Italy · Self-guided walk
Florence in one walk 8 sights, 80 minutes
A self-guided walking tour of the Florence Old Town: 8 sights on one 5.3 km loop, about 80 minutes on foot, back where you started.
No two days to spare? Here is the short version: the big sights in one loop. I would take longer. I always take longer.
At a glance
The walk in numbers.
- Distance
- 5.3 km, a loop
- Time
- about 80 minutes of walking at 4 km/h, plus however long you stop
- Sights
- 8
- Start and finish
- Ponte Vecchio
- Steps
- on Piazza del Duomo, Piazza della Signoria
- Cost
- free: no guide, no booking, no tip
The route
Map of the Florence walk: 8 stops, one loop.
The gold line is the walk. The numbers are the stops, in the order you reach them. The pale lines are every other street in the Old Town.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
The stops
8 sights in Florence, in walking order.
Each stop says how far the next one is and which streets take you there.
1. Ponte Vecchio
the start
The one bridge in this town with a whole street built on top of it. Shops hang out over the water on timber brackets, tight on both sides, so you can be halfway over and never see the river at all. Somebody looked at all that foot traffic and thought: rent. There is a single gap in the middle where the view is let back in.
Next: Belvedere sull'Arno, 270 m, about 4 min, along Ponte Vecchio.
2. Belvedere sull'Arno
about 4 minutes of walking from the start
A parapet on the Lungarno Torrigiani, at about the height a person wants to lean. Stop and turn to face the water: the far bank stacks the whole city up at once, roof over roof over roof. Late in the afternoon the stone on that side goes orange. I lean here too. It is what a parapet is for.
Next: Palazzo Pitti, 490 m, about 7 min.
3. Palazzo Pitti
about 11 minutes of walking from the start · inside open Mon–Sun 08:15–18:50
The far end of the walk, over the water and then up. The whole front is one enormous slab of rough-cut stone, and the square in front of it slopes away like a ramp, so the thing leans over you while you arrive. Come at it up the Sdrucciolo dei Pitti if you would rather arrive out of breath. Steep lanes are my favourite: they go down slowly.
Next: Piazza Santa Maria Novella, 1,070 m, about 16 min, along Piazza dei Pitti, Sdrucciolo dei Pitti, Via dei Tornabuoni, Via della Spada, Via delle Belle Donne.
4. Piazza Santa Maria Novella
about 27 minutes of walking from the start
A wide open rectangle, and this town does not hand those out often. The church shutting the top end wears a front of green and white geometry that was already old before it was done. Sit on the low wall along one flank and look up the length of it. Two things are set out there that are not figures, and I want you to find them yourself.
Next: Galleria dell'Accademia, 980 m, about 15 min, along Via dei Banchi, Via dei Cerretani, Via Ricasoli.
Lunch break
Trattoria Sergio Gozzi, Piazza di San Lorenzo 8r, about 210 m off the route, open Mon–Sat 12:00–15:00, Sun closed.
Locals call it Da Sergio. More on what to eat in Florence.
5. Galleria dell'Accademia
about 42 minutes of walking from the start · inside open Tue–Sun 08:15–18:50, Mon closed
A door on Via Ricasoli with a queue outside it, and the queue is the tell. Book ahead or turn up at opening, because this is the one halt on the walk where the best of it is kept indoors and everybody in that line has come for exactly one thing. I will be out on the kerb. I have the time.
Next: Campanile di Giotto, 640 m, about 10 min, along Via Ricasoli, Piazza del Duomo.
6. Campanile di Giotto
about 52 minutes of walking from the start · inside open Mon–Sun 08:15–19:45
A tower standing on its own, in bands of white, green and pink marble, like something laid out on a counter. The other climb next door has the long queue. This one has the view of it. Go up here and the dome is the thing you are looking at, not the thing you are standing on.
Next: Basilica di Santa Croce, 920 m, about 14 min, along Piazza del Duomo.
7. Basilica di Santa Croce
about 66 minutes of walking from the start
One end of the widest flat square on this side of the map, with the low benches all facing the wrong way, which I enjoy. The coloured front is a latecomer, put on in the 1800s over a wall that had stood bare for ages. Stand well back to take it in. Then look down: this is the lowest corner of the centre, and the walls about here remember how high the water once got.
Next: Piazza della Signoria, 630 m, about 9 min, along Via dei Gondi, Piazza della Signoria.
8. Piazza della Signoria
about 75 minutes of walking from the start
The city's front room, with something strange under the paving. A dig here between 1981 and 1989 turned up a large Roman bath complex and a dye works, with medieval houses set straight on top of them. Above, the roofed loggia along one side is open to the lane and costs nothing to walk into. Everything worth looking at on this square is out in the weather on purpose.
Back to the start: Ponte Vecchio, 310 m, about 5 min, along Piazza della Signoria, Calimaruzza.
Every stop counts from the street; the hours are for going inside. Opening hours from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors. Check before you go.
After the walk
The rest of Florence.
This loop is 8 sights. The Old Town is 235 streets, and I have opinions about all of them. Every street of the Florence Old Town, with what to eat and where.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone: every street is a line of dots you collect by walking it, and the phone stays in your pocket. Your first city is free.