11 Hidden Gems in Florence Most People Walk Right Past
11 landmarks with verified facts and stories
Buchette del Vino (Wine Windows)
Via del Sole, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
Scattered across Florence's palazzi, at about knee height, you'll find small arched openings roughly the size of a wine bottle — because that's exactly what they were for.
Museo Galileo
1 Piazza dei Giudici, Centro Storico, Florence, 50122, Italy
In a glass egg-shaped reliquary on the second floor, a bony finger points permanently toward the heavens.
Museum of San Marco
3 Piazza di San Marco, Centro Storico, Florence, 50121, Italy
This monastery tells two completely opposite stories.
Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella
16 Via della Scala, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
The world's oldest pharmacy has been in continuous operation since 1221, which means Dominican monks were mixing herbal remedies here before Dante was born, before the Renaissance started, and about 300 years before anyone thought to put shops on the Ponte Vecchio.
Orsanmichele
1 Via dell'Arte della Lana, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
This is the strangest church in Florence, and that's because it wasn't built as a church at all.
Palazzo Davanzati
13 Via Porta Rossa, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
Want to know how a wealthy Florentine family actually lived in the fourteenth century? Not in a palazzo stuffed with Renaissance masterpieces, but in a house with painted parrots on the bedroom walls, a toilet on every floor, and an internal well system that brought water to each story — luxuries that most European nobles wouldn't enjoy for another two hundred years.
Piazza Santo Spirito & Oltrarno
Piazza Santo Spirito, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
Cross the Arno and Florence changes completely.
Ponte Santa Trinita
Ponte Santa Trinita, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
The most beautiful bridge in Florence isn't the Ponte Vecchio — it's this one, fifty meters upstream.
Porta San Niccolo
Piazza Giuseppe Poggi, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
Of the original medieval gates that pierced Florence's city walls, this is the only one that still stands at its full original height.
San Miniato al Monte
34 Via delle Porte Sante, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
If Piazzale Michelangelo gives you the postcard view, San Miniato al Monte — perched just above it — gives you the spiritual one.
Vasari Corridor
Centro Storico, Florence, Italy
In 1565, Cosimo I de' Medici wanted to walk from his government offices in the Uffizi to his private residence at the Palazzo Pitti without ever setting foot on the street.
Explore hidden gems in Florence
GPS-guided narration at every landmark. Tap a spot on the map, hear the story. Every fact verified.