Getting Around Florence
With its compact historic center and scenic streets, Florence is a city made for walking. When your feet need a break, there are plenty of easy ways to get around.
With its compact historic center and scenic streets, Florence is a city made for walking. When your feet need a break, there are plenty of easy ways to get around.
Florence is both fun and easy to explore, as its historic center where most visitors spend the vast majority of their time is small enough that you may never have the need for any transportation method other than your own feet. For any adventures into the hills surrounding the center, however, or for trips when walking isn't ideal, you have a few transportation options in Florence to choose from.
There are separate companies in Florence that run the buses and trams, but they've thoughtfully made the tickets interchangeable between the two. A single-journey "urban capoluogo" ticket, once validated, is good for 90 minutes of travel within Florence. You can get paper tickets ahead of time or buy them from the driver when you board (the latter is more expensive), or you can simply use a saved payment method on your smartphone. Tap your phone to the validation reader when you board and you're all set. Learn more about how it works here.
For travelers who spend most of their time in the historic center, the most useful bus lines to know are C1, C2, C3 and C4. These are smaller electric buses (the standard buses weren't designed for narrow Medieval streets) that serve many of Florence's main attractions. For instance, C1 stops at the Medici Chapels and both C3 and C4 stop at the Pitti Palace.
Two other useful lines are the ones that climb to Piazzale Michelangelo for that postcard view (line 12 and line 13), and you can use the trip planner on this page to find out which bus lines will get you where you want to go.
There are now two "tramvia" lines in Florence, but these don't really cover areas most visitors are apt to go. The exception (and it's a big one) is the line that connects Peretola Airport with the Firenze SMN railway station: T2.
If you plan to venture much beyond the historic center, you can find out whether any of the tram lines will be useful to you with this trip planner.
Taxis are plentiful in Florence, albeit an expensive way to get around the city. You can't hail a taxi from wherever you happen to be standing, however, even if you see an available cab driving by. As is the case in other Italian cities, Florence taxis wait for customers at taxi stands marked by signs that say "TAXI." There's one outside the train station, for instance, and you'll generally find one close to the main piazzas. You can also call taxi companies directly for pick-ups. This is highly recommended when you need to catch a train or flight. While Uber is available in Florence, it is significantly more expensive than simply calling a regular taxi.
Some journeys have fixed fares, such as the trip between the airport and the city center, and the meter rates are set by Florence's city council. You can check the PDF links on this page to find the most recently published "tariffe taxi."
As is the case elsewhere in Italy, tipping your taxi driver isn't common, though most people will round up the fare to the nearest euro. If your driver has been especially helpful, you can certainly add a little more - but it's not an expectation.
Florence was an early European adopter of bike sharing. The service is run by RideMovi, which offers short-term use of standard bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters from stations around the city. Users unlock and rent a bike or scooter using the app, and simply return it to any RideMovi station when they're done.
If you're looking forward to pedaling around Florence, keep in mind that there are some unique rules for bike traffic in the Tuscan capital. Perhaps the most important one to know is that you're not allowed to ride a bicycle the wrong way down a one-way street - and there are fines if you're caught.
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