Florence in 6 Days on a Budget (With Daily Costs)
Florence in 6 Days on a Budget
Six days is the 4-day itinerary plus two more days for the small paid museums that get overshadowed by the Uffizi and a genuinely slow, low-spend day. This is enough time in the city itself that you could peel off a day for Siena or Pisa instead; if that appeals, our Florence, Italy guide covers the gateway trips. Daily spend still ranges from about EUR 25 to 30 on the cheapest day to EUR 90 on museum days.
Book these before you go
- Accademia Gallery ticket : smaller capacity than the Uffizi, book 3 to 8 weeks ahead depending on season.
- Uffizi Gallery ticket : the trip’s biggest single ticket cost; book at least a month ahead in peak season.
- Duomo dome climb : only the Brunelleschi Pass includes it, and the timed slot cannot be changed once booked.
| Day | Focus | Est. cost (no lodging) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Duomo complex, Piazza della Signoria, Ponte Vecchio | EUR 45 |
| 2 | Accademia, Uffizi, Oltrarno dinner | EUR 90 |
| 3 | Piazzale Michelangelo, San Miniato, San Lorenzo Market | EUR 40 |
| 4 | Santa Croce, Oltrarno artisan streets | EUR 55 |
| 5 | Bargello, San Marco, Medici Chapels, Mercato Centrale | EUR 50 |
| 6 | Slow day: Bardini Garden or a full rest day | EUR 25 |
Day 1: The Duomo on the cheap
Buy the Ghiberti Pass (EUR 15) rather than the Brunelleschi Pass (EUR 30) at tickets.duomo.firenze.it unless the dome climb is non-negotiable; it still covers the Baptistery, the crypt, and the Opera Museum, home to Ghiberti’s original Gates of Paradise panels. The cathedral nave is free on its own separate line. Lunch on a schiacciata (EUR 4 to 6), then walk to Piazza della Signoria, where the Loggia dei Lanzi’s statues and the replica David outside Palazzo Vecchio cost nothing. Cross the Ponte Vecchio before dinner, and eat at a trattoria off the main piazza to skip the coperto and servizio a table on the square would add.
Day 2: The two museums that are worth the money
Book the Accademia for the morning via the official ticketing partner b-ticket.com . Lunch on a lampredotto sandwich (EUR 3.50 to 4) near Mercato Centrale. In the afternoon, book the Uffizi’s after-4pm slot, EUR 16 on-site or EUR 20 online through tickets.uffizi.it , cheaper than the standard EUR 25 daytime ticket. Dinner in the Oltrarno, across the river, beats anything priced within sight of the Duomo.
Day 3: The free day
Walk up to Piazzale Michelangelo, or take bus 12 or 13 for a EUR 1.70 fare, and arrive 45 minutes before sunset. San Miniato al Monte, ten minutes further, is free, with Gregorian chant at Vespers most evenings. Spend the rest of the day browsing the San Lorenzo Market and the Mercato Centrale food hall. Close with an aperitivo standing at the bar and a gelato (EUR 3 to 5).
Day 4: Santa Croce and the Oltrarno’s workshops
Santa Croce runs EUR 9.50 to 10 and covers the basilica, the tombs of Michelangelo and Galileo, both cloisters, and the Pazzi Chapel. Spend the afternoon in the Oltrarno’s artisan streets around Via Santo Spirito, free to browse, where leatherworkers, gilders, and bookbinders still work at street level. Skip the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens for now; Day 6 covers a cheaper version of the same view.
Day 5: The small museums nobody queues for
The Bargello (around EUR 12), a former prison turned sculpture museum, holds Donatello’s two Davids and Michelangelo’s Bacchus with no meaningful line, ever. San Marco (around EUR 8) is the Dominican monastery where Fra Angelico painted a different fresco in nearly every cell, and it is the quietest major site in the city. The Medici Chapels (roughly EUR 12 to 14) round out the day; since March 2026 a combined ticket covering the Accademia and the Bargello (EUR 26, valid 48 hours) can be worth it if you have not yet done the Accademia, but check the combination against what you have already booked before buying it. Have dinner at Mercato Centrale’s upstairs food hall, open daily until midnight, where a full meal from the counters runs EUR 10 to 15.
Day 6: The slow, cheap day
This is the day to stop paying for tickets. If the Boboli Gardens appeal but the full Pitti Palace ticket feels like too much, the smaller Bardini Garden next door has its own cheaper entry and the same sweeping view over the city without Piazzale Michelangelo’s crowds. Otherwise, spend the day re-walking a favorite neighborhood, sitting in a piazza with a EUR 1.50 espresso, and packing in the sunlight rather than the evening. A cooking class (roughly EUR 50 to 70 for a small group) is the one splurge worth considering here if you have not spent it elsewhere in the week.
Six days is long enough that the museum tickets stop being the whole budget story. By Day 5 or 6, the real savings come from choosing the quiet museum over the famous one and the neighborhood piazza over the postcard square.