Planning a trip to Florence with kids and want a totally doable itinerary? Keep scrolling to check out my kid-friendly 2 days in Florence itinerary from my last trip to Italy!
This kid-friendly 2 days in Florence itinerary was written by family travel expert Marcie Cheung and contains affiliate links which means if you purchase something from one of my affiliate links, I may earn a small commission that goes back into maintaining this blog.
Florence is my husband’s favorite city in Italy. We visited it together when I was pregnant with our oldest and then we went back when we had a toddler.
So we had already been to Florence a few times and really wanted to focus on family-friendly activities that would interest our kids.
For this trip to Florence, we visited with our 6-year-old and 9-year-old and planned a bunch of kid-friendly activities.
Keep scrolling to see what our kids thought of the city and our Florence itinerary!
Don’t have time to read a bunch of Florence blog posts and reviews? Here are some of our top picks for visiting Florence with kids.
Popular Florence Tours/Activities
- Florence Golf Cart Tour (easy way to see the highlights while resting your legs)
- Uffizi Gallery Kid-Friendly Treasure Hunt Tour (includes skip-the-line tickets)
- Family-Friendly Private Tour (there are games and treats)
- Flytographer photo shoot (they are easy to book are really affordable)
Kid-Friendly Florence Hotels
- Hotel La Scaletta Al Ponte Vecchio (great location with family rooms, free WiFi, and A/C)
- The FRAME Hotel (great location with family rooms, free WiFi, and A/C)
- Hotel Accademia (lots of family rooms, free breakfast, free WiFi, and A/C)
- Il Perseo (it has family rooms, free WiFi, and A/C)
- Golden Tower Hotel & Spa (it’s near the Uffizi Gallery and offers free breakfast, WiFi, and A/C)
Where to Stay in Florence with Kids
While there are tons of great kid-friendly hotels in Florence, we opted to stay at Hotel La Scaletta.
Our room was amazing! It was huge and there was a king bed on one side of the partition and then two twin beds on the other side.
There was also a separate sink/shower room and a separate sink/toilet room. That’s very, very helpful for families!
And we had a cool balcony that overlooked a courtyard garden area. Oh, and the ceiling had a fresco painting of angels on it! We really felt like royalty!
We were also just steps away from the Ponte Vecchio bridge, which is a great location for exploring Florence. And we were close to Santa Maria del Fiore and Pitti Palace. Check the latest rates and availability.
2 Days in Florence Italy with Kids
Before I really get into the Florence in 2 days itinerary, I wanted to note that we started off our trip in Venice and took a train to Florence.
We arrived in Florence in the afternoon, got a late lunch, walked across the Ponte Vecchio, did some shopping, rested in the hotel, enjoyed dinner at 13 Gobbi, and then went right to bed. This itinerary starts the very next day and it part of a larger 10 days in Italy itinerary.
We also had a mid-afternoon train to Rome on our last day, so we spent that morning exploring the Accademia Gallery primarily because our kids wanted to see Michelangelo’s David.
We also did a day trip to Cinque Terre in between these days that you can read about HERE. And we did an impromptu stop at the Leaning Tower of Pisa that you can read about HERE.
DAY 1: Florence City Tour and Da Vinci Workshop
Breakfast at Ditta Artigianale
Since we stayed at Hotel La Scaletta, I did some research and found out that we were super close to a highly-rated breakfast spot called Ditta Artigianale.
It’s a kid-friendly cafe that has plenty of seating. We headed upstairs and ordered a variety of pastries and drinks.
I had a homemade iced caramel latte and my husband tried their signature sunrise iced coffee that had orange juice in it.
The kids LOVED their pastries. We were too early for their full breakfast menu but their french toast sounded amazing! They have a few locations across Florence.
Family Friendly Florence City Tour with Cristina
Since my kids had never really been to Florence before, I wanted to do a tour with a local expert who could point out things that might interest them.
We met up with Cristina at the Piazza della Repubblica where she told my kids they were going to participate in a scavenger hunt.
They had 6 items they needed to find as we did a 2-hour walking tour of Florence.
The time really flew by as we looked at famous buildings and artwork and learned a bit about the history of Florence in a kid-friendly way. Now my kids know a lot about the famous Medici family!
It was really cool to see the Duomo and learn more about Santa Maria del Fiore, an iconic Florence cathedral.
By the end of the Florence walking tour, they earned gelato from Perche No. It was so flavorful and tasted so fresh!
The tour ended at the Arno River with a great view of the Ponte Vecchio bridge.
After the tour, I asked my kids for their highlights. They said they really liked seeing the “secret” face on the backside of a sculpture near the Uffizi Gallery.
Another highlight for them was getting to go inside the Piazza San Martino. This was a little building with frescoes on the wall depicting ways that this charity used to help “rich” people back in the day.
They really liked seeing the frescoes because Cristina explained what was going on in each frame and they could really understand how the charity supported the wealthy community members who fell on hard times.
The tour was a great length for our family and we learned a lot about Florence!
We actually ran into Cristina twice during our trip to Florence and she was so sweet each time!
Lunch at Maioli Ristorante Pizzeria
We were all a bit tired after our tour, so we grabbed takeaway sandwiches from Maioli Ristorante Pizzeria.
It was right next to our hotel so it was easy to order lunch and cold drinks and then bring them up to our air-conditioned room.
It also gave the kids some downtime so they could leisurely eat and do screens for a bit.
Da Vinci’s Workshop
We met up with our tour guide Bella at the Da Vinci Interactive Museum for a hands-on workshop for our family.
My kids have been interested in Leonardo da Vinci since we went to Paris last summer.
I have to start off by saying that the museum itself is super amazing! There are tons of replicas of Da Vinci’s creations that are ready for people to test out.
After giving us plenty of time to explore the museum, our tour guide gave us each sketchbooks and asked us to sketch out some components of some of the exhibits.
Then, we sketched out the full exhibits. Finally, we got to create some of our own inventions.
My kids LOVED this tour so much! They were super engaged the whole time, spent a lot of time working on their inventions and naming them, and thinking about the world in a whole new way.
I highly, highly recommend this tour for families with kids who are interested in science and or art. It’s much more immersive than just exploring the Da Vinci Museum on your own.
Candy Lisa
So, my kids spotted this candy shop on the way to the Da Vinci Museum and we promised we’d swing by after the tour.
It’s a cute candy shop where you can fill up a bag with a mixture of tasty candies. They have sour ones, marshmallow ones, and tons of gummy candies.
Fontana del Porcellino (Boar’s Fountain)
During our tour with Cristina earlier, she showed us the Fontana del Porcellino. It’s a huge bronze boar and legend has it that if you rub its nose and feed it a coin, you will get good luck.
The money actually is donated to an orphanage, so it’s a fun thing to do in Florence with kids.
We didn’t have time to do it during our tour, so we made sure to do it later in the evening right before dinner.
The kids really had an awesome experience and it’s something that seems pretty unique to Florence.
Dinner at Osteria del Cinghisile Bisinco
We didn’t have any reservations, so it made finding a spot for dinner a bit tricky. However, the people at Osteria del Cinghisile Bisinco were amazing and let us sit at a tiny table upstairs.
The food here is pretty good and the kids enjoyed sharing some steak and salami. They have a great selection of food items and we’d totally eat here again.
Gelato
Of course, we had to end our day with some gelato! We tried out Bar Pontevecchio and enjoyed tons of great flavors.
It’s located right at the edge of the Ponte Vecchio bridge and we’d definitely return there.
DAY 2: Golf Cart Tour and Uffizi Gallery
Breakfast at Robiglio
We headed to Robiglio for breakfast. It’s supposedly one of the top-rated bakeries in Florence and we’d definitely agree!
They have a variety of delectable pastries plus you can get all kinds of coffee drinks here. They have both indoor and outdoor seating.
We mainly picked this place because it was about halfway between our hotel and Santa Croce, where we were meeting up for a golf cart tour of Florence.
Golf Cart Tour of Florence
When we visited Rome with a toddler many years ago, we did a golf cart tour of Rome when there was just one company doing it.
These days, golf cart tours are all the rage in Europe and we’re here for it!
So, when I saw there was a Florence golf cart tour, I knew we needed to check it out. I’m so glad we did because it was a family hit!
We hopped into our electric golf cart and our guide drove us around some top Florence sights before taking us out of the city for a scenic drive. I think it’s one of the easiest things to do in Florence with kids.
A few of our favorite stops included Piazzale Michelangelo, Santa Croce, and Pitti Palace.
We were able to stop a few times for photo ops, but mostly we enjoyed NOT trekking around the city in 90-degree heat. And we loved not hearing our kids complaining about the amount of walking!
If you’re visiting Florence in the summer, doing a golf cart tour is a great way to see the city while enjoying a slight breeze! Check the latest rates and availability.
Lunch at All Antico Vinaio
My friend Vanessa actually recommended a famous sandwich shop for lunch. When we realized it was on our walk back to the hotel from Santa Croce, we figured it was destiny!
They actually have 3 locations right next to each other on a street near Santa Croce. So, we picked the one with the shortest line and ordered our sandwiches to go.
We took them back to our hotel to eat and OMG were they yummy!
I ordered the La Paridiso which has crushed-up pistachios mixed with cream as the spread of this meat sandwich. It was amazing!
Siesta at the Hotel
Since it was 94 degrees outside, we decided it was in everyone’s best interest to take a siesta at our hotel for a couple of hours.
We popped downstairs for gelato at one point, but otherwise, we all just enjoyed some quiet time with lots of air conditioning!
This was a really smart move because we had just enough energy to do our last tour of the day.
Uffizi Gallery Kid-Friendly Treasure Hunt Tour
When we were in Paris last summer, our kids loved doing a scavenger hunt at the Musee d’Orsay. So, I looked for something similar for Florence. We were all pretty excited about this treasure hunt at the Ufizzi.
We met up with Elena at the Leonardo da Vinci statue just outside the museum. She took us inside where she handed our kids colored pencils and a scavenger hunt map.
I want to take a moment to say that my 6-year-old wasn’t quite in the mood for a museum visit and ended up falling asleep on my husband and they missed most of the tour. But, my 9-year-old and I thought the tour was pretty interesting!
We spent about 90 minutes walking around specific rooms to see if we could spot certain scenes from paintings. It was really well-thought out and my son was really engaged and got excited every time he spotted it.
I was mostly excited to see Birth of Venus by Botticelli because it’s been one of my favorite paintings since I studied it in high school. It was pretty neat to get to show it to my son.
The coolest part for my son was when she showed us a painting by Leonardo da Vinci that looked different depending on if you looked at it from the left side (where there were tons of “mistakes”) versus the right side where the perspective was accurate.
This tour was the perfect length of time to explore the museum and then we had the option of staying as late as we wanted.
Oh, and the treasure hunt prize was a coupon for free gelato for our whole family! Check the latest rates and availability.
Gelato from La Strega Nocciola
After the Uffizi Gallery tour, we headed over to La Strega Nocciola to claim our prize! It was about a 10-minute walk and it was totally worth it.
It’s sort of tucked away behind the Santa Maria del Fiore. It’s really unassuming but the flavors deliver! In fact, we think it might be the best gelato in Florence that we tried!
Takeaway Dinner from La Galleria Il Vino dei Guelfi
After a long day in the hot sun, we decided to grab take-out to eat in our hotel room. My husband did some research and saw that La Galleria Il Vino dei Guelfi got great reviews and it was close to our hotel.
He volunteered to go grab the food and he ended up chatting with people there who gave him all kinds of recommendations.
The food was all super tasty and it was really nice to find a nice place that offered takeout options.
Day 3: Morning Tour of the Accademia Gallery
Breakfast at Gilly
I wanted to stop by one more Florence bakery that was on my list and we really did save the best for last!
Gilly is located right by the carousel in the Piazza del Republicca and it’s one of the best Florence restaurants we visited during this Florence itinerary.
We ordered iced cappuccinos and it was the best coffee we had during our whole trip to Italy. I’m still dreaming about how delicious it was.
We also got an array of pastries, desserts, and traditional breakfast options. I highly recommend stopping here. They have tons of indoor and outdoor seating.
Small Group Accademia Gallery Tour
Since we didn’t leave Florence until the mid-afternoon, I booked a small group tour of the Accademia Gallery specifically so my kids could see the Statue of David. Check the rates and availability.
This was sort of a bonus activity that I didn’t book until we were already in Florence.
I originally just wanted to get skip-the-line tickets, but they were sold out for our date/time. Literally, the only way we were going to see the Statue of David was by booking this tour.
My husband and I thought the tour was really interesting and we liked our tour guide, Frederica. However, our kids really only wanted to see the Statue of David and that was at the end of the hour-long tour.
We’re all happy that we went, but I’m kicking myself for not just getting skip-the-line tickets.
Tips for Visiting Florence with Kids
Stay Near Florence Attractions You Want to Visit
We stayed at the Hotel La Scaletta which was a great location for our Florence itinerary. We were just a few minutes away from the Ponte Vecchio and the Uffizi Gallery.
This hotel was also just a 10-minute taxi ride from the Santa Maria Novella train station. This made it really easy to get to and from our hotel. Plus, it was convenient to take the train to Cinque Terre for a day trip from Florence.
Ask Your Kids What THEY Want to Do
If you want your kids to be interested in visiting Florence, include them in the planning! Even young kids can help decide between a few different tours or attractions.
This will help them feel like they art part of the process and that their opinions matter.
For our trip with kids in Florence, we showed them photos of Boboli Gardens, Santa Croce, the Ponte Vecchio, Giotto’s bell tower, and art museums.
They told us they really wanted to learn more about Leonardo da Vinci, eat gelato, and see Michelangelo’s David.
Book a Family Photo Shoot
Whenever we travel, we almost always book a family photo shoot with Flytographer. They are super easy, affordable, AND guarantee that I’ll be in some photos. You can get $25 off if you book through this link or use the code HAWAIITRAVEL.
Look for Kid-Friendly Florence Tours
Our kids get a LOT more out of traveling somewhere new when we do tours that cater to families.
There are lots of family tours of Florence that are pretty awesome. And there are some cool workshops, like the one we did about Da Vinci!
Bring Wired Headphones for Little Kids
My 6-year-old asked me to make sure people know that little kids do tours and it’s not fair that the earbuds don’t fit in little kid ears.
We decided it would be a good idea if parents brought along wired headphones for any tour that uses earbuds with a speaker. This will eliminate a lot of tears. Trust me.
Always Go for the Skip-The-Line Tickets
We actually had enough time to visit Michelangelo’s David the morning before we headed on the train to Rome.
Luckily, I was able to snag some skip-the-line tickets for the Accademia Gallery. It would have been too stressful to try to wait in the long line while worrying about having enough time to grab our luggage from the hotel and catch our train.
Get Gelato
This should go without saying for anywhere in Italy, but make sure you include it on your Florence itinerary. We had gelato a lot of different places but our favorite shops were Perche No and La Strega Nocciola.
Florence Itinerary with Kids FAQs
Is it worth visiting Florence with kids?
Yes, Florence is worth visiting with kids as it offers a blend of history, art, and culture that can be appreciated by all ages.
Are 2 days enough for Florence?
While 2 days in Florence can give you a taste of the city’s highlights, it is recommended to allocate more time if possible to fully explore its attractions and immerse yourself in its ambiance.
How can I spend 2 nights in Florence?
To make the most of 2 nights in Florence, consider visiting iconic landmarks like the Duomo, exploring the Uffizi Gallery, strolling across the Ponte Vecchio, and enjoying the vibrant atmosphere of Piazza della Signoria.
How many days is needed for Florence?
Ideally for a first trip to Florence, a minimum of 3-4 days is recommended to fully experience Florence. This allows time to visit its museums, historical sites, and neighborhoods at a leisurely pace.
Is it worth visiting the Uffizi Gallery with kids?
Visiting the Uffizi Gallery with kids can be worthwhile if they have an interest in art.
However, considering its size and potential crowds, it may be helpful to choose a shorter guided tour or engage children with interactive activities or audio guides tailored for younger audiences.
Should I visit Boboli Gardens with kids?
The Boboli Gardens can be a delightful experience for kids, offering vast green spaces, sculptures, and even a small amphitheater. It provides an opportunity to relax, play, and appreciate the beauty of the outdoors in Florence.
Is it worth paying for a guided tour of Florence?
A guided tour of Florence can enhance your experience by providing in-depth knowledge and insights into the city’s history and culture. It can be especially beneficial if you want to learn more about specific attractions or prefer a structured and informative exploration.
Where can I find the most delicious gelato?
For delicious gelato in Florence, popular spots include Gelateria dei Neri, Gelateria Santa Trinita, and Gelateria La Carraia.
These gelaterias offer a variety of flavors made with high-quality ingredients, providing a delightful treat during your visit to Florence.
I think eating at least one gelato a day is one of the most important things to do with kids in Florence!
2 Days in Florence Travel Tips Wrap Up
And there you have it, folks! Your go-to guide for spending an unforgettable 2 days in Florence with the little ones.
The compact layout of the city means most attractions are within walking distance, making it all the more convenient for families.
From diving into a world of Renaissance art to unwinding in lush gardens, this Florence itinerary is designed to make every moment count.
Don’t forget to take a leisurely stroll along the serene Arno River as the Tuscan sun sets, wrapping up your adventure-filled days.
To truly capture the essence of this enchanting city, remember to pause amidst the rush of sightseeing. Soak in the vibrant ambiance of the piazzas, sample the mouthwatering gelato, and let the rhythm of life in Florence captivate you.
This visit to Florence will be more than just a trip. It will be an immersive journey through time, art, and beauty, leaving your family with memories that will last a lifetime.
Looking for more Florence travel content? Check out my top Florence travel tips, day trip to Cinque Terre, whether or not it’s worth visiting the Leaning Tower of Pisa, things to do in Florence with kids, best day trips from Florence, how to spend 10 days in Italy with kids, tips for visiting Italy with kids, best weekend trips in Europe, Europe travel tips, and where to stay in Florence with kids!
