Budget · 3-hour walk · Florence
The Duomo and Ponte Vecchio in three hours
The cathedral square and San Lorenzo, down to the Signoria and over the river, finishing above the city at sunset.
Three hours in Florence without a museum ticket, which is a more attractive proposition than it sounds: the cathedral exterior, the Baptistery doors, the Signoria's open-air sculpture and the bridge are all free and all outdoors. Time it to finish at Piazzale Michelangelo — the climb is the only real effort of the walk, it takes about twenty-five minutes, and the view back over everything you have just walked through is the point of doing it in this order.
The route, stop by stop
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Piazza del Duomo
The cathedral is free and the queue moves; the dome climb is a separate timed ticket and 463 steps with no lift.
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San Lorenzo & the Medici Chapels
The unfinished brick facade is Michelangelo's design, never built. The chapels behind it hold the tombs he did finish.
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Piazza della Signoria
An open-air sculpture gallery that charges nothing: the Loggia dei Lanzi holds Cellini's Perseus and a Giambologna.
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Ponte Vecchio
Goldsmiths since 1593, when the Medici moved the butchers off it for the smell. Cross it and keep going.
20 min here Walk here → -
Piazzale Michelangelo
Twenty-five minutes uphill, mostly stairs through the Rose Garden. Every photograph of Florence you have seen is from here.
40 min here Walk here →
More in Florence
Every walking route in Florence, or the full Florence guide for where to stay and what a day costs.