What should you not miss in Florence?
Six things: the Duomo complex from outside, David at the Accademia, the Brancacci or the Bargello depending on your taste, sunset from somewhere that is not Piazzale Michelangelo, one Oltrarno evening, and one meal that costs under fifteen euro. Everything else is negotiable.
Six things, and the order matters more than the length of the list. Two of them need booking. The rest you can decide on the morning.
The Duomo, and which climb to pick
The Duomo complex, and the outside of it before anything else. Santa Maria del Fiore, Giotto’s campanile and the Baptistery are on the same small square, all faced in green, white and pink marble, and nothing in a photograph prepares you for the scale.
Inside, the cathedral is comparatively plain, and the queue is long. The exterior costs nothing and takes as long as you want. Go early, around eight, when the square is nearly empty and the light hits the west front.
If you climb something, the choice matters. The dome is 463 steps in a narrow spiral with no turning back, and the real reward is passing Vasari’s frescoes at close range. Giotto’s campanile is a shorter climb, less claustrophobic, and it puts the dome itself in your photograph rather than under your feet.
Book these two, decide the rest on the day. The Accademia and the dome climb both sell out in season, and the dome often days ahead. Everything else in this article can be improvised.
David at the Accademia
The Accademia is a short visit built around one object, which is exactly what you want when time is limited. David is seventeen feet of marble at the end of a corridor, and the thing photographs never convey is that Michelangelo carved it at twenty six from a block another sculptor had abandoned as ruined.
The corridor leading up to it holds the unfinished Prisoners, half emerged from their stone. Some people find those more affecting than David himself.
Forty five minutes covers it. Book a time slot and it is one of the least painful famous things in Italy.
Which single museum to choose
Florence has enough art to fill a month. On a short visit, one gallery with proper attention beats four at speed.
The Bargello
A medieval fortress and prison turned sculpture museum, holding Donatello’s bronze David, work by Michelangelo and Cellini, and the two competition panels by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi that effectively started the Renaissance. It is a fraction of the Uffizi’s crowd for a comparable density of important objects.
The alternative, if you prefer painting, is the Brancacci Chapel across the river, where Masaccio worked out how to paint space and every painter in Florence came to study afterwards. Small, quiet, ticketed, and one of the genuinely important rooms in European art.
Either will give you more in an hour than a long gallery on tired legs. If galleries are the reason you came, go to the Uffizi instead, with a booking and a plan.
Where to be at sunset
Piazzale Michelangelo has the postcard view and, at sunset, most of the people who came for it. Three alternatives sit within a few minutes of it.
San Miniato al Monte
An eleventh century church with a marble facade, a crypt, and monks who still sing vespers in the evening. Five minutes above the Piazzale and far quieter.
The Giardino delle Rose sits just below, free, with the same panorama through roses and Folon sculptures, and closes at dusk. Down at river level, Ponte Santa Trinita gives you Ponte Vecchio lit gold over the water.
The Oltrarno after dark
Cross the river in the evening and Florence stops being a museum. Santo Spirito is a working square with a bar-lined edge and a plain unfinished church face, full of Florentines rather than tour groups. The streets around it, Via Maggio, Via dello Sprone, Borgo San Frediano, still hold the workshops the city was built on: gilders, restorers, leather.
This costs nothing and needs no booking, and it is the part people describe when they get home.
One meal that is not a tourist menu
Eating badly in Florence takes effort to avoid, because the centre is dense with places serving reheated food to people who will never come back. The fix is a rule rather than a list: eat where the menu is short, in Italian first, and changes.
A stand-up plate of pasta, a lampredotto roll from a cart, a bowl of ribollita in a trattoria with paper tablecloths. Under fifteen euro, and better than the forty euro version on the main square.
What you can leave out
Ponte Vecchio works better as something you cross than somewhere you stand. The view of it from Ponte Santa Trinita is the better one.
The long queue for a famous sandwich, when three streets away the same thing is being made with nobody waiting.
And the Uffizi, on a two day visit, unless art is the reason you came. One museum seen properly is the better trade.
Quick answers
What is the single must-see in Florence?
The Duomo complex, and specifically the exterior. The scale and the marble patterning of Santa Maria del Fiore, Giotto's campanile and the Baptistery together are the thing Florence is for, and standing in the square costs nothing.
Do I have to see the Uffizi?
No. It is one of the great collections in the world and it is also three hours and a booking. If you have two days and you are not a committed gallery person, the Bargello or the Brancacci Chapel will give you more per hour and no queue.
What should I book in advance?
The Accademia and the Uffizi, both timed entry, and the dome climb, which sells out days ahead in summer. Everything else in this article can be decided on the morning.
Is the dome climb worth it?
If you can handle 463 steps in a stone spiral with no way to turn back, yes, and the view up close at the frescoes on the way is the real reward. If you mainly want the view over the city, Giotto's campanile next door is a shorter climb and it has the dome in the picture.
Where should I watch the sunset?
Not Piazzale Michelangelo, which is the busiest place in the city at that hour. San Miniato al Monte is a few minutes above it and much calmer, the Giardino delle Rose just below it is free, and Ponte Santa Trinita gives you Ponte Vecchio lit up from the water level.
How much of this fits into two days?
All of it, if you accept that the Uffizi is not on the list. Two days in Florence works well when you pick one big museum, not three.