Activites and tours in Florence

From walking tours to cooking classes, bus tours to private guides, sidetrips to Pisa and tours of the Uffizi, here are the best guided microtours in Florence

A Segway tour of Florence.Even if you're a die-hard solo traveler and scoff at the folks being herded from one sight to another in the big tourist clots of a tour group, you can get a lot of mileage out of sightseeing guides once you're in Florence.

Bus tours of the city; escorted day trips to outlying sights and nearby towns like Pisa or the Chianti; walking tours around town; docent tours through museums or cathedrals—these are all what I call microtours (as opposed to the macrotours of fully escorted bus trips).

Then there are the specialty subject tours:

Culinary (food & wine) tours
Wine tastings
Cooking classes
Art and architecture walks and museum visits
Bike tours (of Florence and the Chianti countryside)
Vespa tours
Private guides
Vineyard visits
Special meals

Then there are fun experiences like:

A half-day cooking class and market visit
A cheese and wine tasting at one of my favorite little cheese and wine shops (if owner Giancarlo Avuri is there, tell him Reid Bramblett sent you)
A fresco workshop
A shopping tour to the outlets

A pasta-making cooking class in Florence.Local guides who concentrate only on one city or sight are usually experts, not tour bus escorts who’ve merely memorized a canned spiel for each town, stop, and sight along the way.

By combining do-it-yourself planning and travel with microtours, you can get the best of both worlds. The best microtours are packed with more information (history, background, anecdotes, details, and explanations) than any guidebook has room to print.

There are essentially six kinds of microtours, each covered on its own section:

Bus tours
Walking tours
Sights & museums
Fun & offbeat experiences
Sidetrips
Private guides

» More tours in Florence

Tips & links

Find tours and private guides

Walks & Day tours

Longer tours

Be a head-of-the-class nerd

On any tour, stick next to the guide.

Walking from stop to stop on the tour, you’ll be able to chat with her, ask questions, and hear her answers and explanations to everyone else’s questions as well. You'll get a lot more out of your tour (and bang for your buck) if you just stick close to the guide.

How long does Florence take?

Planning your day: Florence would well be worth a week, but you can still fit a lot into just a day or three.

To help you get the most out of your limited time in the Cradle of the Renaissance, here are some perfect itineraries, whether you have one, two, or three days to spend in Florence.

» Florence itineraries