Florence Recommendations for Only 3.5 hours There for Excursion

[TravelMommyof2]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm trying to figure out what exactly to plan for during the Florence part of our Pisa & Florence excursion from La Spezia.

 

Our tour van is dropping us off near Santa Maria Novella. We have 3.5 hours to see Florence then get back to the van. I want to purchased timed tickets beforehand to Accademia and/or Uffizi Gallery.

 

There is so much to see in Florence including the Duomo (we don't have to climb up to the dome), Ponte Vecchio bridge, and Piazza della Signoria.

 

What would you do with only 3.5 hours there?

 

Thanks!

[cruisemom42]

1 minute ago, TravelMommyof2 said:

Hi everyone,

 

I'm trying to figure out what exactly to plan for during the Florence part of our Pisa & Florence excursion from La Spezia.

 

Our tour van is dropping us off near Santa Maria Novella. We have 3.5 hours to see Florence then get back to the van. I want to purchased timed tickets beforehand to Accademia and/or Uffizi Gallery.

 

There is so much to see in Florence including the Duomo (we don't have to climb up to the dome), Ponte Vecchio bridge, and Piazza della Signoria.

 

What would you do with only 3.5 hours there?

 

Thanks!

 

Three and a half hours is not much time, as you unfortunately know. I would strike the Uffizi Gallery off your list immediately, unless you're art majors. It will eat up most of your time otherwise. 

 

For the Duomo, lines can also get quite long. Be forewarned that except for the wonderful ceiling there is not so much to see inside. (And to see the ceiling, one really should bring binoculars or have a good zoom camera....). Put it on your list, but eyeball the line -- if it is extremely long you might want to skip it and move on to other things. 

 

Another warning:  It's not clear to me whether you are taking a ship excursion -- if so, you may have trouble finding out exactly what your window of time is in Florence, which can make it difficult to confidently make timed reservations....

 

I would put Michelangelo's David at the top of your list (Accademia), with a pre-reserved ticket time. Even with pre-reservation, lines can get long at peak times.

 

Assuming you are good walkers, what I might suggest is that you make an early ticket reservation (confirming what time you'll arrive at Florence) for the Accademia and immediately strike out in that direction upon your arrival, as it is a little bit of an outlier with regard to the other sites.

 

After seeing the David, take a quick walk (one block away) to the Piazza S.S. Annunziata, a beautiful piazza onto which faces the famous hospital where orphans were left (Hospital of the Innocents). Continue walking rapidly down the Via dei Servi toward the river and you will end up in front of the Duomo.

 

Eyeball the Duomo line and, if not too long, get into it. While you wait (assuming there is more than one of you), have one person hold their place in line and let another go and walk around the Baptistery building, looking at the beautiful bronze doors -- they are replicas but are still worth seeing. 

 

After the Duomo (or Duomo walk-by), take the Via de Calzaiuoli (sp?) toward the Piazza della Signoria and enjoy the sculptures and the architecture of the Palazzo Vecchio. If you need to grab a coffee or a bite to eat, there are many places between the Duomo and Piazza delle Signoria to refuel.

 

Walk through the narrow gallery between the buildings of the Uffizi until you reach the river, then walk NW toward the Ponte Vecchio to see it. Keep walking in the same direction, and when you get to the next bridge (Ponte Santa Trinita), you'll actually have the best vantage point to take a photo of the Ponte Vecchio.

 

You are relatively close to the pick up point now. You can either continue walking by the Arno until you reach Piazza Goldoni, then take one of the streets north to the Santa Maria Novella area, or if you wish you could walk north immediately and pass by the Strozzi Palace (you can usually walk into the courtyard), then turn west toward the train station.

 

If you find you have leftover time at the end but don't want to stray too far, you could visit the Santa Maria Novella church, which has all of the beautiful art you expect in an Italian church. 

 

All of this hinges on what day and what time you will be visiting, as Florence has many odd day of the week closures including short days and half days in some places....

 

This leaves out a lot of real estate but at least you will get a taste of the art and architecture of Florence...

 

[TravelMommyof2]

Thank you so much cruisemom42!!!

 

What a wonderful amount of advice we desperately needed!

 

Taken Uffizi off the list and we may just pass by the Duomo depending on the line.

 

Thanks!!!!!

[lisaatric]

My advice is to make time for coffee and a pastry. 🙂

[kitkat343]

I faced similar challenges on my Baltic cruise and if this is likely to be your only opportunity to visit Florence I wonder if you should consider (if your finances would allow) hiring a private guide.  You might find others on your tour van who would be interested in splitting the cost on your cruise critic roll call.   Normally Italy is very easy to tour independently, but given your time constraints it might be worth it to minimize the amount of time lost to logistics.

 

On my Baltic cruise, our tour guide in St. Petersburg was able to bypass all of the logistical issues involved in travel, which helped us immensely to see everything we wanted to in the 2 days were were docked there.  I travelled through Stockholm without a tour guide, which was fine because the public transportation system was excellent, but lost some time looking for subway stations/tram/bus stations and trying to find where in Skansen the lemur exhibit was.  A private guide would be able to take you exactly where you want to go as quickly as possible.   At Catherine's Palace, the rooms are gorgeous but repetitive so after we spent time in the first three rooms we skipped the middle and went straight for the Amber room.  I wouldn't have necessarily known to do that on my own.

 

Also, in the Uffizi for me personally the only artwork I absolutely need to see is the Renaissance paintings, so I'd ask  a guide how long it would take to just do that section (it's been a long time since I've had the chance to visit Florence but I do remember that being the most popular room, so that could easily take a lot of time as cruisemom42 noted) but a tour guide might be able to explain how long it would take to enter the museum and visit one section.  We identified in the Hermitage and throughout St. Petersburg what were our personal highlights were (for me it was the Italian renaissance painting and for my husband the impressionists) and limited our tour to just our highlights because there was obviously way more than 2 days worth of places to visit in St. Petersburg.    

Edited May 8, 2023 by kitkat343