Florence for first-time visitors
Brunelleschi's Dome, not the Uffizi. The cathedral dome, completed in 1436, remains the largest masonry dome ever built. A timed climb inside puts you face-to-face with Vasari's Last Judgment fresco and delivers the one view that maps Florence's entire centro storico below. The cathedral itself is free and needs no reservation.
Questions first-timers ask about Florence
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Must-see
Brunelleschi's Dome, not the Uffizi. The cathedral dome, completed in 1436, remains the largest masonry dome ever built. A timed climb inside puts you face-to-face with Vasari's Last Judgment fresco and delivers the one view that maps Florence's entire centro storico below. The cathedral itself is free and needs no reservation.
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Best time to visit
April through May and mid-September through October give you Florence at its best. Daytime highs sit between 18°C and 25°C, the Uffizi queue drops to under 30 minutes on weekday mornings, and hotel rates in Santo Spirito run 30-40% below their June peaks. Shoulder months March and November still work if you pack layers.
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Airport to city
From Amerigo Vespucci Airport (FLR), take the T2 tramway to Firenze Santa Maria Novella station. It costs €1.70, takes 20 minutes, and runs every 5 minutes until midnight. After midnight, taxis charge a flat €22 to the centro storico. If you flew into Pisa (PSA), take the PisaMover and Trenitalia train, about 70 minutes and €15 total.
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How to get there
Florence has no transatlantic airport. Fly into Pisa (PSA), 80 km west with Ryanair and easyJet connections, or Amerigo Vespucci (FLR), 5 km from the Duomo with European-only routes. From North America, connect through Rome FCO, Munich, or Amsterdam. High-speed Frecciarossa trains from Rome reach Firenze Santa Maria Novella in 95 minutes for €25-50.
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Getting around
Walk. Florence's centro storico measures about 2 km across, and every major sight from the Duomo to Palazzo Pitti falls within a 20-minute stroll of Santa Maria Novella station. Buses and the T1/T2 tramway fill gaps beyond the old walls, with a €1.70 ticket buying 90 minutes on both. Taxis work for after-dark returns. Leave the rental car outside the ZTL or face €80-100 fines per camera.
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Curated for first-timers
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Must-see attractions
Florence's must-see list is not a museum checklist; it is a working catalogue of the buildings, bell towers, churches, theatres and chapels that still shape how the city is read on foot. The twelve here cluster tightly inside the historic centre: most within a few hundred metres of one another between roughly latitude 43.76 and 43.78, longitude 11.24 and 11.27, which is to say you can walk the list in a long day, or pace it across three. The selection leans toward places that earn a second look: a palace facing its own piazza, a bridge over the Arno, a baptistery and a bell tower facing the cathedral, a Romanesque basilica on the hill above the river, two chapels celebrated for fresco cycles rather than tourist footfall, a still-working theatre, and three palazzi that anchor their own streets. It is built for the reader who wants Florence as Florentines navigate it (by address, by piazza, by the saint a church is named for) not by gift-shop queue. Every claim below traces back to a verified record; everything else is editorial.
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Best restaurants
Florence eats well, but eats unevenly. Within a few blocks of the Duomo you will find tasting menus chasing Michelin, family trattorias that have not changed a recipe in a generation, Tuscan steakhouses doing one thing very loudly, and (increasingly) a quiet shadow scene of bakeries, Chinese kitchens, and library-bistros that refuse the postcard altogether. The twelve places below were chosen to map that range honestly. Some sit on the tourist arteries between Piazza della Signoria and Ponte Vecchio and earn the rent anyway; others are tucked along Via dei Bardi or Lungarno delle Grazie where the foot traffic thins and the cooking sharpens. The list is built for the reader who wants to eat in Florence the way Florentines do (at the hour Florentines eat, on the streets they walk) and who is willing to skip the chalkboard menus and laminated photos to get there. Addresses, hours, and phone numbers are all sourced; the opinions are the editor's. Where a kitchen does one thing exceptionally, that is the thing to order. Where it does many things adequately, the list says so, or it is not on the list at all.
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