What to See in Florence: Between Art, Wonder, and Timeless Views

Florence is known worldwide for being one of the Italian cities where art and architecture dominate. Walking through the streets of this wonderful town, you will be enchanted by the vast number of works that will appear before your eyes. The historic center of Florence is a true open-air museum, and we recommend visiting it as thoroughly as possible. This guide will be useful to help you understand what to see in Florence and what to do, illustrating the 10 things to see in Florence in one day and beyond.

Discover Florence in video

Florence like you’ve never seen it before: art, emotion, and beauty told by the official Italian tourism video. A perfect introduction to the city.

What to visit in Florence, attractions not to be missed

The 12 Most Famous Attractions in Florence

Florence is an open-air museum: every corner tells part of its great artistic history. Here is a selection of the 12 attractions to start your exploration.

To visit all the places of interest and attractions in Florence, you would need several days, but don’t be discouraged. If you have little time available, you can visit Florence in one day by prioritizing the visit to some monuments over others.

We have thought to create a guide for you, so that you can understand what to do in Florence based on the time you have available. Obviously, there are many things to see in Florence, but especially if you have little time you should not miss. Here are the most important places to visit in Florence and what not to miss in Florence.

What to see absolutely in Florence

1 Piazza Duomo

Piazza Duomo in Florence must absolutely be the first thing to visit in Florence. It is a true open-air museum in the heart of the city. With a single ticket you can access several monuments: the Duomo, the Opera del Duomo museum, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Brunelleschi dome, the Giotto bell tower, the Baptistery of San Giovanni.

The Brunelleschi Dome of the cathedral of Florence is a monument open to the public where you can see up close Brunelleschi’s architectural structures, the sixteenth-century frescoes inside, and enjoy from above a spectacular view of the city.

The Giotto bell tower, of the Florence Cathedral, is a monument open to the public where you can see up close the 14th-century architectural structures and enjoy a beautiful panoramic view of the city from the terrace located at the top of the building.

2 Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore

The Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore, whose construction was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio, the third and last Florentine cathedral, was named in 1412 after Santa Maria del Fiore with a clear reference to the lily, symbol of the city. It was built over the second cathedral, which early Christian Florence had dedicated to Santa Reparata. The Museum of the Opera of Santa Maria del Fiore was created to preserve and display the works of the cathedral complex. It was expanded and renovated in 1999.

3 Ponte Vecchio

The Ponte Vecchio of Florence is surely one of the most famous bridges in the world, wonderful and romantic; a souvenir photo from this point in Florence is a must. Originally it connected Palazzo Vecchio, also called Palazzo della Signoria, the political heart of the city, to Palazzo Pitti, , and thus to the Boboli Garden.

4 Palazzo Pitti

Originally the Palace was the residence of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. Currently it is a monumental area used as the seat of several museums and as a place for major exhibitions in Florence.

Palatine Gallery and Royal Apartments. In the eighteenth century, some representative rooms of the grand ducal palace of Tuscany began to be used as an art gallery, leading to the public opening of the collection in the early nineteenth century. The Gallery illustrates the taste of Medici and Lorraine collecting, both in the arrangement, inspired by the decorative and representative principles of a princely gallery, and in the preference for art from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries represented by artists such as: Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Caravaggio, Rubens, Van Dyck, Velazquez. Attached to the Gallery are the monumental apartments that preserve the furniture from the period when they were the residence of the Italian royal family.

Costume Gallery. The museum is dedicated to the history of fashion. It houses collections of costumes and accessories from the eighteenth century to today and theatrical costumes, as well as restored funeral outfits of Cosimo I de’ Medici, Elenora di Toledo and don Garzia. Exhibitions for biennial selections and temporary shows.

5 Boboli Gardens

The Boboli Garden, inside Palazzo Pitti, is wonderful and makes this place one of the must-see points on the “Florence what to visit” list. Started in 1549, designed by Tribolo for Duchess Eleonora di Toledo, it has been expanded and modified in the following centuries. Used for the entertainments of the grand ducal court, it was opened to the public in 1766 during the time of Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine. It was museumized in 1992. It represents one of the finest examples of Italian garden, which brings rational order to nature and enriches the geometry of the avenues and plants with grottos, statues, and fountains. Of particular artistic significance are the ancient Roman statues and those of important Renaissance sculptors such as Baccio Bandinelli and Giambologna. The grottos, fountains, and amphitheater where court performances were held.

6 The Uffizi and the Drawings and Prints Cabinet

The Uffizi: it is another unmissable place in Florence. It is the most visited Italian museum in the world, attracting more than a million visitors each year. The line to enter will be quite long, but do not be discouraged; the wait will be rewarded by the wonders you will find inside. The Drawings and Prints Cabinet of the Uffizi is located on the first floor of the Uffizi Vasari complex and houses one of the most important graphic collections in the world. The collection, started around the mid-seventeenth century by Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici, has been expanded over the centuries and is still growing. The works (almost 150,000, including drawings and prints) date from the late fourteenth century to the present day. Renaissance artists, especially Florentine and Tuscan, predominate, foreign schools are significantly represented, and the presence of contemporary artists is constantly increasing. Also important is the heritage of architectural drawings. The Institute periodically organizes exhibitions, accompanied by scientific catalogs, which are presented to the public in the Exhibition Hall.

To skip the Uffizi line, choose to buy tickets in advance. Here’s how.

7 Santa Maria Novella

The Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, adjacent to the homonymous railway station, is wonderful both outside and inside. It is part of Florence’s history and inside you can see, among other things, the crucifix painted by Giotto. It requires a visit that we recommend.
The church of Santa Maria Novella, while maintaining free access to a chapel reserved for prayer and masses held on weekdays at 7:30 and 18:00, on holidays at 8:30, 10:30, 12:00, and 18:00, has been museumized, with the establishment of an entrance ticket and predetermined visiting hours, in order to ensure the orderly visit of the church with wider and more comfortable hours, guarantee the protection of artworks and respect for the religious function of the monument.
The Museum of Santa Maria Novella consists of part of the monumental complex of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria Novella with its pictorial decorations. Since 1983, a selection of sacred furnishings belonging to the Basilica has been exhibited in the refectory.

8 Piazza della Signoria

Piazza della Signoria is located in the center of Florence, in front of Palazzo Vecchio and you will surely recognize it by David (N.B.: the original is located at the Accademia Gallery) by Michelangelo placed on the right side.

9 Monumental complex of Santa Croce

After the 1966 flood, the rooms and artworks were restored and the museum reinstalled in 1977. The Santa Croce museum is connected to the permanent exhibition of about 300 pieces of engraved paper and wood of xylographic works by Pietro Parigi (1892-1988). Since 2002, the church of Santa Croce has also been museumized and the visit to the basilica with its artworks is part of the museum route.

10 Baptistery of San Giovanni

The Baptistery of San Giovanni, masterpiece of Florentine Romanesque art. Octagonal in shape, entirely covered with white and green marble slabs from Prato, the Baptistery is topped by an eight-segment dome resting on the perimeter walls, masked externally by the elevation of the walls above the arch of the second level and by a flattened pyramid roof.

Florence, places of interest

11 Palazzo Medici Riccardi

The first museum established in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi was the Museo Mediceo, in the rooms on the ground floor, dedicated to the history of the Medici family. The current museum route instead includes the Chapel with frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli, the Michelozzo courtyard, the garden, and the Gallery frescoed in the seventeenth century by Luca Giordano. The rooms of the former Museo Mediceo are now used for temporary exhibitions.

12 Cenacolo di Sant’Apollonia

The museum occupies part of the ancient monastery of the Benedictines of Sant’Apollonia, founded in 1339 and enlarged in the fifteenth century. Around 1447 Andrea del Castagno frescoed the back wall of the refectory with the Last Supper, The Crucifixion, The Deposition, and The Resurrection. The museum also displays other detached frescoes by Andrea del Castagno with their respective sinopies and paintings by Paolo Schiavo and Neri di Bicci, coming from the monastery.

13 Giorgio Vasari’s House in Florence

After several years of restoration, the Florentine residence where Giorgio Vasari spent the last years of his life and died in 1574 is open to the public. The house is located inside a sixteenth-century palace in Borgo Santa Croce, not far from the square of the same name. The house has undergone numerous changes over time, which however spared the Great Hall, the only one left today among those frescoed by the master and his collaborators.

14 Church of San Benedetto

The first records of the church date back to 1002, when it was defined as Ecclesia Sancti Benedicti extra muros civitatis Florentiae. Indeed, at that time the church was located outside the Carolingian city walls. It was one of the 36 ancient Florentine parishes, endowed with economic assets outside Florence, and some of its Rectors are mentioned in various documents since 1127. San Benedetto is the only Church in Florence dedicated to the Saint founder of Western Monasticism, now also patron saint of Europe: Benedict of Nursia (480-547).

15 Brancacci Chapel

Following the restoration of the frescoes by Masaccio, Masolino and Filippino Lippi, the Brancacci Chapel was turned into a museum, isolating it from the church of the Carmine and allowing visitor access through the Cloister and the chapter house of the convent.

16 Chiostro dello Scalzo

17 Basilica of San Lorenzo

The Basilica of San Lorenzo, while maintaining its function as a place of worship and parish, has been turned into a museum, allowing visits at set times and with ticket payment, in order to allow better preservation and enjoyment of the works of art housed there while respecting the religious function of the monument.

18 Crypt of Santa Reparata

Accessible from inside the Duomo, the archaeological excavations that uncovered the ancient cathedral of Santa Reparata can be visited, which was destroyed following the construction of the new Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.

Museums of Florence

The museum consists of public rooms (Hall of the Five Hundred, Hall of the Two Hundred, Hall of the Lilies, and Audience Room) and the so-called Medici quarters of the Elements and Eleonora, located in the Palazzo della Signoria. The visit route also includes the mezzanine where the Loeser collection is displayed.

21 Casa di Dante Museum

The museum, set up according to modern museology criteria, reconstructs the political-economic and cultural environment of the time of the illustrious Florentine. The exhibit route retraces the life of the Supreme Poet through his works, the events of his family, his exile, and the Florence of that time.

22 Gallery of Modern Art of Florence

The Gallery of Modern Art of Florence preserves artworks (paintings and sculptures) mainly related to the Tuscan figurative culture within an analogical spectrum stretching from the late 18th century to the period between the two world wars. It illustrates the evolution of Tuscan art from the Neoclassical, Romantic, and Purist periods, focused on celebratory historical themes, to the anti-academic reform carried out after the mid-century by the Macchiaioli group, based on painting made of patches of color and contrasts of light with predominant attention to subjects from nature and everyday life.

The 19th-century itinerary concludes with expressions of Decadentism, Symbolism, Post-Impressionism, and Divisionism. Among the many artists featured are F. Hayez, S. Lega, T. Signorini, G. Fattori, C. Pissarro, M. Rosso, G. Boldini, A. Magnelli.

23 Pietro Annigoni Museum

The Pietro Annigoni Museum was born from the acquisition by the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze in agreement with the Fondazione Parchi Monumentali Bardini e Peyron of a substantial portion of the rich collection of artworks created by the master, which were owned by his children. It consists of about 6000 pieces including paintings, drawings, lithographs, engravings, and sculptures, representing the highest concentration of materials related to the broad artistic production of the Milanese-born painter.

24 Museum of the Santa Maria Novella Perfume Workshop

The museum was strongly desired to bring light and life back to the machines and ancient instruments once used, of which the Workshop has been a jealous and careful keeper through the turbulent centuries. This not only aims to reveal the preparations of the Santa Maria Novella products but is also intended for those simply interested in visiting a tradition museum.

25 Porcelain Museum

The Porcelain Museum, functionally connected to the Museum of Silver and the Boboli Gardens, collects collections of table porcelain from the ruling houses that succeeded each other at Palazzo Pitti, from the Medici to the Lorena and Savoy. The first room presents porcelain from the Royal Factory of Naples, the Doccia Manufactory founded by the Ginori family. French porcelain is represented by pieces from the Vincennes and Sevres factories. The second room features Vienna porcelain brought with the Lorenas. The third room displays porcelain from Meissen and other German manufactories.

26 Gucci Museum

Designed by Gucci Creative Director Frida Giannini, the Gucci Museum is a living space embodying the brand’s “Forever Now” philosophy. The permanent exhibition of the Gucci archive, preserved and expanded over the years for its cultural richness and relevance, will be accompanied by a series of contemporary art installations, selected with the support of the Pinault Foundation. The museum’s tour will also include stores dedicated to iconic Gucci products and gift items, a bookstore, and a café.

Florence: places to visit

27 Medici Villa of Careggi

The fifteenth-century villa, where Lorenzo the Magnificent died, built from a design by the architect Michelozzo, is used as the headquarters of the offices of the Careggi Hospital Company, but it is a monument open to visitors who are given a booklet containing historical notes in Italian and English. It retains much of the original architectural lines and seventeenth-century pictorial decorations.

28 Collections of the Ximenian Observatory

At its founding, the observatory, established by the Jesuit father Leonardo Ximenes in 1756, mainly dealt with astronomy and hydraulics but soon, with the transition to the Piarist Fathers (1773), it shifted towards studies of meteorology and seismology. At the end of the 1700s and early 1800s, important mathematical and cartographic studies were conducted, which led among other things to the creation of the Geometric Map of Tuscany. Studies still actively continue today and the laboratory conducts meteorological surveys and is part of the Seismic Network of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.

29 Plaster Cast Gallery of the State Art Institute

The Plaster Cast Gallery of the Florence Art Institute has the most interesting collection of plaster models in Italy, especially of models of Tuscan Renaissance art. The most substantial core comes from the purchase, in 1922, by the then director Mario Salvini, of the collection of Oronzio Lelli.

30 Enzo Pazzagli Art Park

The Enzo Pazzagli Art Park, located in the southern area of Florence, bordered by the Arno and surrounded by a splendid landscape, is a large space dedicated to contemporary art. Thanks to its considerable exhibition capacity (the total area exceeds 23,000 square meters), it is proposed as an active center for the promotion of both local and international artists. In addition to temporary exhibitions, it hosts a permanent “en plein air” collection of sculptures by Maestro Pazzagli and 10 other artists, surrounded by 300 cypress trees.

Other Museums in Florence Not to Miss

31 Medici Chapels Museum

The Medici Chapels museum route includes the Chapel of the Princes and the New Sacristy by Michelangelo. The first preserves in the crypt the tombs of the members of the Medici dynasty, in the lavish room upstairs the cenotaphs of the grand dukes, and in two rooms on the sides of the altar the treasure of San Lorenzo, consisting of reliquaries and other furnishings, masterpieces of Renaissance and Baroque goldsmithing. The New Sacristy was designed by Michelangelo and was started in 1521 and later completed by Vasari. It contains the tomb of Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano with the statue of the Madonna with Child and the tombs of Lorenzo Duke of Urbino and Giuliano Duke of Nemours with the statues of the two dukes and those of Day, Night, Dawn and Dusk.

32 Museum of Instruments of the Military Geographic Institute

The Museum of the Military Geographic Institute houses a rich collection of instruments for geodesy, astronomy, topography and physics. The number of artifacts amounts to over 400 units. The core of the collection was born from the gathering of the instrumentation existing before 1861 at the topographic-cartographic agencies of the various pre-unification states. Subsequently, with the establishment of the Military Geographic Institute, the collection expanded, often with instruments designed by internal staff and built at the mechanical workshop of the institute itself. Even today the Museum is enriched with all the instruments of the sectors of interest, as they become technologically obsolete.

These are the main places of interest to see in Florence if you have only one day available, but if you have more time, keep in mind this additional list on “Florence museums” and “Florence, monuments”:

• Palazzo Strozzi, one of the most beautiful Renaissance palaces in Italy.
• Church of Santo Spirito, one of the most beautiful basilicas in Florence.
• San Miniato al Monte, a church located in the highest point of the city.
• San Lorenzo and Santa Croce, historic basilicas of Florence, wonderful.
• Brancacci Chapel, a masterpiece of the Renaissance. Unmissable.
• Oltrarno, a characteristic district linked to art and craftsmanship.
• Bargello, a very interesting museum dedicated to sculpture.
• Museum of the History of Science, located next to the Uffizi, a must-see for science lovers.

Quick information: how to get around, where to stay in Florence, where to eat. Don’t miss visiting Florence at Christmas and at Easter, with “the explosion of the cart”.

33 Firenze Card

To visit a larger number of museums, we recommend purchasing the Firenze Card, which will allow you free entry to the museums in the circuit and, with a minimal additional expense, the use of public transport completely free of charge.

34 How to get around Florence

Florence can be reached by plane, arriving at Florence Amerigo Vespucci Airport which is 4 km from the city, or by train, arriving directly in the center at Florence Santa Maria Novella station. There are also 2 major bus stations: Florence Piazzale Montelungo and Florence Rifredi. Once you reach the center, the best way to get around is definitely on foot. We do not recommend using a car as parking in Florence is not that easy to find.

35 Where to eat in Florence

Where to eat in Florence: for your lunches and dinners we recommend choosing a good restaurant, perhaps in the center, where you can try a good Fiorentina steak, a fettunta or a ribollita.

36 Where to sleep in Florence: central areas and economical solutions

Staying in Florence is a unique experience, but to avoid spending too much it is essential to choose the right area. If you want to save without sacrificing quality, read our complete guide on where to sleep in Florence without spending too much: you will find practical advice, recommended areas, and local tips.

Our advice? Look for accommodation in the historic center, so you can walk between museums, churches, squares, and markets. The offer of hotels and B&Bs is very wide: welcoming structures, often housed in historic buildings, with a great quality/price ratio.

🛏️ Tip: also check out our selection of hotels and accommodations in Florence on FullTravel.

💡 Or look for deals on: Booking.com

All that’s left is to pack your bags, your camera, and reach a wonderful place that we assure you, you will never forget.

Frequently Asked Questions about What to See in Florence