Florence

Top things to do in Florence

1. 01

   Duomo complex - climb Brunelleschi's dome

   history culture arts 👍 Popular

   The brick dome still rules the skyline and you climb between its two shells to the lantern; the bell tower beside it gives the better photograph, because it has the dome in it. The octagonal baptistery's gilded doors and gold ceiling mosaics belong to the same complex, and all of it needs a timed slot.

2. 02

   Uffizi Gallery - the Renaissance in one long corridor

   culture arts 👍 Popular

   Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera, Leonardo, Titian and Caravaggio hang in what was the Medici's own office block, and the corridor windows over the river are half the pleasure. Book a slot and take the first or the last entry of the day.

3. 03

   Galleria dell'Accademia - Michelangelo's David

   culture arts 👍 Popular

   The David is larger and stranger in person than any photograph suggests, and the hall of unfinished Slaves straining out of their marble blocks on the approach is the part people remember. It is a small museum otherwise: an hour or two is plenty.

4. 04

   Piazzale Michelangelo and San Miniato al Monte - the city from above

   scenic ⭐ Highly recommended

   The classic panorama over the rooftops is a twenty-minute climb from the river, and the Romanesque church a little higher up is the real prize: a striped marble facade, a crypt older than the Renaissance, and monks who still chant vespers in the late afternoon.

5. 05

   Bargello - Renaissance sculpture without the queue

   culture arts ⭐ Highly recommended

   The old police headquarters and prison holds Donatello's bronze David, Michelangelo's Bacchus and the two competition panels that arguably started the whole story, around a courtyard most visitors walk straight past.

6. 06

   Ponte Vecchio - the goldsmiths' bridge

   history

   The one bridge the retreating German army left standing in 1944, still lined with jewellers' booths and topped by the covered corridor the Medici used to cross the river without touching the street. See it from the next bridge downstream at sunset.

7. 07

   Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens - the Medici at home

   history culture arts

   The grand ducal palace across the river stacks several museums behind one enormous rusticated facade, and the Boboli terraces climb the hill behind it in grottoes, fountains and cypress avenues. It is the closest thing the centre has to a park.

8. 08

   Basilica di Santa Croce - Italy's pantheon

   history

   Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli lie under one Franciscan roof, with Giotto frescoes in the chapels behind the altar and a cool, perfectly proportioned Brunelleschi chapter house out in the cloister.

9. 09

   Brancacci Chapel - the frescoes that taught the Renaissance

   culture arts

   Masaccio's Expulsion from Eden, in a plain Oltrarno church, is where painting learned perspective and real human weight; Michelangelo and Leonardo both came to copy it. Entry is timed and in small groups, so plan it rather than drop in.

10. 10

    Palazzo Vecchio - the fortress town hall

    history

    Still the seat of city government, with a vast frescoed council hall, a secret-passage route through the Medici's private rooms and a tower climb that looks straight down into the square and its open-air sculpture loggia.

11. 11

    Mercato Centrale and the San Lorenzo streets - eat your way through

    food shopping

    The iron market hall does butchers' counters, cheese and tripe rolls downstairs and a food hall upstairs, with leather stalls filling the streets outside and the Medici tombs a corner away.

12. 12

    Bistecca alla fiorentina and the wine windows - eat like a Florentine

    food

    The signature dish is a thick T-bone grilled rare over embers and shared between two; the street version is lampredotto, tripe simmered and stuffed into a bun at a cart. A handful of palazzo walls still serve wine through their small arched hatches.

Getting to & around Florence

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