Best Things to Do in Florence

Florence packs centuries of sculpture, frescoes and architecture into a space you can cross on foot in half an hour. Here are the ten experiences that matter most on a first trip.

1. Climbing Brunelleschi's Dome or Giotto's Bell Tower. Thread between the inner and outer brick shells of Filippo Brunelleschi's 15th-century cupola to step out onto the lantern balcony over all of Tuscany, or climb Giotto's 414-step Campanile next door for the view that includes the Dome itself.
2. Botticelli and Leonardo at the Uffizi Gallery. Walk the top-floor corridors of the former Medici offices to see Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera, Leonardo's Annunciation and Caravaggio's Medusa.
3. Michelangelo's David at the Accademia. Carved from a single block of Carrara marble when Michelangelo was twenty-six, flanked by his unfinished Prisoners that appear to wrestle their way out of raw stone.
4. Piazza della Signoria and Palazzo Vecchio. An open-air sculpture gallery under the Loggia dei Lanzi, backed by the crenellated fortress town hall of the Florentine Republic and its vast Salone dei Cinquecento.
5. Crossing the Ponte Vecchio into the Oltrarno. Walk past the overhanging goldsmith shops of Florence's oldest surviving bridge into Santo Spirito and San Frediano for bookbinders, restorers and evening wine bars.
6. Sunset at San Miniato al Monte and Piazzale Michelangelo. Skip the crowded terrace railings of Piazzale Michelangelo by climbing five minutes higher to the green-and-white Romanesque abbey of San Miniato al Monte for a quieter view of the city turning gold.
7. Basilica di Santa Croce. The Franciscan church where Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli and Rossini lie buried under marble monuments, alongside frescoed chapels by Giotto and the tranquil Pazzi Chapel by Brunelleschi.
8. Fra Angelico's frescoes at the Convent of San Marco. Climb to the quiet upper dormitory where Fra Angelico painted a serene devotional fresco inside every individual friar's cell, including the famous Annunciation at the top of the stairs.
9. The Medici Chapels and San Lorenzo Library. Michelangelo's brooding sculptures of Dawn, Dusk, Night and Day in the New Sacristy, paired with his extraordinary cascading staircase in the Laurentian Library next door.
10. Mercato Centrale and Sant'Ambrogio market. Graze on warm schiacciata flatbread, aged pecorino and lampredotto among the 19th-century cast-iron halls of San Lorenzo or the quieter neighbourhood stalls of Sant'Ambrogio.