Start from 67 curated places around Florence, IT, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Alla Vecchia Bettola
A boisterous Oltrarno neighborhood trattoria near Piazza Tasso where communal tables covered in straw-wrapped Chianti bottles and loud conversation have been the norm since the 1970s. The house signature is penne in a vodka-tomato cream sauce that has genuine depth, and the Florentine bistecca is cut thick and charred correctly.
Trattoria Sostanza
Florence's oldest continuously operating trattoria, founded in 1869, serves a menu that has barely changed: butter-roasted chicken breast cooked over hot coals in an enormous copper pan, and a Florentine steak from Chianina cattle that are weighed tableside on a scale. The room is white-tablecloth without being formal.
Trails & outdoors
Viale dei Colli to Piazzale Michelangelo Walk
The scenic promenade from Ponte San Niccolò to Piazzale Michelangelo follows the hillside road laid out in the 19th century specifically for the views — the Arno below, the city spread out to the north, and a green corridor of cypresses and villas the whole way. It's flat-ish as the road climbs gently, and the terrace at the end rewards the effort.
Piazzale Michelangelo to San Miniato al Monte
A short but rewarding uphill walk continuing from Piazzale Michelangelo through a cypress-lined staircase to the hilltop Romanesque basilica of San Miniato. The route passes through the Parco della Rimembranza, a WWI memorial park planted with cypress trees dedicated to fallen soldiers, and the views over the Arno valley improve with every step.
Things to do
Museo Galileo
The science museum on the Arno holds Galileo's original telescopes, his lens that discovered Jupiter's moons, a collection of terrestrial and celestial globes, and — in its famous display case — Galileo's preserved middle finger. It's a museum about instruments and observation as much as physics, and the objects are genuinely extraordinary.
Palazzo Strozzi
Florence's premier contemporary art exhibition space occupies a 15th-century Renaissance palace built by Filippo Strozzi as a rival to the Medici's own compound. The programming cycles through major international shows — recent years have covered Tracey Emin, Fra Angelico, Jeff Koons, and Ai Weiwei — in a building whose stone courtyard is itself worth the visit.
Landmarks & sights
Gallerie degli Uffizi
The world's densest concentration of Renaissance masterworks occupies a former Medici administrative building stretching along the Arno. Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera are here, but the real payoff is the second-floor corridor where you can see how painting changed decade by decade. Budget a solid three hours minimum.
Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze
The Accademia is essentially a single-sculpture pilgrimage: Michelangelo's David, carved from one block of marble between 1501 and 1504, stands in a rotunda built specifically to hold it. The four unfinished Prisoners along the approach hallway — rough forms emerging from stone — are arguably as compelling as the finished work.