli and pays off on museum-heavy stays; the Florence: Uffizi, Pitti Palace & Boboli Combined 5-Day Pass ($77, 4.4 from 1,912 reviews) sells the same pass with a booking service. Pitti is closed on Mondays. Boboli opens most Mondays but closes on the first and last Monday of each month, according to the Uffizi Galleries’ own Boboli page.

8. Basilica di Santa Croce

Santa Croce, known as the “Temple of the Italian Glories,” is a vast Franciscan basilica, 115 meters long, with nearly 300 tombs from the 14th to the 19th century, including those of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli and Rossini, and a cenotaph to Dante. Add Giotto’s frescoes in the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels, Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel and a working leather school, and it holds as much history as the Duomo.

Practical tip: Entry is ticketed and covers the basilica, the cloisters, the Pazzi Chapel and the museum; check the current price on the official santacroceopera.it booking page. Reservations are not compulsory but help in peak season, and arriving by 9.30 a.m. gives you a quiet moment at the tombs. Shoulders and knees must be covered.

9. Medici Chapels (Michelangelo’s New Sacristy)

Attached to the Basilica of San Lorenzo, the Cappelle Medicee are the mausoleum of the family that paid for much of the Renaissance. The centerpiece is Michelangelo’s New Sacristy, with his allegorical figures of Dawn, Dusk, Night and Day on the Medici tombs; the Chapel of the Princes is lined with pietra dura marble inlay.

Practical tip: On the official Bargello museums site, admission is €11, with an optional €4 reservation, and the chapels open Tuesday to Sunday, 8.15 a.m. to 6.50 p.m. They are closed every Monday, so ignore older guidebooks that list Tuesday. Entry is free on the first Sunday of the month. If you want a guide, the MEDICI CHAPELS Private Tour in Florence on Viator (from $128, 4.9 from 129 reviews) meets you at the entrance for about 90 minutes.

10. Bargello Museum

Housed in Florence’s oldest public building, a 13th-century fortress later used as a prison, the Bargello holds the finest collection of Renaissance sculpture anywhere. Highlights include Donatello’s bronze David, the first free-standing nude cast in nearly a thousand years, Michelangelo’s early Bacchus, and works by Cellini and Giambologna. It is far quieter than the Accademia.

Practical tip: Full admission is €12, with an optional €4 reservation, and the museum is closed every Monday. Since 15 March 2026 the Accademia and the Bargello sell a 48-hour combined ticket for €26, and a 72-hour ticket for every open museum in the group costs €38, both on the official sites. For sculpture lovers that is the best-value pairing in the city.

11. Vasari Corridor

The corridor reopened on 21 December 2024 after eight years closed. Giorgio Vasari built the raised passage in 1565 so the Medici could walk unseen from Palazzo Vecchio to the Pitti Palace. The visitor route runs about 760 meters through the Uffizi and over the Ponte Vecchio, with window views across the Arno, and has been restored to its bare 16th-century look.

Practical tip: You visit with a combined Uffizi and Vasari Corridor ticket, €43 at the window or €47 booked. The walk goes one way only, from the Uffizi to the Boboli Gardens, in small timed groups, and slots sell out fast, so book well ahead. The Uffizi Small Group Tour + Optional Vasari Corridor Access ($70, 4.6 from 152 reviews) adds a guide in the gallery. Every option is on our Vasari Corridor tours page, and summer evening openings are announced on uffizi.it.

12. Mercato Centrale

Florence’s central market is a cast-iron and glass hall from 1874. The ground floor is a working food market of butchers, cheesemongers, pasta makers and produce stalls, while the busy first-floor food hall serves Tuscan dishes from morning to late evening. It is the best-value place to eat near San Lorenzo.

Practical tip: It is free to wander. The market’s own site gives the food hall’s hours as 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day, so it works for lunch or dinner between sights. Go in the morning to see the ground-floor stalls at work.

13. Oltrarno and Santo Spirito

Across the Arno, the Oltrarno (“beyond the Arno”) is the city’s most local quarter, full of artisan workshops: goldsmiths, bookbinders, leatherworkers and frame gilders around Santo Spirito and San Frediano. Piazza Santo Spirito, fronted by Brunelleschi’s last church (free to enter, with a wooden crucifix by the young Michelangelo inside), is its social center, sleepy by day and lively at aperitivo hour.

Practical tip: Wandering the Oltrarno is free and best done on foot. Many workshops close for lunch, roughly 1 to 3.30 p.m., so browse in the morning or late afternoon, then stay for dinner in one of the neighborhood trattorie. Our self-guided walking route includes it as a detour.

14. San Miniato al Monte

On the hill above Piazzale Michelangelo, this 11th-century Romanesque basilica is one of the most beautiful churches in Florence and one of the least visited, with a geometric marble façade, a 13th-century gold apse mosaic, a crypt, and a cemetery where Pinocchio author Carlo Collodi is buried.

Practical tip: Entry is free. Go in the late afternoon so you can hear the monks’ Gregorian chant, usually at the 5.30 p.m. mass, then stay for sunset; the view is calmer here than on the Piazzale below.

15. Brancacci Chapel

Inside Santa Maria del Carmine in the Oltrarno, the Brancacci Chapel holds Masaccio’s Stories of St Peter fresco cycle (1424 to 1428, completed by Filippino Lippi). Its perspective and naturalism, seen in The Tribute Money and The Expulsion from Paradise, were studied by Michelangelo and changed Renaissance painting. A recent restoration has brought back the frescoes’ color.

Practical tip: The chapel is closed on Tuesdays and is small, so visits run in small groups. Check the current price and book a slot through the city’s museum office, musefirenze.it, before you go. Art lovers will want to see it.

Free things to do in Florence

Florence has plenty for budget travelers. The best free sights are the view from Piazzale Michelangelo and the hilltop San Miniato al Monte, the statues of the Loggia dei Lanzi and Piazza della Signoria, window-shopping on the Ponte Vecchio, and the artisan lanes of the Oltrarno. The cathedral itself is free to enter, though the dome and the other monuments are ticketed, as are many churches including Santo Spirito.

On the first Sunday of every month the state museums, among them the Uffizi, the Accademia, Pitti, Boboli, the Bargello and the Medici Chapels, are free for everyone under the Domenica al Museo scheme. Queues are the longest of the month, so arrive at opening. There is no advance reservation at the Uffizi or the Accademia on free Sundays; it is first come, first served.

How many days do you need in Florence?

Two to three days covers the highlights for most visitors. With one day, focus on the Duomo, the Uffizi and the Accademia, plus a walk through Piazza della Signoria and across the Ponte Vecchio, ending at Piazzale Michelangelo for sunset; our Uffizi and Accademia in one day plan shows how to fit the two galleries together. With two to three days, add Santa Croce, the Bargello, the Medici Chapels, the Oltrarno and the Pitti Palace at an easy pace.

With a fourth day, take a day trip. Fiesole is about 25 minutes away on bus 7, with Etruscan and Roman ruins and views back over the city. Pisa is about an hour by train for the Leaning Tower, and Siena about 75 minutes by direct bus for its cathedral and the Campo. The Tuscany Day Trip from Florence: Siena, San Gimignano, Pisa and Lunch at a Winery ($92, 4.9 from 24,649 reviews) does all three towns in one long day by coach. For the Chianti wine country, a guided tour saves you the driving: the SMALL-GROUP Wine Safaris: Tuscany Wine Tasting Tour from Florence ($119, 4.9 from 5,865 reviews) visits wineries with tastings and lunch.

Best time to visit Florence and avoid the crowds

The quieter months run from November to February, when crowds thin and the queues at the Uffizi and the Accademia are usually shorter; pack for cool and sometimes rainy weather, since November is usually the wettest month. Late March to April and late September to October bring pleasant weather and crowds you can manage, though they are busier than they used to be. Summer is hot and packed, and July and August regularly pass 30°C.

In any season, go to the museums at opening (8.15 a.m.), because day-trippers and cruise groups tend to arrive between 10 a.m. and noon, and keep Piazzale Michelangelo for sunset. Florence feels most like itself early in the morning and late in the evening. Our best time to visit the Uffizi guide covers the best time of day and how the months compare.

Which Florence attractions need advance tickets

Some sights need a timed ticket booked ahead, especially from April to October:

• Uffizi Gallery: book to skip a walk-up queue of 45 to 90 minutes; slots can sell out days ahead in peak season.
• Accademia (David): timed slots sell out weeks ahead in summer.
• Brunelleschi’s dome: the timed dome slot is compulsory and books out weeks ahead.
• Vasari Corridor: small groups mean slots go fast; book as early as you can.
• Brancacci Chapel: a small chapel with small groups; book your slot ahead.

Since October 2025, Uffizi tickets carry the visitor’s name, and you need matching photo ID (passport or ID card) at the door. The Palazzo Vecchio tower, the Medici Chapels and the Bargello are also best reserved in high season, but they rarely sell out the way the top three do. A timed ticket does not skip the security check, so still arrive 10 to 15 minutes before your slot.

Frequently asked questions

What is Florence famous for?

Florence is the birthplace of the Renaissance, the city of the Medici, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Leonardo and Brunelleschi. It is known for the Duomo, the Uffizi Gallery, Michelangelo’s David, the Ponte Vecchio, and its leather, gold and artisan crafts.

Is Florence walkable?

Yes. The historic center is compact and largely pedestrian, and nearly every major sight is within a 20 to 30 minute walk. Comfortable shoes matter more than public transport here, and walking is the best way to see the city; our Florence walking tours guide has a route.

Can you see Florence in one day?

You can see the highlights, the Duomo from outside, the Uffizi, the Accademia, Piazza della Signoria and the Ponte Vecchio, in one well-planned day with tickets booked ahead. Two to three days lets you see them without rushing.

Do you need to book Florence museums in advance?

For the Uffizi, the Accademia, the dome climb, the Vasari Corridor and the Brancacci Chapel, yes, especially in high season. Smaller museums can often be visited on the day, particularly in winter.

Prices, opening hours and closing days were checked on the official sites in October 2026 and can change, so confirm on the museum’s own site before you go, especially for free-entry days and seasonal hours.

Related reading

• Uffizi and Accademia in one day
• Florence walking tours: free, self-guided and private
• Florence Duomo tickets and passes
• What to see in the Uffizi Gallery