The Florence passes in detail

One city, several ideas of a visit

Florence has no single pass that covers the whole city. The products that compete here differ on three points: what they get you into, how validity is counted, whether in consecutive days, in calendar days or in hours, and who books the compulsory time slots for the Uffizi Gallery, the Accademia Gallery and Brunelleschi's dome. A fourth line runs along the Piazza del Duomo. The dome, Giotto's bell tower, the Baptistery, Santa Reparata and the Opera del Duomo Museum are sold by their own issuer and by nobody else, while the cathedral itself is free to enter. Public transport belongs to none of them, which the public transport page sets out.

The broad package: Florence City Pass

The Florence City Pass from Turbopass runs for 1 to 7 consecutive days from the start date you choose and arrives by e-mail as a QR code. The Uffizi Gallery and the Accademia Gallery are preselected in the basket, and Turbopass reserves both time slots when you buy. Take them out and the pass costs less, but then it carries neither of the two headline museums. Around them sit the Museo di San Marco, the Museo degli Innocenti, Orsanmichele, Casa Buonarroti, the National Archaeological Museum, the Leonardo Interactive Museum, a guided city tour, a guided bike tour with bike hire and a shuttle to the Barberino outlet, with Siena cathedral at the far end of the list. Adults, teenagers from 15 to 17 and children from 5 to 14 pay their own rate, and under-fives go free. Two limits decide many trips: the Duomo complex is outside the pass, and the hop-on hop-off bus is a paid add-on in the booking step rather than part of it. An audio guide comes with the pass.

The pick-and-choose option: Florence Flex Pass

The Florence Flex Pass comes from the same issuer and turns the model around. You buy a number of attractions, from two to seven, and decide in Florence which ones from the Turbopass list, the Uffizi Gallery, the Accademia Gallery, the guided bike tour or the hop-on hop-off bus among them. The pass runs 30 days from your first visit rather than on consecutive days, arrives by e-mail with a reservation tool, and every traveller in a group can choose differently. Two limits apply: the Uffizi and Accademia time slots are yours to reserve rather than settled at purchase, and the Duomo complex is not on the list.

Two Tiqets packages: Florence Pass and Uffizi & Accademia Pass

The Florence Pass is a package of three modules bought for one start date and a fixed number of visitors, each module with its own time slot. For the Duomo you choose a guided tour of the cathedral, or the bell tower and the Baptistery with an audio guide, or the dome as a premium skip-the-line option at a surcharge. For the Uffizi you choose priority entrance, with an audio guide or with a guide, and at the Accademia entry, hosted priority or a guided tour. An audio guide app for the city comes with it. This is the pass with the weakest rating of the Florence passes, and the buyers who mark it down write about the logistics of the fixed time slots and about the queue at the dome. It cannot be refunded and cannot be rebooked.

The Uffizi & Accademia Pass is the narrow version of the same idea: reserved entry with a time slot for each of the two galleries and the audio guide app, and nothing beyond that. No Duomo, no tour, no bus. If those two houses are the whole plan, this is the short route, and the single Uffizi ticket is the shorter one still.

The official ones: Brunelleschi Pass and Firenzecard

The Brunelleschi Pass comes from the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and is the only way up Brunelleschi's dome. It is also the only form of admission to the Baptistery, Giotto's bell tower, the Opera del Duomo Museum and Santa Reparata. It runs for 3 calendar days from the date you pick, one visit to each monument, and only the dome carries a booked time slot, on the first of those days. The climb is 463 steps with no lift, an identity document is checked at the meeting point and visitors under 18 go up only in the company of an adult. The bell tower has 414 steps and needs no reservation at all.

The Firenzecard is the city's own museum pass and the broadest of the museum products: 72 hours from your first entry, one visit to each museum of the city's circuit, among them the Uffizi, the Accademia, Palazzo Vecchio, the Pitti Palace, the Bargello, the Medici Chapels and the Boboli Gardens, with special exhibitions and museum reservations at no extra charge. The Uffizi time slot is booked free of charge in the Firenzecard app, and family members under 18 travel on the same card. It stops at the Piazza del Duomo, where the Opera del Duomo sells its own passes, and it carries no transport.

When no pass is worth it

If the Uffizi Gallery is the one thing you came for, the timed single ticket is the shorter route. The same holds for anyone who pays little or nothing at the gate anyway: visitors under 18 enter the state museums free, EU citizens aged 18 to 25 pay a reduced rate, and the first Sunday of the month is free for everyone, without a reservation. The prices page shows how each ladder is built, and the attractions page says sight by sight which pass gets you in.