Vasari Corridor Tours

What the corridor is now

The Vasari Corridor reopened on 21 December 2024 after eight years closed, and it looks different from the corridor older guidebooks describe. The self-portrait collection that lined it until 2016 has moved into the Uffizi itself, on the first floor in rooms C1 to C5. The museum restored the passage to what it calls its original bareness: a long, plain walkway with 73 windows, which it treats as the main point of the visit. Since July 2025 more than fifty Roman busts line the stretch over Ponte Vecchio. Everything else you look at is outside the glass: the Arno, the bridge beneath you, the rooftops of the Oltrarno.

Giorgio Vasari built it in 1565 for Cosimo I de’ Medici, in five months; the visitor section today runs 760 meters from the Uffizi to the Buontalenti Grotto in the Boboli Gardens.

How a corridor visit works

You cannot visit the corridor on its own during the day. A ticket that admits you to the Uffizi is required, and the official combined Uffizi and corridor ticket costs €43 on the day or €47 booked ahead. If you already hold a Uffizi ticket or a pass, the corridor is a €20 supplement. Corridor tickets are named and non-refundable.

Visits run Tuesday to Sunday from 10.15 a.m., in groups of 25 escorted by two museum staff. The staff keep the group together and moving; they are not guides and give no commentary, and under the museum’s rules a private guide walking with you cannot give explanations inside either. The walk takes about 45 minutes.

It is one way. You enter from Room D19 on the Uffizi’s first floor, five minutes before your slot or you lose the place, and you come out through a door by the Buontalenti Grotto, from where the group is escorted to the Ammannati Courtyard of Palazzo Pitti. You cannot go back into the Uffizi, and the corridor ticket does not include Boboli or the Pitti museums, so without separate tickets for those you leave from the courtyard. Anything you left in the Uffizi cloakroom has to be fetched on foot, back over Ponte Vecchio along Via Guicciardini, about ten minutes.

Suitcases, backpacks and large umbrellas are banned in the corridor; a small handbag and a pocket umbrella are fine.

On Friday evenings until 20 November 2026 the corridor opens separately from 7 to 11 p.m.: corridor only, €20 on the day or €24 ahead, about 35 minutes, no cloakroom. That ticket does not include the galleries, and nothing is announced after 20 November.

The tour I would book

Uffizi Small-Group Tour (Max 9) with Vasari Option by Walks in town is a two-hour guided visit of the Uffizi in a group of no more than nine, with a reserved corridor slot added on the three-hour option. Corridor entry is typically about two hours after the tour starts, leaving time in the gallery on your own before you head to the first-floor meeting point. The listing is clear that the corridor option cannot be added on the day and that the experience ends across the river with no re-entry. It costs $107 per person for the gallery-only option, checked in October 2026 for the next available date, and $157 with the corridor. It is rated 4.8 from 108 reviews, can be cancelled free up to 24 hours before, and is listed as unsuitable for wheelchair users.

Recent guests mention groups as small as four; one notes that gallery crowds were loud enough at times to make the guide hard to hear. The full listing, options and reviews are in our breakdown.

The other corridor tours on this site

Uffizi Small Group Tour with Optional Vasari Corridor Access from Florence with Locals is the cheaper route in: a 1½-hour guided tour of the second-floor masterpieces, max 9, then a self-guided corridor slot about two hours after the tour starts. It is $116 with the corridor, rated 4.6 from 141 reviews, with free cancellation, and the operator asks you to allow 3½ to 4 hours in total. One recent reviewer booked the standard option believing the corridor was included, so read the option names carefully (our breakdown).

Uffizi Gallery with Optional Vasari Corridor Tour from Ciaoflorence keeps the guide with you through the corridor, pointing out the sights without being allowed to explain them, in a group of up to 10, about three hours, $174, rated 4.9 from 53 reviews. The corridor option is non-refundable, and the tour meets at the operator’s office on Via Cavour 18, a walk from the museum (our breakdown).

Vasari Corridor and Uffizi Gallery Exclusive Tour by Made of Tuscany is the private version: two hours in the Uffizi with your own guide and then the corridor, 2½ hours in all, $309 per person for two adults, rated 4.7 from 41 reviews (our breakdown).

When to leave the corridor out

If your main interest is the paintings, the corridor ends your Uffizi visit at a fixed time and on the far side of the river. A reserved Uffizi ticket or a guided tour without the corridor leaves you free to stay until the 6.30 p.m. closing call.

If you are heading to Palazzo Pitti or the Boboli Gardens afterward anyway, the corridor delivers you to their door, but you still need their tickets. The official 5-day PassePartout covers the Uffizi, Pitti and Boboli for €40, or €58 with the corridor taken on the Uffizi day.

If you carry a backpack you cannot leave at your hotel, it goes in the Uffizi cloakroom and you walk back for it afterward.

On the day

Arrive with the ID that matches the name on your booking. Keep water to a 50 cl plastic bottle. Photos without flash are allowed in the corridor; video is not. Toilets are at the far end of the corridor.

When you are ready, check availability for your dates. For what the rest of the Uffizi visit is like, read what to expect at the Uffizi Gallery, and for the wider choice, which Uffizi ticket or tour is right for you.