Free Walking Tour in Florence

Florence's Renaissance and Medici walks, booked for free

A free walking tour in Florence is free to book and paid with a tip at the end. You reserve on GuruWalk without a credit card, and what you give the guide, whatever you think the walk was worth, is the only payment.

Piazza San Lorenzo is the starting point for several of them, and from there walks reach the Duomo, Piazza della Signoria and the Ponte Vecchio, with the Medici and the Renaissance never far from the story. Across Florence's free tours, a typical route is about two kilometres. 13 local guides share the city's walks, which average about two hours, and Florence's free tours are rated 4.8 out of 5 across more than 46,864 reviews.

How Florence's walks differ: the Medici, first visits, witches and the old town

The Medici and the Renaissance, from Palazzo Medici Riccardi to the Uffizi

Florence's Medici and Renaissance tours follow the family from one landmark to the next: Palazzo Vecchio was the Medici's home, and the Vasari Corridor their secret passage across the city between two palaces. Piazza della Signoria is a frequent stop on these walks, which walkers rate 4.8 out of 5 over 33,541 reviews. Several stop at the Museo Casa di Dante, some pass the Medici Riccardi Palace, the Duomo, the Baptistery and Giotto's bell tower, and some reach the Uffizi and the Ponte Vecchio late in the walk. Others turn to Dante and the Florence of 1200.

Florence for a first visit: the Signoria and the Ponte Vecchio

One walk, the whole centre: that is the idea behind the essential tours of Florence, which have built up more than 17,569 reviews and an average of 4.8 out of 5. Among the essential walks whose stops are documented, the Medici Riccardi Palace, Piazza della Signoria and the Ponte Vecchio, the city's oldest bridge, lined with jewellery shops over the Arno, recur most, and some add San Lorenzo, Santa Maria del Fiore or Piazza della Repubblica. Some of Florence's essential tours run in the evening.

Mysteries and witches from Via dei Servi to Via dei Georgofili

Away from the Renaissance glow, Florence's ghost tours go looking for mysteries, legends and witches. One of them sets off from Piazza della Santissima Annunziata and goes down Via dei Servi and past the Campanile towards Piazza della Signoria and Via dei Georgofili.

The old town along the Lungarno and Piazza Santa Maria Novella

Some of Florence's old town tours go in search of the city as it was at the end of the nineteenth century, along the Lungarno and through Piazza Santa Maria Novella. Others keep to the classic squares, from San Lorenzo and the Duomo to the Signoria.

What you pass between Piazza San Lorenzo and the Ponte Vecchio

A free walking tour in Florence lasts between an hour and a half and two and a quarter hours, and a typical route across the city's tours is about two kilometres. Several start in Piazza San Lorenzo and end by the Uffizi and the Ponte Vecchio. Each route picks its own stops, but the ones below recur most, and one documented route takes in all of them in this order:

1. Piazza San Lorenzo, in front of the basilica, where several tours meet.
2. Palazzo Medici Riccardi.
3. Battistero di San Giovanni, the baptistery.
4. Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, the Duomo.
5. Campanile di Giotto, Giotto's bell tower.
6. Museo Casa di Dante, in the medieval maze of stone towers where Dante Alighieri was born.
7. Piazza della Signoria, a stop on many routes.
8. Palazzo Vecchio, the medieval castle with an asymmetrical tower that was home to the Medici and is still Florence's town hall.
9. Loggia dei Lanzi.
10. Galleria degli Uffizi, a palace first designed for the Medici and today the museum of Renaissance painting.
11. Corridoio Vasariano, the Medici's elevated passage, about a kilometre long, that links their two palaces.
12. Ponte Vecchio, Florence's oldest bridge over the Arno, lined with jewellery shops, the stop more routes include than any other.

Detours vary with the guide: Piazza della Repubblica, Palazzo Strozzi, Via de' Tornabuoni or Ponte Santa Trinita.

Tipping a Medici guide, start times and the San Lorenzo meeting point