Florence Walking Tour With Accademia, Uffizi & Lunch

Guide was great storyteller; set context of buildings and art in historical perspective without sounding like a history teacher.

Our guided tour started at the Accademia Gallery which houses the statue of David by Michelangelo. There are hundreds of beautiful marble carvings throughout the gallery. There are also many paintings, musical instruments, and artifacts. The guide provided very detailed information about many items throughout the gallery and Medici Museum. Then, we started the outdoor walking tour of the city. The guide took us past several wonderful sites and provided great narration about the city’s history. We saw the exteriors of: San Lorenzo Church – Built in 393 AD, it is the burial place of all the principal members of the Medici family. Duomo complex – In the Duomo Square, we saw the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore which started construction in 1296. It is the most beautiful and intricately decorated church and bell tower we have ever seen. Across from the cathedral is the San Giovanni Baptistery with huge decorated bronze doors. Both structures and the bell tower are built in the renaissance style and are decorated with white, green, and pink marble. Orsanmichele Church – Gothic style architecture started around 1400. The exterior has many statues in niches. Ponte Vecchio – This bridge is documented as the first bridge across this narrow part of the Arno River. It is the oldest bridge in Florence. We walked onto the bridge which is lined with stores and has been since approximately 1340. Today, most of the stores sell jewelry. Piazza Signoria – Here we saw the Fountain of Neptune and the outdoor museum of sculptures which includes the statue of Perseus holding Medusa’s head, Hercules fighting with a centaur, and the Rape of the Sabines. After the walking tour, the guide escorted us to a restaurant where the tour ended, and the guide left. Lunch was included in the price of the tour. We had a very good meal served with bruschetta and dessert. This tour is excellent if you only have a couple of days in Florence. If you have more time, take tours that go inside the churches. We Googled them and were able to see the beautiful interiors, elaborate domes, and many fine sculptures.

The guided tour in La Academia was great with our guide Alicia, very knowledgeable. The city walking tour is not worthy, very fast, lots of information and we couldn't hear all the explanations because the lack of transmisors. The lunch was not good, and finally the visit to the Uffizi Gallery was very well managed by our guide Ilaria. I would suggest not to take the whole package, rather, individual visits to the galleries.

The tour is broken up, you spend most of the day solo trying to find your way around, the guide didn't give good directions

This tour package was poorly organized and confusing. The initial meeting place was the same as many other tour groups met and there was little to identify this specific tour company. The tour itself is comprised of SEPARATE parts each led by a different guide and the customer is responsible for finding the meeting spot for the next phase of the tour. Good luck to those without internet access to obtain the necessary information of where next to proceed. I would not recommend this tour package to anyone. It is not a smooth and seamless experience that I was expecting.

Absolutely worth the money spent. Extremely knowledgeable of the city and the Accademia. Lunch was good. Wish we had don the Uffizi with them. Ended up booking a different tour in the end for it and it was nice as well. Watch you pockets. Someone in our group got pick pocketed. They got caught by undercover police. Guide handled it smoothly as well.

Guide was very knowledgeable and helpful on the museum tour. The bad thing about this tour is it is actually 3 separate tours with different guides and meeting places. You actually have to navigate the city to find the starting points. The description should also qualify the amount of walking. At least 3 couples dropped out early.

When I signed up I thought it was one tour. It turns out each venue was separate with different tour guides such as the tour in Accademia, the historic walk, lunch and the Uffizi. It was our responsibility to get to each place on our own and it was very uncomfortable when you are not familiar with the area and you get lost which gives the chance of missing an excursion. Four times we had to find each place and it was stressful. I would highly recommend having one tour guide or at least have someone with you to guide you to each venue. All of the guides in each tour were fantastic.

It's not organized very well. We missed our meet up point and the representative at the site gave us tickets but did not give us information where to go after we're done with the tour of Accademia. It's like a chopped up tour where you have a guide for Accademia gallery, another guide for the walking tour, then you are on your own to find the restaurant for lunch, then another guide for the Uffizi. It's probably better not to get lunch with this tour.

It was a great tour. We got to see some amazing pieces of art and our guide was extremely knowledgeable on both the art and area history. We would highly recommend!

Our guides, Marcella and Laura were excellent. Marcello’s passion for Michelangelo’s art was very evident and made the artist come alive as well as his work. Laura was very knowledgeable and made the walking tour very pleasant.

Definitely worth doing a guided tour in any of the famous museums in Italy so that you can skip the long lines, plus get more insight into each place you visit. Our tour guide Andrea was awesome for the Accademia and the walking tour of the city. We also had a great guide for the Uffizi museum, Claudia. Not only did she give a great tour of the museum but she also sent us some information after the tour about how to find the best local guides when travelling (not just in Italy). It was definitely a long day and a lot of walking so make sure you have good walking shoes!

The passion and knowledge of the tour guide made this day unforgettable!!! ElisaParadiso@outlook.com, made our day fly by!! Her english was impeccable! She was like the best art history teacher you had in college!

I took the city tour of Florence in October 2018 with Grayline Florence (Caf Tour). This tour was amazing. I had several highlights from this tour: Highlights: 1) Their lunch option was SOOO GOOOD!! It was the best and freshest pasta that I tasted in my life. I strongly recommended the lunch option. 2) At the world-renowned Uffizi Museum, there were huge line-ups in the afternoon. If you purchased an individual ticket from the museum or their website, there would be a 2 hour wait to enter into the museum. This Skip-the-line tour was a 30 minute wait. So if you compare the time, I saved a lot of time in Italy by joining this Skip-the-line tour. 3) My tour guide was pretty nice and friendly. She summarized the places and the exhibits pretty well. She conducted the tour at a nice relaxing pace. I would like to recommend this tour along with the lunch option because this tour explained the places in Florence pretty well. I enjoyed their lunch option a lot, and you will save a lot of time in Florence.

What a great tour this turned out to be! We thoroughly enjoyed the pace, the adventure of seeing Florence through the eyes of a local, and getting an inside view of all that we experienced. Kudos to our tour guide for making it fun and enjoyable. It was so much more interesting than just walking about on our own. We highly recommend this Viator experience.

Not sure where to start with this tour. It started with the voucher. We had front of the line for academia and uffizi with visits to some plaza's and church's. We signed up for a full day tour english speaking tour for 120 us dollar that stated it started at 230. When looking at voucher it stated it started at 9am. I called the tour company and the assured that i am on the 230 full day tour. Once the day of the event we got on the bus and discovered that we will now be a english and Spanish tour. Our tour guide was a attractive blonde girl from florence thsat offered no connection to the group like other tours do. She was hard to understand and she was better suited for a Spanish speaking tour (no noticeable Spanish speaks clients in our group. We took a bus to the top of the florence hills which was nice but would have been better to stop, take pics or even break at cafe on the top instead of just driving up and down with no time to take in scenery. We get back to bottom to park and we walked across some plaza that i could not understand due to her voice being light and unclear. Tour guide stopped in a plaza spoke little in english and then a extended time in Spanish. We proceeded to the next place next to the Uffizi museum when things got really interesting. A older lady in the group asked a qualified question in regards to the statue we were observing when the guide stated, I already stated. If you listed on the bus you would have heard. Client says I'm sorry am i not allowed to ask a question. Guide responds with no i have to repeat myself. After to answered the questions the client and here where going back an d forth and the guide had here mike on for all to listen. after 3 minuted a couple of us separated the two and asks if we can just finish the tour. Clearly a awkward feeling was in the air and there was silence until we got to the line for the Uffizi tour. tour guide gathered her thoughts and stated wait hear as i need to go and get your tickets, We waited about a hour and she never returned. Another younger guider stepped in and stated she was taking over and our tour was ending. handed us a general pass ( after we bought into a front of the line tour). fast forward 2 hours into the wait, clients in the group where getting upset and wanted answers. we got nothing but excuses. They young guide stated it was the museums vault, Security for museum stated it was the tour group vault. I finally got the attention of the manager and she was no help. she stood there on her phone while our replacement tour guide was left trying to talk about the museum. she was clearly upset as she could not even stare us and only spoke to us through microphone with her back turned, she was kind enough to tell us that her shift ended at 6pm but she will go out of her way stay until 630. gee thanks....... We finally got into the museum at 630. This was our tour from start to finish that cost 120. no service, no support from management and poor communication to its paying customer,. The company was quick to blame the client and could have been avoided by proper planning, building repor with group, don't show emotion when things get hot, after all the guide is a licensed professional. Not to mention deliver on your advertised. We missed some big items and a day in florence. All i got was watch about 10-12 people walk out on the tour, arguments, management not knowing how to handle disgruntle employees and a feeling that its our vault. in there process of getting my money back on this disaster of a tour. By far the worst of the week. last thought, they even did give a ticket to one gentlemen and they stated he was not in the group but was clearly with us for the whole day. at least his wife got a ticket. also looking at past reviews it looks like they like not taking accountably. I will be curious to see how my claim and review will be handled, I hope that look at this as a opportunity to evaluate there process and tour to improve on there services. ( i have pictures if guides and managers with ion badge in case they claim " must have beeb a different tour group"

Our guides on this trip were fantastic!! They were both very enthusiastic about art and university professor-quality in their knowledge. One kept us spell bound at the statue of David for over 30 minutes. Lunch was much better than I would have expected. The only downside of the tour was Florence was very crowded that day and, although we did skip part of the line at both galleries, we still had to wait with other tour groups so didn't totally "skip the line". Well worth your time, however!

My wife and I enjoyed this trip together with our disabled friend. Armando our guide was very friendly and knowledgeable. The Academy of Arts was very good and Michelangelo’s David was astonishing! The lunch was basic and we felt like an inconvenience to the waiter, hence the 4 stars. Also Skip the Line was not true, we were treated as every other visitor, so the additional cost of this should not be included in the price!

<p>Didnt get too much out of walking tour. Headsets were inaudible and directions were not clear.</p>

<p>The name suggests you get both Accademia and Uffizi... however based on morning or afternoon tour, you get to see only one. If you do morning tour they still call it with above name , but take to Accademia only. The lunch was avarege. So, overall for me it was a let down.</p>

<p>Good trip. The guides were very knowledgeable, really enjoyed the Uffizi Gallery tour in particular.</p>

<p>Rip off!!</p> <p>This was a full day tour. The bus took us all round just stopping once at a hill top Michelangelo square. Accademia is next stop that is needed for just seeing Michelangelo's sculptures the famous David and another 6 more. With the detailed description this tour online, we thought it would stop at the Chapel where Michelangelo's tomb was located and other places and will take us to various places throughout the day!! They gave us lunch vouchers and asked us to meet at the starting point near the train station. </p> <p>4hours of our time got wasted waiting later for Uffizi galleries that was just a 2hour trip -wish more time was given at this museum atleast - our guide there was very knowledgable with art. </p> <p>In a three day trip to Florence that is once a life time, we very very much regret so much missing the Bargello museum because we took full day tour and our precious time got wasted. This is actually a 4hour tour time for both accademia and Uffizi but we got cheated as it the description says that it is whole day tour that covered these two and lot of driving!!</p>

<p>Tour started at 2:30. Bus ride and walking tour were ok. The Uffizi was our main focus. Didn’t start the Uffizi tour until 5:15. Rushed through gallery to complete tour at 6:00. Literally walked at a fast pace through the new rooms at the end. Very disappointed</p>

<p>Very scenic look at Florence from high above. The gallery tour was very good. Knowledgeable and engaging guide.</p>

<p>Not efficiently organised with using a third party company. We had to wait for various parties to join on both the coach and standing around in the cold, which wasted valuable touring time and caused frustration. The tour guides were very knowledgeable but not so engaging to keep the interest flowing.</p>

<p>Our guide changed how I look at paintings. A true art historian who loves his work.</p>

<p>The tour started about an hour late because our English guide was in an accident on her way to the bus so we had to wait for another guide. The company handled it well but our tour was also cut an hour at the backend. The tour was very good but wish we could have had a little more information regarding the Duomo.</p>

<p>Amazing! The sites! The museums! The history! The tour guides were excellent! Knowledgeable! Answered all our questions! Tried to show us as must as possible! I highly recommend this tour!</p>

<p>This was a great tour.... we were only in Firenze for 3 nights, so we had to cram a lot in. The only thing I would change next time is to break up the museums on 2 mornings so I had the afternoons to explore on my own/continue travel, etc. The tours through the museums were great and very helpful. The guides were great, however, I did like our morning guide slightly better - clearer English. Definitely would recommend... and include the lunch - its a time saver and was good.</p>

Our travel agent at AAA suggested this tour because we were only in Florence for one day. What a find. The morning tour with Alex was great. His passion for his city made us want to move there immediately. When we got to the Accademia, that's when he really got animated. His knowledge of the artwork and how to view it was astounding. There is no question how he feels about Michelangelo and his masterpieces! The afternoon tour with Patricia was equally entertaining. She too loves her city and her knowledge of the Uffizi made the tour of the museum all the more interesting. We were so pleased both museums had thin crowds and we highly recommend visiting during December to be able to view the artwork with little to no obstruction of the view. The meeting point of the tour was a little difficult to locate due to construction around the train station. Once we found the bus stop, the check in process was a breeze and we were well taken care of. Worth the price of admission!

<p>Irene was a great guide. Really enjoyed visiting the Colosseum,</p>

<p>The guide was brilliant and provided a detailed history of Florence. This is a must for every art lover.</p>

<p>Excellent tour! The guide at Accademia was top class! She as passionate about the subject and provided us with detailed insights into the techniques, very easy even for a novice in art history to understand. She also built up excitement until we saw David! The bus tour though could have been more informative. This was led by a different guide. Overall well organised!</p>

<p>This tour was good, but not great. The guide was knowledgeable, but a tad unfriendly. We enjoyed seeing the museum and David.</p>

<p>Out of the 8 tours we did in Italy, this was by far our least favorite. Not necessarily because it's a bad tour---it just wasn't for us. The day was very cold and many of the stops we did could have been done on our own or with a cheaper tour. The skip the line portion is definitely worth it but our tour guides switched about 3 times and was done in multiple languages we understand demand, this just was not ideal compared to other tours we had taken. Through the Accademia gallery, it was honestly hard to stay in tune with the guide we got because she did not make the material very interesting not everyone will have the same experience but for someone who isn't all that into ART and has a short attention span, this guide was difficult to follow. I honestly think if you're going just for the David, you don't need a guide. That piece of work speaks for itself and was absolutely stunning!! We upgraded to include lunch which was fantastic and a 3 course meal with wine...yum! The second tour was again started by a different guide for an experience similar to the morning half-- hard to follow, cold, and uncomfortable. However, once we got to the Uffizi Galleries, the whole day was redeemed thanks to our guide, Riccardo. He was by far the best guide we had in Florence when it came to art. He was able to break down the history and culture in a way that had our entire travel group's attention from beginning to end VERY difficult to accomplish. Truly gifted at delivering information and stimulating interest. If I could do this day over again, I would have gotten a skip the line ticket to the David, and explored the other sites in Florence on our own. Tour guides are luck of the draw but if possible, request Riccardo for your monies worth!! Thanks Rich, and thanks CAF Tour and Travel!</p>

<p>The tour was too crowded. We were expecting less people and more energetic tour guide</p>

<p>This is a nice, informative full day walking tour. Unfortunately we scheduled it on a Monday without realizing that the galleries were closed on Monday. So, they substituted the Medici Chapel and the Palazzo Vecchio. Both were very beautiful and interesting. I was just disappointed we missed seeing the statue of David.</p>

<p>Loved the Uffizi Galleries with all their glorious art brought to life by our guide Patricia. We had had a change in our bigger tour schedule so we had done a similar walking tour the previous day which was redundant...not your problem though.<br/> I do wish the Accademia could have been done instead.</p>

<p>Great way to get a quick orientation of Florence. The bus trip is a quick trip then walking tour through the city. Worth the value. Our tourist did a great job leading the excitement to view David! Remember to book your climb to the Duomo at least a day or two as it does not allow same day climb.</p>

<p>First of all, when you do the half day trip, you do not get to go to the Accademia. We only got to go to the Uffizi Gallery. I had booked this trip wanting to see The David at the Accademia which we did not go to. Also, do not book this trip if you want the time to really explore the Uffizi on your own. You are with a tour guide who spends too much time on just one piece of artwork. I was not able to stand in one place listening to the guide, my knees were shot, and needed to move around, so we quit the tour and made our own way back to our hotel. You get little enough time as it is, so standing spending 20 minutes on one item in the gallery was not for us.</p>

<p>Only did first half of this tour, great views from hill. Waited in line to see David for approx 30 minutes not too bad I thought considering the people about, excellent visit to the museum and guide Alexander was very passionate about her boyfriend David provided plenty of laughs while delivering a great deal of knowledge, walk to the church and once again the information provided was excellent, be ready for lots of people though the square was packed. Lunch was provided we did pay extra 3 course with wine, good quality Italian food . At this stage we decided to leave tour instead of going back to the station to start again our choice but I am sure the second half of the day would have been great too if they had Alexander as their guide</p>

<p>Not my favorite tour. There were still lines with skip the line and it was hard to hear the guide due the large crowds.</p>

<p>The full day tour is actually 2 half day tours combined. The morning tot was excellent with an outstanding tour guide. We finished the morning tour a little after 12:00 and continued to the lunch as part of the tour. We then had to walk about a 1/2 mile back to meet the next tour bus. </p> <p>The tour guide for the first half of the afternoon tour was poor. The tour was slow and we didn't get to the Uffizi gallery till after 4:00. By then we were tired and really didn't enjoy the wonderful art of the gallary.</p>

<p>The tour guide was good. Unfortunately we spent more than half an hour in a queue outside the Accademia Gallery as there were so many other groups also visiting and the venue limited how many people could enter. Another couple in our tour group misplaced their tickets during the long wait and could not enter the gallery. The tour guide could not assist them. It may be better for the tour guides to hold on to the tickets for the group and give the tickets in bulk to the ticket checker at the venue.</p>

<p>We let this one go after the bad experience we had on the afternoon portion of this tour the previous day. Too much walking without much to see. Poor guide who was busy giving art lesson instead of description of the art. The whole tour was a waste of money and should be passed up. We used the time to visit the Da Vinci Mechanical Museum. It was only 7 Euros and very interesting.</p>

<p>Unfortunately I had gotten the date wrong and the Accademia and the Uffizi Galleries were closed. Make sure you check the date you are booking the tour and don't book a Monday. In fact this tour probably shouldn't be run on a Monday since the galleries aren't open.</p>

<p>Covered all the bases! We were very pleased. Helpful, insightful and knowedgeable guide and a very interesting tour that has only increased our interest in a return trip to Firenze.</p>

<p>Sightseeing Tour was abbreviated. The Uffizi Galleries tour was very good.</p>

<p>Great way to see some of the best highlights of Florence in a day! Both our morning and afternoon tour guides were excellent and really knew a lot about this lovely city! It was nice to be able to skip the lines at Accademia and Uffizi!</p>