Part of rVacation.com Network

The Secret Route

Backstreets, garden gates, and rose terraces: reaching Florence's great viewpoint without the crowds.

Wine windows • hidden cloisters • the version for a second visit

Take the Quiet Way Get Early Access
📍

Across the Centre

Threads the core and crosses to the Oltrarno

🍷

Wine Windows

Over 180 survive. Several serve again

⏱️

Half a Day

Longer if you stop, and you should

🆓

Mostly Free

A few interiors charge; the route does not

🧭 Why This Experience

Florence with the volume down. Wine windows, the oldest pharmacy's frescoed halls, hidden cloisters, artisan streets, and viewpoints that never make the postcards. A route for second visits, or first visits that want to feel like second ones.

🏛️ The Backstory

The buchette del vino, little arched wine windows in palace walls, date from the 1500s, when families sold their vineyards' flasks direct to the street. Plague years made them contactless commerce four centuries early.

💡 Worth Knowing

Over 180 wine windows survive in Florence, mapped by a dedicated association, and several reopened for actual wine service after 2020, history repeating as aperitivo. The 'secret' Vasari Corridor above the Ponte Vecchio reopened to booked visits in 2024.

Live Prices & Availability

Powered by GetYourGuide

  • The wine windows are marked with a small plaque by the association that maps them. Once you see one you start seeing them everywhere.
  • Several churches have cloisters that cost a euro or two and are empty at any hour.
  • The Officina di Santa Maria Novella is free to walk into and is a frescoed hall, not a shop front.

  • Between two and four the centre empties out. That is the hour this route is built for.
  • Many small sites shut Monday. Check before you build a day around them.
  • This is the best wet-weather route in Florence. Most of it is indoors or arcaded.

  • Small entries and wine windows are cash operations more often than not.
  • Cobbles the whole way, and some of it is uphill on the Oltrarno side.
  • This is a second-visit route. If it is your first three days, do the famous things first.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the wine windows?
Small arched hatches cut into palace walls, used from the 1500s by Florentine families to sell wine from their estates straight to the street. More than 180 survive in the city and several started serving again after 2020.
Is this route suitable for a first visit?
It works better on a second. It deliberately avoids the queues, which means it also avoids the Uffizi, the Accademia and the dome climb.
How long does it take?
Half a day at a walk, a full day if you stop at the cloisters and the pharmacy and take a proper lunch. There is no fixed order to it.
Can I see the Vasari Corridor?
It reopened in 2024 with timed entry and limited numbers, booked separately. From the outside you can trace its whole run along the river and over the Ponte Vecchio, which is free and nearly as satisfying.

More in Piazzale Michelangelo

📷 Gallery

The Poggi Ramps

The elegant 19th-century ramps and waterfalls climbing to Piazzale Michelangelo: Florence's most scenic ascent.

The San Niccolò Route

Up through Florence's most charming gate district: tower, wine bars, and the quiet way to the…

The Scenic Driving Route

Viale dei Colli: the panoramic boulevard looping Florence's southern hills, made for a golden-hour drive.

📷 Gallery

Piazzale Michelangelo

Florence's Most Spectacular Panoramic Terrace

Explore More of Florence

📷 Gallery

Santo Spirito

Brunelleschi's last church and the liveliest piazza on the left bank: morning market, evening aperitivo.

📷 Gallery

Brunelleschi's Dome

The largest masonry dome ever raised, and still the thing you climb Florence to stand on…

📷 Gallery

Uffizi Gallery

The World's Greatest Renaissance Art Collection

📷 Gallery

Sagrestia Nuova

Michelangelo as architect and sculptor at once: the Medici Chapels' New Sacristy, where Dawn, Dusk, Night…

📷 Gallery

Michelangelo's David

The Original, in the Room Built to Hold Him

📷 Gallery

Museo Stibbert

Fifty thousand objects, fifty-seven rooms and a hall of fourteen armoured knights on horseback, in a…

Continue Your Italian Journey

Explore more destinations in our Italian travel network

🏛️ Rome 🚤 Venice 👗 Milan 🍕 Naples 🍝 Bologna 💕 Verona 🍷 Tuscany 🌊 Amalfi Coast 🏘️ Cinque Terre 🌋 Sicily 🇮🇹 rItalian

More journeys: 🌺 rHawaii ✈️ rVacation 📷 rPhotography 🍽️ rDining

Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you book through them, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. We only recommend tours and stays we would book ourselves.