Pass and Card for Florence
Florence is a city rich in culture, with museums and tourist attractions housing some of Italy's most important works of art.
There are basically two passes available so you can visit Florence's museums, or enjoy this magnificent city, conveniently.
Passes to Florence increase their convenience in certain situations, while they are less so in others.
Therefore, it is worthwhile to compare Florence tourist passes to see which one may be best for your trip and your specific needs.
See all the info in this guide to Florence passes.
INDEX
What are the passes to Florence?
There are two cards for touristically relevant Florence, as mentioned in the introduction:
- Florence Pass
- Florence Card
The Florence Welcome Card, previously on the market, is a pass that can no longer be purchased and has gone out of business.
I write this for completeness of information
Florence Card and Florence Pass: which one is convenient?
Before describing each of the two Florentine passes in detail, we can give a first rough assessment of these two tourism products, to at least understand their target audience and when they are most convenient.
The Florence Card offers a large number of museums that can be visited for free (i.e., included in the price of the pass), but at a higher cost.
Consequently, if you actually want to take full advantage of the savings and make the most of the pass, you have to visit quite a few museums in the 72 hours it is valid.
It therefore fits well with "exploratory vacations," let's call them, intense and with pace.
The Florence Pass or Florence Digital Pass is more balanced with price and time. It costs less even though it has a less rich offer than the previous one, but that generally suits very well those who want to discover the city in a more traditional way, without necessarily seeing everything, but enjoying the "musts" (the unmissables) and also appreciating, in the time available, the city itself outside its tourist attractions.
It can certainly be of interest mostly to those who are visiting the city for the first time or who otherwise have not yet visited the main museums offered by the offer, the Accademia Gallery and the Uffizi Gallery.
After this introduction that helps you understand the different lines of principle, let's look at a detailed comparison of the Florence passes.
Florence pass
This pass is great For those who want to see the main attractions in Florence, such as the most famous museums, leaving room to explore the city.
Space understood as time to visit externally, walking, shopping, sightseeing, and all that the city has to offer outside its museums and monuments.
Let's look in detail at what the Florence Pass, also known as the Florence Digital Pass or City Pass, includes.
Buy the Florence Pass onlineHow it works
The Florence Pass is digital and must be purchased online-you can do so at the link above. Among the benefits, it allows you several discounts on attractions and skip-the-line options that will save you time, and it is convenient for seeing the most important parts of Florence.
As for the galleries, you will need to reserve the day and time slot in which you plan to visit them.
What it includes
The Florence City Pass provides priority admission to two of Florence's most important museums: the Uffizi Gallery and the Accademia Gallery, home to Michelangelo's famous David. You will also havepriority entry to Florence Cathedral, which is surrounded daily by a snake of people waiting their turn to gain access.
In addition to this you have a 10% discount for other attractions you would like to visit and sightseeing tours, bookable directly online.
Also available is anapp with audio guides and mapped routes around the city.
Summarizing:
- Uffizi Gallery with priority admission + downloadable audio guide
- Academy Gallery with priority admission + downloadable audio guide
- Florence Cathedral with priority admission + Brunelleschi's Dome
- Audioguide app of the city with lots of commented walking routes to get to know the city, accompanied by a guide, albeit a vocal one.
Cost
The cost of the Firenze Pass is 105€ for adults.
Then there are reductions: from 15 to 17 years old the price is 54€, and for children from 0 to 14 years old it is 53€.
Does it pay off?
At first glance 105€ may seem like a lot, but consider that it includes the most important (and expensive) museums and attractions to see in Florence. The Uffizi, the Gallerie dell'Accademia, admission to the Duomo, and especially Brunelleschi's Dome are world-envied wonders that are a must-see, but not cheap.
Moreover, it is necessary to consider not only the savings in terms of the economy of the cartel attractions, but to evaluate the all-around pass and especially to value its savings in terms of time and comfort in skipping the lines.
With this pass you can avoid quite long lines by taking advantage of the fast track for pass holders, and considering the popularity of these museums it means saving hours.
Skipping hours in line means you have more time to experience the city, stress less, and that is worth a lot.
It applies even more if it's scorching hot, bitterly cold, raining or humid-all conditions where standing in line, on foot, becomes the heaviest and least enjoyable part of the whole vacation.
Savings in economic terms are then had by taking advantage of the discounts provided for the other attractions: to check the affordability of the pass, it would be good to see in advance the rates of the other attractions you would like to visit, to see if, without discounts, you would actually go to the amount of the cost of the pass.
So overall, the Florence Pass is worthwhile , is a pass that if taken full advantage of intelligently, makes the vacation much more enjoyable. Buy the Florence City Pass onlineWhere to buy the Florence pass
The Firenze Pass can be purchased online. You can do so at the following link: even for those who are less tech-savvy, the procedure is simple and well explained .
Buy the Florence City Pass onlineAfter making your purchase, you will be sent an e-mail with the ticket and necessary instructions.
Florence card
In fact, the pass includes free and priority access to all affiliated museums, including all the most important ones in the city.
Its convenience is directly proportional to the number of museums or monuments visited.
It is valid for 72 hours from the first use; it is possible to extend its duration by an additional 48 hours if necessary (in case of long vacations).
Let's take a closer look at the details of this card.
Buy the FirenzecardHow it works
The Firenzecard guarantees free and priority admission to all participating museums. For some museums, however, you will need to make reservations to take advantage of the convenient "skip the line" service.
Remember that each museum can only be visited once!
Once you purchase the card, it will not be active until you use it for the first time: from then on, you will have 72 hours to take advantage of the benefits.
As a result of owning the card, you can enter the included museums and attractions for free, generating significant savings.
The more you see in the 72 hours of validity, the more substantial the savings will be compared to buying individual tickets, and the convenience.
If you plan to extend your museum visit, you can purchase the Firenzecard Restart at any time within 12 months of purchasing the basic card, which must have already expired, and extend the benefits for another 48 hours.
This can only be done digitally, via app, but easily and conveniently by paying by credit card.
FirenzeCard Restart is available free of charge until December 31, 2024.
However, if you plan to extend the validity of the card, remember that you need to download the Firenzecard app.
What it includes
The Firenzecard includes free and priority admission to most museums in Florence, including exhibitions that charge additional fees.
Not to belabor the point, you can see the list of museums included and thelist of exhibitions/events included, a list that may change over time as some are traveling events.
The Firenzecard plus, a variant that additionally provided for theuse of citypublic transportation (Ataf&Line bus and Tramway), is no longer purchasable and off the market.
Cost
The standard Firenzecard costs €85. There are no special reductions, but minors in the household of a holder of this card can take advantage of all benefits free of charge.
Firenzecard Restart, the renewal for an additional 48 hours of the FirenzeCard, nominally costs €28.
Until December 31, 2024 (unless extended), the service is available for free.
And this commercial initiative is a great advantage for those who stay in Florence beyond the 72-hour validity of the Firenze Card.
Remember that it is only possible to do this with the app!
Does it pay off?
Yes, undoubtedly. When you consider that for 85€ you have access to as many museums and exhibitions/events as you want, it undoubtedly pays off.
There is one catch though: the card is valid for 72 hours-so 3 full days from the first attraction visited-so the affordability of the card depends on how many and which museums you plan to visit during your trip or whether or not you also want to visit additional exhibitions. Essentially, the more facilities and exhibitions you visit, the more you will save .
Keep in mind, however, that you will need to visit at least 5/6 museums in 72 hours to achieve significant savings over the price paid for the pass!
And if we think that Florence is a 3-4 day average stay destination, that's why we say it is well suited for "highly exploratory vacations."
Another factor to consider is to try to predict whether you plan to renew the card or not: renewal in fact costs 28€, much less than the initial price of the card, and you will still have 48 hours to visit the museums.
Until December 31, 2024 , renewal to extend the Firenze Card by another 48 hours is free (Firenze Restart), and this further increases the benefits of the Firenze card.
Prices vary from facility to facility, so my advice is to first make a list of museums you are interested in with their rates, to see how much you would go without a pass.
Where to buy Firenzecard
The Firenzecard can be purchased both online, on the official website, and in authorized stores in Florence.
Buy the FirenzecardWhether you buy it online or at the location, the price will remain the same. If you buy it online, you need to print the voucher you received via email and hand it in at the outlets to get your passes.
One option that will save you time is to download the Firenzecard app and use your voucher received via email to generate your card there: that way, you won't have to take detours or risk queues and can devote yourself to your visit right away!
Comparison of Florence passes
After looking at the two main passes in Florence in detail, let's look at a quick summary comparison.
| FLORENCE CITY PASS | FIRENZECARD | |
|---|---|---|
| Validity | Has no time validity, valid as long as you use the included services | 72 hours from the first attraction visited regardless of how many things you see |
| Extensible? | NO | yes, you can extend the validity by an additional 48 hours, for €28 (free of charge by December 31, 2024!). |
| Full Cost | 99€ | 85€ |
| What it includes | Accademia Gallery, Uffizi Gallery, Duomo + Dome, Tour Guide App | Access to all museums and city exhibitions/events |
| Public transportation included | NO | NO |
| Best convenience? | Balanced pass, good for typical 2-3 day vacation in Florence. | Full pass, but convenient only in case of highly attraction-dense vacations, to take advantage of the pass in the 72 hours of validity. By Dec. 31, 2024, the free extension for an additional 48 hours also better covers longer stays. |
| Buy online | Buy the Florence Pass online | Buy the Firenzecard |
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