Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
MUSEUM TICKETS
In July, August and other busy periods such as Easter, unbelievably long queues are a fact of life at
Florence's key museums - if you haven't prebooked your ticket, you could well end up standing in
line queuing for four hours or so.
For a fee of €3 per ticket (€4 for the Uffizi and Galleria dell'Accademia), tickets to nine
musei
statali
(state museums) can be reserved, including the Uffizi, Galleria dell'Accademia (where
David
lives), Palazzo Pitti, Museo del Bargello and the Medicean chapels (Cappelle Medicee). In reality, the
only museums where prebooking is vital are the Uffizi and Accademia - to organise your ticket, go
online or call
Firenze Musei
(Florence Museums; 055 29 48 83;
www.firenzemusei.it
; tele-
phone booking line 8.30am-6.30pm Mon-Fri, to 12.30pm Sat), with ticketing desks (open 8.30am to
7pm Tuesday to Sunday) at the Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti and outside Chiesa di Orsanmichele (open 9am to
4.30pm Monday to Friday).
At the Uffizi, signs point prebooked ticket holders to the building opposite the gallery where tickets
can be collected; once you've got the ticket you go to Door 1 of the museum (for prebooked tickets
only) and queue again to enter the gallery. It's annoying, but you'll still save hours of queuing time
overall. Many hotels in Florence also prebook museum tickets for guests.
For one week of the year (usually sometime in spring), admission to state museums is free of
charge; dates change, making it impossible to plan a trip around this, so keep your eyes open. One
date that doesn't shift is 18 February, the day Anna Maria Louisa de' Medici (1667-1743) died. In
honour of the last of the Medici family, who bequeathed the city its vast cultural heritage, admission
to all state museums is free on this day.
EU passport holders aged under 18 and over 65 get into Florence's state museums for free, and EU
citizens aged 18 to 25 pay half-price. Have your ID with you at all times. Note that museum ticket of-
fices usually shut 30 minutes before closing time.
TOP OF CHAPTER
1
Duomo to Piazza della Signoria
Florence's big-hit sights lie in the geographic, historic and cultural heart of the city - the
tight grid of streets between Piazza del Duomo and cafe-strung Piazza della Signoria.
ury designer boutiques, strung along both sides of the street like jewels on a particularly
precious necklace. Prada, Gucci, Ferragamo, Gianfranco Ferre, Armani, Pucci and
McQueen are all here. Two streets radiating west off Tornabuoni,
Via della Spada
and
Via
Della Vigna Nuova,
are where more edgy boutiques are found.
