Come out of the station at seven on a September morning and Florence is still standing in its own shade, the paving damp where a shopkeeper has hosed it down, the first tram sighing to a halt outside the door. From that pavement the cathedral is about twelve minutes on foot, the airport twenty minutes on a tram, and the fast line south will have you in Rome before lunch. A car earns you nothing here: the historic centre is a limited-traffic zone, parking is exiled to the edges, and the streets that matter were sized for handcarts.
Everything car-free begins at the station
Firenze Santa Maria Novella (Santa Maria Novella, at the north-west corner of the old centre) is where every car-free plan starts. It is a stub-end station, so trains roll in, stop, and reverse out the way they came. Nobody has to leap for the door, and if you are travelling with children or a stack of luggage you can take the platform at your own pace. The concourse is open, unbarriered and free to walk into, so meeting a group inside is straightforward in a way it is not at newer stations.
The geography is worth knowing before you arrive. Left luggage is at the KiPoint desk by track 16, from around €6 for the first hours, which turns a 10am arrival with a 3pm check-in into a usable day rather than a wait. The taxi rank sits directly outside, as does the T2 tram stop. The regional coach departures are a two-minute walk from the same doors. Platform ends are wide enough for a party of ten to gather without blocking anyone, which is more than you can say for most of the streets you are about to walk down.
The tram does the journey your feet cannot
Tramvia di Firenze (run by GEST, crossing the city from the north-west) is the one piece of Florentine transport that will change your day. A single ticket is €2.00 and runs for 90 minutes, valid on trams and city buses alike. Line T2 links the airport to the centre in 20 minutes, from 05:00 to 00:30, and until 02:00 on Friday and Saturday nights. Line T1 runs from Careggi in the north down to Scandicci in the south-west, which matters mostly for one coach stop and one motorway park-and-ride. Line T3 towards Bagno a Ripoli is still a building site and will do nothing for a visitor this year.
The carriages are low-floor with wide doors and space for cases, so a group with bags has an easier time than on any bus. There is no restriction on numbers. The caveat is commuter hours: between roughly eight and nine in the morning and six and seven in the evening it is standing room only, and standing with a suitcase in a crowd is nobody's idea of an arrival. If your flight lands in that window, give yourself the extra ten minutes and let one tram go.
Arriving by air without hiring anything
Florence Airport Amerigo Vespucci (Peretola, on the north-west edge of the city) is small enough that a group can stay together from gate to tram without anyone getting lost. One terminal, one tram line, twenty minutes into town, and that compactness is usually worth more than a slightly cheaper fare elsewhere. Taxis run a fixed tariff to the historic centre of roughly €22 to €27 depending on the time and day, plus about €1 a bag. Because city rules mean cabs cannot be reserved far ahead, a party of five or more is better served by pre-booking a private van transfer than by hoping the rank produces a people carrier. Departures deserve slack: the runway and terminal expansion works are ongoing, and the queue for security does not always match the size of the building.
If you land at the coastal airport instead, PisaMover (the airport people mover, linking terminal to main station) is the five-minute piece that makes it work without a car. It runs from 06:00 to midnight, every seven minutes at peak, costs about €6 one way, and is step-free the whole distance with luggage racks inside. There are no capacity limits, so a group simply boards. It delivers you into Pisa Centrale, where the regional trains to Florence leave from the same building.
Trains for the coast and the fast line south
Trenitalia (Regionale and Frecciarossa services, all from Santa Maria Novella) is what makes a car-free Tuscany work. Regionale trains carry no seat reservation: you buy, you board, you sit where you like, and a group of any size can travel together without planning. Florence to Pisa Centrale is a fixed €8.50, takes about an hour, and runs every 15 to 30 minutes. Lucca is direct. The awkward one is Siena, where the rail route needs a change at Empoli and takes about 1h45, which is why almost everyone who has done it twice takes the coach instead.
For longer runs, the high-speed Frecce reach Rome in about 1h30 from roughly €20 to €50 depending on how early you book. Those seats are reserved, so a group of eight buying at the machine on the morning of travel will end up scattered down the train. Book the block in advance.
Italo (NTV, the private high-speed operator, also using Santa Maria Novella) runs the same line and is often the cheaper walk-up fare. Standard seats start from €19.90 and business from €29.90 on the Rome and Venice runs; Rome is 1h30, Venice about two hours, Milan under two. Everything is reserved seating, and the four-seat club lounges and online group fares are the tidiest way to keep a party in one carriage rather than four. It also uses the central station like everyone else, with no outlying platform on the wrong side of town.
When the coach beats the train
Autolinee Toscane (the regional and city bus operator, departing from the streets beside the station) is the answer to Siena and San Gimignano. The 131R rapid coach reaches Siena in 65 to 75 minutes with around 18 runs on a weekday, faster and far simpler than changing trains. One important detail for autumn 2026: until 13 September the Siena departures leave from Via Orti Oricellari, not the Autostazione on Via Santa Caterina da Siena. Check your stop the night before rather than at 08:40 with a coffee in your hand.
Tickets are the same €2.00 for 90 minutes as the tram, €18.20 for a book of ten, or €3.00 if you buy on board. On city routes groups board freely. On the Siena and San Gimignano coaches, buy before boarding and pick an off-peak departure: a party of ten arriving at a busy run will take the last seats and may not all sit together.
FlixBus (intercity coaches, using five different Florence stops) is the cheap fallback when trains are dear or sold out: Siena from about €6, Rome from about €10, with around a dozen daily runs to the first and more than thirty to the second. Reserved seats can be booked together online, so groups are fine. The trap is the stop name on your ticket. Villa Costanza sits out at the motorway and needs tram T1 to get into town; if the timetable allows, choose Montelungo or Santa Caterina instead and save yourself half an hour at each end.
Two wheels inside the walls
RideMovi Firenze (dockless bike sharing, across the whole city) is the quickest way to cover the flat ground between the Arno and the ring road. E-bikes cost €1.00 to unlock plus €0.25 a minute, with monthly passes from about €4.99. The fleet is around 5,000 bikes and still growing, so six people standing on the same street can usually all find one. Everyone needs their own app account and their own bike, and there is no group booking. Since August the city has run automated checks on parking: leave the bike in a marked bay or you will pay a penalty, and a photo of the bike in the bay costs you five seconds.
Florence By Bike (a long-established rental shop rather than a pavement stand) is the better option for a full day or anything beyond the centre. City bikes start at about €4 an hour or €18 a day, with road, gravel and e-bikes costing more, and they will kit out a whole party in matching machines, kids' bikes, folding Bromptons and trailers included. Book ahead in high season. The hours matter: Monday to Saturday mornings, closed Sunday, so a Sunday ride means collecting the bikes on Saturday.
Getting out to the hills and the vineyards
Cycling out of Florence has one genuine problem, the suburban exit: a long, unlovely stretch of traffic before the countryside starts. I Bike Tuscany (guided tours with hotel pick-up across the city) solves it by putting you and the bikes in a support van and starting you on the good roads in Chianti, the Florentine hills and around Siena. Day rides run roughly €150 to €250 per person, private tours higher. It has been running since 2003, was founded by a former racer, and takes small groups, families and all fitness levels. The van behind you is the reason the last climb is optional.
Walkabout Tours (office at Largo Fratelli Alinari 4, meeting at Piazza della Stazione by the taxi rank) covers the same country by road. Chianti is where public transport genuinely thins out, and this is the practical fix: small-group departures from €130 per person, capped for comfort, with private hire from about €490 for larger parties. Guiding since 2007, they use an off-road format that reaches estates a full-size coach cannot approach, and someone else drives home, which is the part that matters after a tasting at four in the afternoon.
For the hills you can see from your window, City Sightseeing Firenze (hop-on hop-off buses, boarding near the station) earns its keep only on the uphill legs. Line A climbs to Piazzale Michelangelo, San Miniato and the Rose Garden; Line B runs out to Fiesole. Tickets come in 24, 48 and 72-hour versions with family options, listed from €8 on the official site. In the flat centre you will beat it on foot every time. Line B runs hourly, so check the last return before you settle in for the view. The buses run to a fixed frequency, so a large party may end up split across two departures.
The Arno as a route
I Renaioli (river boats from Lungarno Generale Diaz) are the last working descendants of the Arno's sand-dredgers, and they run from 1 May to 30 September, which makes the coming weeks the end of the season rather than the start of it. An hour on the water costs around €25 to €35 per person. The smaller boats take eight and the larger ones fourteen, and several can run alongside each other for a bigger group, though evening slots need booking well ahead. It is a genuine way to cross the middle of the city rather than a novelty ride, and the only angle from which you see the underside of the Ponte Vecchio, its beams dark above the current.
Taxis and the limited-traffic zone
Radiotaxi 4390 (the CO.TA.FI cooperative, with ranks across the centre) is the one motorised option that can legally cross the ZTL, and that single fact is what it is for: a late arrival, a heavy case, a hotel down a lane no hire car may enter. Fares are metered at roughly €10 to €20 across the centre, with the fixed airport tariff of about €22 to €27. Standard cars take four; ask for a van when there are five or more of you. City rules mean cabs cannot be booked far in advance, with requests dispatched roughly ten minutes before pickup, so treat any plan that depends on a 05:30 taxi with suspicion and use the itTaxi or Taxi Move apps rather than hoping. Ranks sit at the station, the Duomo, Santa Croce and Repubblica.
Practical notes
One €2.00 ticket covers trams and city buses for 90 minutes; a book of ten is €18.20; buying from the driver costs €3.00. Validate on board. Regional trains need no reservation, high-speed ones always do.
Cards work on trains, apps and tour bookings. Keep coins and small notes for on-board bus tickets, for the tabaccaio counters that sell them, and for the €6-ish left luggage desk.
Trams are standing room only from about 08:00 to 09:00 and 18:00 to 19:00. The bike shop is shut on Sundays. The river season closes on 30 September. Check the last hourly return from the Fiesole line before you commit to a late afternoon up there.
Reckon on €2 to €4 a day for local transport, €17 return for the coast, single figures for a coach seat, and €130 upwards the moment you want someone to drive you through the vineyards.
Where you sleep decides all of it. A room inside the walls turns most of this article into optional extras. Start with the Florence hotel search, and read the Florence guide for what sits within that twelve-minute radius of the station door.
