Uffizi & Accademia Timed Entry Combo Tickets with Audio App Florence

The Uffizi Gallery: Florence's great collection of paintings

Your morning starts at the Uffizi, the gallery built in the 1560s as government offices beside Piazza della Signoria and opened to visitors in 1769. Its second-floor corridors, lined with ancient sculpture, lead to more than a hundred rooms that tell the story of Italian painting from the 13th century to the Baroque. With a reserved entry time you avoid the longest part of the queue and pass straight to the security check.

Plan about two and a half to three hours inside. The audio app suggests a route through the essentials, so you can decide where to linger. Uffizi tickets for morning slots are the most requested, because the rooms are calmer and the light from the corridor windows over the Arno is at its best.

Uffizi masterpieces: Botticelli, Leonardo and Raphael

The Botticelli hall is the highlight for most visitors, with the Birth of Venus and Primavera facing each other, two of the most recognised images of the Renaissance. Nearby are Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation, painted when he was barely twenty, and Michelangelo's Doni Tondo, a round Holy Family with its original carved frame. Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch and Titian's reclining Venus of Urbino follow in later rooms.

Do not miss the octagonal Tribuna, the first exhibition room of the gallery, or the windows of the river corridor that frame the Ponte Vecchio. Before leaving, the terrace cafe above the Loggia dei Lanzi is a good place for a break, with a close view of Palazzo Vecchio's tower.

The Accademia Gallery and Michelangelo's David

In the afternoon you continue to the Galleria dell'Accademia on Via Ricasoli, founded in 1784 alongside the city's academy of fine arts. Its fame rests on one statue: the David, carved by Michelangelo between 1501 and 1504 from a single block of Carrara marble that other sculptors had abandoned. Standing more than five metres high with its base, it was placed in front of Palazzo Vecchio as a symbol of the Florentine Republic and moved indoors in 1873.

Since 1882 it has stood under the skylight of a tribune designed especially for it, where daylight shows the veins in the hands and the tension in the face. Accademia Gallery tickets with a reserved time are essential, as the line here is often the longest in Florence.

More to see at the Accademia

The David is approached along a gallery lined with the Prisoners, four unfinished figures Michelangelo began for a papal tomb in Rome. They seem to struggle out of the rough marble and show better than any book how he worked the stone. Beside them stands a monumental St Matthew, also left unfinished.

Other rooms are often overlooked, yet worth half an hour. The Hall of the Colossus holds Giambologna's full-size plaster model for his marble group in the Loggia dei Lanzi; the plaster cast gallery is filled with 19th-century busts and models; and the Museum of Musical Instruments shows instruments from the court collection, including early keyboards from Florence, where the piano was invented around 1700. A visit of 60 to 90 minutes is enough for the whole museum.

Planning your day between the two galleries

The two museums are about 15 minutes apart on foot, and the route passes Piazza del Duomo, so the lunch break between your entry times is a chance to see the cathedral from outside and eat in the centre. Both galleries are closed on Mondays and open from early morning to the early evening, Tuesday to Sunday.

Install the audio apps as soon as your voucher arrives, and bring a charged phone, earphones and ID for every visitor. Only one small bottle of water per person is allowed inside, and there is a security check at each entrance. The bonus food samples, Tuscan olive oil, truffle specialities, flat schiacciata bread and almond cantuccini biscuits, are a pleasant taste of the region.