Florence Museum

Who runs it and where it works

Florence Museum is a booking site for museum tickets and guided tours in Florence and Tuscany, run by TuscanyAll.com srl, which its About page calls "a Travel Agency authorized by the Florence Chamber of Commerce." The same page lists the company as a tour operator with authorization from the Provincia di Firenze, gives its head office as Via di Scandicci, 22R, 50143 Firenze, and names the phone number +39 055 713655. It says TuscanyAll.com was created in 2003, started with villas, cottages and B&Bs in Tuscany, and expanded into cultural tourism in 2005.

This site is one of several the company runs. The About page lists museum booking sites for Italy, Rome, Florence, Milan and Venice, group and private tour sites for Florence, Rome and Siena, and separate accommodation and transfer services. On florence-museum.com itself, the tickets and tours are for Florence and Tuscany: the Uffizi, the Accademia, the Pitti Palace museums and other Florence sights, plus day trips to Pisa, Siena, San Gimignano, Chianti, the Cinque Terre, Lucca and the Val d'Orcia, and day excursions from Florence to Venice, Rome and Turin. A "Change City" menu links to the sister sites for Rome, Milan, Venice, Naples and Turin. Prices are in euros.

Tickets and tours on offer

Museum tickets. The homepage offers reservations for the Uffizi Gallery, Accademia Gallery, Palatine Gallery, Boboli Gardens, a Uffizi plus Pitti Palace combination, the Modern Art Gallery, the Bargello, the Medici Chapels, the San Marco Museum and the Archaeological Museum. It pitches the service as a way to "Skip the queue at the entrance of the museums in Florence", booking a chosen date and time. Further pages cover the Duomo, the Vasari Corridor, Casa Buonarroti, the Bardini Museum, Palazzo Vecchio, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Brancacci Chapel, Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella.

Group guided tours. The booking page lists English-language group tours with approximate durations: the Uffizi Tour (about 1h45), the Accademia Tour (about 1.30 h), the City Walking Tour (about 1.15 h), Accademia plus City Walking (about 3.00 h), City Walking plus Uffizi (about 3.45 h) and Accademia plus Uffizi (about 3.30 h). Evening and theme tours include the Wine Tour of Florence at Sunset (about 2.00 h, every day except Sunday), the Inferno Tour (Monday and Saturday) and the Medici Family Tour (Tuesday, Thursday and Friday).

A few tour pages give full detail. The Uffizi Gallery Small Monolingual Group is billed as a "Semiprivate Group Tour up to 8 pax/group": 2 hours, in English or Italian, starting at 12:30 on Tuesdays in high season and at 11:00 on Wednesdays in low season, meeting 15 minutes early at the Neptune Fountain in Piazza della Signoria. It is priced at 140 euros full and 70 euros reduced (ages 5 to 17), free under 6, and needs at least 2 participants. Related listings show the Accademia plus Uffizi tour at €95 for 3 hours, the City Walking and Uffizi tour at €78 for 3:30 hours and the Vasari Corridor and Uffizi tour at €85.

Tuscan tours. The Pisa Guided Tour runs about 5h30, starting at 8:00 am or 2:15 pm, with a bus drive along the Arno, a guided walk around Piazza dei Miracoli with the Leaning Tower, Baptistery and Camposanto seen from outside, and a visit inside the Cathedral. It costs 59 euros per person, 29.50 euros for children under 12, free under 4, and includes round-trip transportation, a tour leader, a local guide and Cathedral admission. The page lists the Pisa Tour with Leaning Tower at €85, the Chianti Afternoon Tour at €49 for 6 hours and the Siena, San Gimignano, Monteriggioni and Chianti Tour at €65, starting at 08:45 a.m.

Private tours. A separate private section covers the Uffizi and Accademia, Florence Full Day, Bardini Museum and Casa Siviero, Florence Fashion, a Dan Brown Inferno tour and a Medici tour; prices go through the booking request. The About page describes 2 guide options overall: a predefined tour in English, Italian, French, Spanish or German, or a private guide arranged around the customer's interests in a wider list of languages that includes Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Dutch and Polish. It also mentions transfers to and from airports and train stations.

On the day

Meeting points are given per tour. For the Pisa tour it is the tours and news kiosk at the Piazzale Montelungo bus terminal, which the page puts a 5-10 minute walk from Santa Maria Novella station, with staff "wearing a fuchsia jacket" and a request to arrive 15 minutes early. The Pisa page says English and Spanish are always guaranteed; French, German, Italian or Portuguese need a minimum of 2 people in high season and 4 in low season. If the Cathedral queue is too long, the page says, a guided visit of Piazza dei Cavalieri is offered instead.

The group-tour rates include the guide, headphones for groups over 15 people, museum tickets and the pre-booking fee. The booking page adds that children under 8 are not allowed into the Vasari Corridor "for security reasons".

Booking and cancellation

Bookings go through a request form. The site says a tour is booked as soon as the request arrives, confirmation depends on museum availability, and the original voucher, "the only recognized document to join the tour", is emailed once confirmed. Orders sent after 6.00 pm Italy time get their voucher the next morning, and orders sent on a Saturday after 12:00 pm or on a Sunday get it on Monday morning.

The cancellation policy for group tours is stated: 30% of the gross total if cancelled at least 4 days before, 100% (not refundable) from 3 days before. The Vasari Corridor has a stricter rule, 30% at 16 days and 100% from 15 days, because the tour needs a special opening. The small-group Uffizi tour cannot be modified, cancelled or refunded under any circumstances.

What the site leaves open

Prices for many tickets and for the private tours only appear in the booking flow, and the reduced-price age bands vary from tour to tour, so families should check each one. The site does not publish reviews or ratings.

Who it suits

It suits travelers who want museum reservations and guided tours in Florence and Tuscany from a long-running local agency, with clear durations, meeting points and cancellation terms on the tour pages. Those who need last-minute flexibility should look closely at the non-refundable tours.