Florence in 3 days, on foot

This 3-day self-guided walking plan for Florence covers 42 narrated sights in an easy day-by-day order. Each day is split into a morning and an afternoon loop, and every stop has a two to three minute audio story in the Gingerguide app.

You set the pace: this is a suggested order, not a schedule. Walk it in 3 days, or stretch it out. Reorder freely; Florence rewards a detour.

Day 1

Morning

1. Uffizi Gallery: One of the oldest and most celebrated art museums in the world, home to Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Leonardo's Annunciation, and masterworks by Michelangelo, Raphael, and Caravaggio.
2. Michelangelo's David – Galleria dell'Accademia: Home to Michelangelo's colossal David (1504), the 5.17-metre marble masterpiece widely considered the greatest sculpture ever carved.
3. Brunelleschi's Dome & the Duomo: The largest masonry dome ever built (1436), Brunelleschi's engineering masterpiece crowning the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, with 463 steps to the lantern and Vasari's Last Judgement fresco inside.
4. Baptistery of San Giovanni: Florence's oldest religious building, famous for Ghiberti's gilded bronze Gates of Paradise and its glittering Byzantine mosaic ceiling depicting the Last Judgement.
5. Giotto's Campanile: Florence's elegant 14th-century bell tower standing 84.7 metres high, clad in multicoloured marble with 414 steps to a panoramic terrace and remarkable bas-relief carvings depicting human civilisation.
6. Piazza della Signoria: Florence's main civic square and an open-air sculpture museum, featuring Cellini's bronze Perseus, the Neptune Fountain, a marble copy of Michelangelo's David, and the Loggia dei Lanzi.
7. Palazzo Vecchio: Florence's medieval fortress-palace and still-functioning town hall, featuring the vast Salone dei Cinquecento painted by Vasari and a 94-metre tower that has dominated the city skyline since 1314.

Afternoon

1. Ponte Vecchio: Florence's iconic medieval bridge, lined with goldsmiths' shops on both sides since 1593, with the Vasari Corridor running secretly above, and the only bridge the retreating Germans did not destroy in 1944.
2. Pitti Palace: Florence's largest palace, the principal Medici residence from 1549, housing the Palatine Gallery with masterworks by Raphael, Titian, and Rubens, and the entrance to the magnificent Boboli Gardens.
3. Boboli Gardens: Florence's great 16th-century Renaissance garden rising behind the Pitti Palace, with ancient grottos, fountains, an amphitheatre, and sweeping views over the city.
4. Basilica of Santa Croce: The 'Temple of Italian Glories' where Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli are buried, with Giotto's frescoes and Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel in the cloister.
5. San Miniato al Monte: Tuscany's finest Romanesque church, dating from 1018, with a gleaming marble façade, golden Byzantine mosaics, and sweeping panoramic views over Florence from its hilltop position.
6. Piazzale Michelangelo: Florence's most famous panoramic viewpoint, created in 1869, with a bronze replica of Michelangelo's David and a breathtaking 180-degree view of the city, the Arno, and the surrounding hills.
7. Bargello Museum: Florence's sculpture museum par excellence, in the city's oldest public building, housing Donatello's bronze David, the first free-standing nude since antiquity, and early works by Michelangelo and Cellini.

Day 2

Morning

1. Medici Chapels: Michelangelo's New Sacristy, containing his allegorical figures of Night, Day, Dusk, and Dawn on the Medici tombs, among the most powerful sculptures ever created.
2. San Lorenzo & Medici Market: The Medici family's parish church with Brunelleschi's Old Sacristy and Michelangelo's library, surrounded by the famous outdoor leather market.
3. Piazza della Repubblica: Florence's grand 19th-century square, built on the site of the ancient Roman forum, with a triumphal arch and historic cafés including Gilli and Paszkowski.
4. Oltrarno District: Florence's authentic 'other bank' neighbourhood, where goldsmiths, frame-makers, antique restorers, and artisans work in workshops unchanged for generations, alongside the city's best trattorias and wine bars.
5. Basilica di Santo Spirito: Brunelleschi's last great church, completed after his death, with a hidden Michelangelo crucifix in the sacristy and a lively piazza that is the social heart of the Oltrarno.
6. Palazzo Strozzi: The finest private Renaissance palace in Florence, built in 1489 for banker Filippo Strozzi to rival the Medici, now hosting the city's most important temporary art exhibitions.
7. Museo di San Marco: A Dominican convent where Fra Angelico painted a fresco in every monk's cell, including the breathtaking Annunciation at the top of the stairs, one of the great devotional paintings of the Renaissance.

Afternoon

1. Spedale degli Innocenti: Brunelleschi's 1419 orphanage, the first building in purely Renaissance style anywhere in the world, with Andrea della Robbia's famous terracotta roundels of swaddled infants on the portico.
2. Piazza della Santissima Annunziata: Florence's most elegant square, flanked by Brunelleschi's orphanage loggia and Antonio da Sangallo's arcaded church, with Giambologna's equestrian statue of Ferdinand I and Pietro Tacca's baroque fountains.
3. Museo Galileo: The world's greatest collection of historical scientific instruments, including Galileo's original telescopes with which he discovered Jupiter's four moons, Medici armillary spheres, and a remarkable anatomical relic.
4. Vasari Corridor: The secret elevated walkway built in 1565 connecting the Uffizi to the Pitti Palace over the Ponte Vecchio, hung with over 700 self-portraits, the private passage of the Medici Grand Dukes.
5. Florence Synagogue: The grand Moorish-style synagogue built in 1882 with gilded domes and elaborate Sephardic interiors, standing on the site of the former Jewish Ghetto established by Cosimo I in 1571.
6. Palazzo Davanzati: A perfectly preserved 14th-century Florentine merchant's palace, now a museum of medieval domestic life with frescoed rooms, period furniture, and a remarkable vaulted courtyard.
7. Fiesole: The Etruscan and Roman hill town above Florence, with ancient ruins, a Franciscan monastery, and sweeping panoramic views over the Arno valley and the city below.

Day 3

Morning

1. Certosa di Galluzzo: A remarkably intact 14th-century Carthusian monastery perched on a hill south of Florence, with Pontormo's frescoes, a monks' pharmacy, and panoramic views over Tuscany.
2. Greve in Chianti: The gateway town of the Chianti Classico wine country, with its distinctive triangular piazza, Verrazzano wine shop, and access to the rolling vineyards and medieval towers of the Strada del Vino.
3. Lampredotto & Florentine Street Food: The authentic taste of Florence: lampredotto (braised tripe sandwich), schiacciata, and ribollita from the city's traditional trippaio street carts, a working-class culinary tradition dating back centuries.
4. Mercato Centrale: Florence's magnificent 19th-century iron-and-glass covered market, with a ground floor of traditional Florentine food stalls and a buzzing upper-level food hall.
5. Cappella Brancacci: The Sistine Chapel of the early Renaissance: Masaccio's revolutionary frescoes in Santa Maria del Carmine, completed by Filippino Lippi, that fundamentally changed European painting.
6. Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova: Europe's oldest functioning hospital, founded in 1288 by Folco Portinari (father of Dante's Beatrice), with a magnificent 15th-century portico and an extraordinary collection of Renaissance art.
7. Chiostro dello Scalzo: An intimate cloister with a complete cycle of grisaille frescoes by Andrea del Sarto, depicting the life of John the Baptist, one of the finest Renaissance fresco cycles in Florence, rarely visited.

Afternoon

1. Forte Belvedere: A massive star-shaped fortress built for Grand Duke Ferdinando I in 1590, offering the finest panoramic views in Florence across the Arno valley, Brunelleschi's Dome, and the surrounding hills.
2. Loggia dei Lanzi: A magnificent 14th-century open-air loggia in Piazza della Signoria displaying monumental Renaissance and ancient sculpture, including Cellini's Perseus with the Head of Medusa and Giambologna's Rape of the Sabine Women.
3. Museo Novecento: Florence's museum of 20th-century Italian art, housed in the historic Ospedale delle Leopoldine in Piazza Santa Maria Novella, with an outstanding collection of Arte Povera, Futurism, and Italian Modernism.
4. Giardino dell'Iris: A hillside garden above Piazzale Michelangelo dedicated to Florence's civic symbol, the iris, with thousands of varieties blooming in May, spectacular views over the city, and an international iris competition.
5. Museo Stefano Bardini: A spectacular antiquarian's palazzo in Oltrarno housing the eclectic collection of Stefano Bardini, the greatest antique dealer of the 19th century, with medieval and Renaissance sculpture, tapestries, carpets, and decorative arts.
6. Parco delle Cascine: Florence's largest public park, a 3-kilometre green ribbon along the Arno, a former Medici hunting estate now beloved by Florentines for running, cycling, Sunday markets, and the city's most vibrant multicultural street life.
7. Abbazia di Vallombrosa: A 11th-century Benedictine monastery in a magnificent high-altitude fir forest 30km east of Florence, founded by St John Gualberto and giving its name to the Vallombrosian monastic order, immortalised in Milton's Paradise Lost.

Full Florence guide and all stops → · Other itineraries: 2 days