10 Places Not Worth Adding to Your Florence Itinerary
I'm from Florence. I watch tourists arrive with a list of 18 stops for a 2-day trip, then leave without having actually seen the city. They spent the time queuing for the wrong things, at the wrong places, eating food that has nothing to do with Tuscany.
Here is what I would cut from your Florence itinerary, and what I would do with the time instead.
1. PONTE VECCHIO AS A "STOP"
It is not a stop. It is a bridge. You walk across it in 4 minutes. The shops on it sell gold jewellery at tourist prices, and the centre of the bridge is so crowded at midday that you are not looking at anything, you are being pushed.
Cross it, yes. Stand on it for 30 minutes, no. The view of Ponte Vecchio is not from Ponte Vecchio. It is from Ponte Santa Trinita, the next bridge west. That is where photographers stand. That is where the postcard shot comes from. Free. No queue. Five minutes away.
2. THE VASARI CORRIDOR
It reopened in December 2024 after 8 years of restoration. Tourists now add it to the Uffizi ticket. Combined price: 43 euros same-day, 47 euros if you book ahead.
Here is what no one tells you. The corridor is one-way. You enter from inside the Uffizi, walk over Ponte Vecchio through a 760-metre hallway, and exit at the Pitti Palace courtyard. You cannot walk back to the Uffizi. You cannot retrieve anything from the Uffizi cloakroom. The museum is closed to you for the day.
Worse. Your Uffizi entry is locked to 2 hours before your corridor slot. Not earlier. The Uffizi needs 3 to 4 hours to do properly. This ticket caps you at 2 and marches you out. You will rush the Botticelli rooms, skip the Caravaggios, and end the visit staring at your watch.
And what do you get for all this. A hallway. The famous self-portrait collection that made the corridor interesting is gone. It has been moved into the rooms of the Uffizi. What is on the walls now is mostly nothing, with some Roman busts. The staff walking you through is not a guide. They tell you where to stop for photos.
Skip this trap. Book the Uffizi alone, spend the time you need inside, and walk across Ponte Vecchio on the outside for free.
3. THE PITTI PALACE INTERIOR
On a 2-day Florence trip, you do not need this. The Uffizi already covers the Renaissance greats. Pitti is 140 rooms of Palatine Gallery, Royal Apartments, Modern Art Gallery, Costume Museum. It is beautiful. It is also 19 euros for the palace alone, 22 euros if you add Boboli, and 3 hours minimum inside. You will be fogged before you finish.
Keep it for your second trip to Florence. On this trip, the Uffizi is enough.
4. THE BOBOLI GARDENS
The Boboli is 11 acres of hills, gravel paths, and dry grass in summer. Entry is 10 to 12 euros. The statues are often uncleaned, several fountains do not work, and if you have small children in a stroller you will carry it up half the garden. In August there is almost no shade.
If you want a garden with a view of the Duomo, go to the Bardini Gardens across the street. Smaller, terraced, wisteria in April, far fewer people. Or walk 10 minutes up to the Giardino delle Rose below Piazzale Michelangelo. Free. Open April to September. Better view than Boboli gives you.
5. QUEUEING FOR PIAZZALE MICHELANGELO AT SUNSET
I am not telling you to skip Piazzale Michelangelo. The piazzale is a real Florence experience, and on the right evening it is worth the climb.
I am telling you to skip the sunset queue that TikTok built there. By 7pm in summer, the piazzale is packed shoulder to shoulder with coach tours, beer vendors, buskers, and people with selfie sticks fighting for the railing. You waited 40 minutes for that view. You cannot move.
Go earlier, or go later. Better still, walk 5 more minutes uphill to San Miniato al Monte. Romanesque basilica from the 11th century, green and white marble facade, a terrace higher than Piazzale Michelangelo with the same view minus the crowd. Free entry. The Olivetan monks sing Gregorian vespers every evening at 6:30pm. Arrive by 6pm to sit in. This is the viewpoint locals keep to themselves.
6. CLIMBING BOTH THE DOME AND THE CAMPANILE
The Brunelleschi Pass costs 30 euros and includes both the dome climb and Giotto's Campanile, plus the Baptistery and the Crypt, for 3 days. Tourists climb the dome in the morning, eat lunch, then climb the Campanile in the afternoon for "a different view."
They are the same view. One of them puts you inside the dome. The other puts you beside the dome. If you climbed the dome, you have done the view. Skip the Campanile. You will save 414 steps and 60 minutes on legs that are already tired.
If you could not get a dome ticket and you are doing the Giotto Pass at 20 euros instead, climb the Campanile once. One view from above is enough.
7. IL PORCELLINO AT MERCATO NUOVO
The little bronze boar near Piazza della Repubblica. The legend says rub the nose, drop a coin in the mouth, and it brings you back to Florence. Tourists queue for 15 minutes for this ritual, then wander the surrounding loggia and buy the exact same leather belts, silk scarves, and magnets sold at San Lorenzo Market and every other tourist market in Italy.
Walk past. The loggia is nice to look at from outside. Nothing inside it is Florentine craftsmanship. The time you save goes to one of the actual leather workshops in Oltrarno or to Scuola del Cuoio behind Santa Croce.
8. A PISA DAY TRIP JUST FOR THE TOWER
The train from Firenze SMN to Pisa Centrale is one hour each way. Walk from Pisa station to the Tower: 20 minutes. Climb the Tower: 30 minutes up a narrow spiral staircase. Goofy photo: 10 minutes. Lunch: 45 minutes. Walk back to the station: 20 minutes.
That is 4 to 5 hours of your trip for a tilted tower and a photograph. If you are already moving Florence to Cinque Terre, stop in Pisa for 90 minutes on the way through. If you are not, skip it. Lucca is 30 minutes further by train and has a complete walled medieval city you can cycle around on top of the walls. Fiesole is 20 minutes by bus 7 from Piazza San Marco, and has Etruscan ruins, a Roman theatre, and the best panorama of Florence from above.
9. QUEUEING FOR ZAZA, LA GIOSTRA, AND THE TIKTOK RESTAURANTS
ZaZa at Mercato Centrale. La Giostra near Sant'Ambrogio. Every TikTok food reel that mentions Florence sends you to one of these. Tourists queue 90 minutes to 2 hours for a table on a Saturday night.
Both are fine. Neither is Florence. The portions are enormous because that is what the Instagram crowd wants. The prices are high because the queue is the marketing. You are paying for the video you will post, not for Tuscan cooking. No Florentine is sitting in that line.
Walk 5 streets in any direction from either of them and you are in a trattoria that locals actually use. Trattoria Mario near the Mercato Centrale, lunch only, no bookings, a 1953 family-run room where you sit at a shared table. Sabatino in San Frediano, a 1956 institution where primi cost 5 euros and the house wine comes in a jug. Il Magazzino in Piazza della Passera for trippa and peposo, five tables outside, eight inside, the chef specialises in offal and the mains sit around 16 euros. You eat better. You pay less. You do not stand in a queue for an hour.
This is not Tuscany. It is TikTok. Do not confuse the two.
10. QUEUEING 60 MINUTES FOR THE FREE DUOMO INTERIOR
The cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore is free to enter. Tourists see "free" and queue from 10am to 1pm for 45 to 90 minutes. Then they walk inside, find a mostly bare interior, look up at the dome fresco for 5 minutes, and leave.
The cathedral interior is austere. The best art that was once inside is now in the Opera del Duomo Museum. If you already have the Brunelleschi Pass or Giotto Pass, you enter via the north-side Porta della Mandorla with a 5 to 15 minute wait, not 90.
If you are not buying a pass, do not queue at midday for the free entry. The cathedral opens at 10:15am Monday to Saturday and closes at 3:45pm. Go right at opening or in the last hour before closing. Or skip the cathedral interior entirely and spend 9.50 euros at Santa Croce, 10 minutes away, where Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, and Rossini are buried, Giotto frescoed two chapels, and Brunelleschi built the Pazzi Chapel. No queue. More to see. Better visit.
WHAT TO ADD BACK TO YOUR TIME
Cut these ten stops and you get roughly a full day back. Use it for: a slow lunch in Oltrarno at a place with no queue outside. A walk along the back streets of Santo Spirito before the sun goes down. A proper espresso standing at the bar, not sitting at Piazza della Signoria for 6 euros. A real leather workshop, not a market stall. Santa Croce. San Miniato at 6:30pm.
Florence is not a checklist. It is a city you notice when you stop trying to finish the list.
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