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Getting Around - Florence

- Airports -

• Amerigo Vespucci

  Florence’s local airport, Amerigo Vespucci, lies about 5 kilometres west of the city centre at Peretola. Only a couple of flights a day depart and arrive to and from London Gatwick. None the less the airport is linked to the city by the Volainbus, a bus service that runs half-hourly, from 06.00 to 23.30. It costs €4 and stops in the SITA bus station at Via Santa Caterina da Siena 15. You buy your ticket on the bus. A taxi to central Florence costs about €16 (extra for luggage, at night and on public holidays) and will take about 20 minutes.




• Pisa Airport

  Most visitors to Florence arrive at Pisa’s Galileo Galilei Airport, especially those flying with budget carriers like easyJet and Ryanair. There’s a direct train service between the airport and Florence’s main railway station, Santa Maria Novella. It takes just over an hour and you can buy tickets (€5 each way) at the desk to the right of arrivals in the main airport concourse. Trains run roughly every hour, from 10.00 to 17.45, with a 2- hour break at lunchtime. The level of service becomes considerably more infrequent after 17.45 and stops altogether after 22.00.

  The train service to Florence from Pisa Centrale station via Lucca runs until 23.30 but is less frequent and takes twice as long. A taxi into Pisa from the airport costs about €8 and the CPT bus 5 leaves for Pisa centre and train station every quarter-hour.
  In the other direction, the first train to Pisa airport from Florence’s Santa Maria Novella station is at 11.00. Trains run almost every hour until 17.05. Before and after these times you’ll have to take the train for Pisa Centrale.




- General Transport -

Being a living museum and a world heritage site, Florence has always found it difficult to innovate when it comes to provision of public transport. Currently the city’s only public transport is the fairly comprehensive ATAF bus network. However strikes are fairly frequent and weekend and evening waiting times can be very long.

Bus tickets must be purchased in advance from the ATAF office in Piazza della Stazione, as well as from a few automated machines, tabacchi, news-stands and bars displaying an orange ATAF sticker. When you board the bus, stamp the ticket in one of the validation machines. A 1-hour ticket costs €1, a 3-hour ticket costs €1.80 and a day ticket costs €4.50.

Text written by David Cunningham, author of CloudWorld and CloudWorld At War