I'm looking to buy tickets for the Uffizi and Accademia for an early April trip to Florence. The official site does not have times available in the early morning, around 8am, when I would like to go. Some of the other places offering reservations online do have these times available, though.

If I purchase reservations from any of those other places, will I really be able to enter earlier, or will they have to issue me a ticket for later time, as close as possible to the one I selected?

Thanks for any help!

Phone Firenze Musei, Tel: + 39 055 294883 for reservations whenever you like for both Uffizi and Accademia. And if you get there and there is no line, you do not have to pick up the reserved ticket and pay the reservation fee of 4 Euro.

hi jbarry,

i had a look at the official website and it's very peculiar - there are NO tickets available any day before 12 noon. so a phone call looks like a good idea. you will be asked to choose the english or italian service, and then once you've chosen the english one, at regular intervals you'll be asked things in italian, lol, followed by english. Eventually you'll get through to a real live person who speaks english, and you can book your tickets.

if you're going to be in Florence for an extended period, then it amy be worth getting a "friends of the uffizi" ticket which means I think that you can get in any time.

here's the link for the friends of the uffizi - it's €60 each or €100 for a family.

http://www.amicidegliuffizi.it/become_a_member.aspx

only worth it if you will be visiting a lot of museums!

Strategy suggested by Zerlina only works if you reserve your tickets by phone. If you book online (for afternoon/evening), you have to prepay with your card at the time of reservation.

What Zerlina proposes is by far the best , and works fine. Do it by phone. You are not oblige to pick up the reservation, if by any reason you change your mind or if the line is reasonable and you do not wish to pay the reservation fee which is a few Euros ( may be $4 , I am not sure). The 60 each and so forth is way too much. Do not fall for that.

I ran into the same challenges as you did on-line, no availability for preferred dates/times. I phoned to book entry times before leaving for Italy & got exactly what I wanted. You will probably have better luck securing your dates/times by speaking to a museum booking agent directly. It is an easy, simple process!

We arrived about 15 minutes prior to our entry time to pick up our tickets. At the Uffizi, there was already a line-up for regular tickets even at that early hour. At the Accademia, we were allowed to enter prior to our designated time & we headed directly to the rotunda where David stands! We shared David with four other visitors for about 15 minutes before the tour groups started to come through! In both cases, we were glad to have reservations & to pay the small fee to secure them!

Good luck!

2010

ref the accademia, we stayed for a week just round the corner from the accademia, and it seemed that although there were queues early on in the day, by about 3pm they had all gone and you could just walk in.

that was October though - other times of year may be different.

there is a very interesting exhibition of musical instruments there as well as David, plus some pretty bad paintings, where my kids played their usual game of "hunt the ugliest baby". it never ceased to amaze us that even some of the great masters portrayed the christ-child as an ugly under-sized adult, rather than a proper baby. anyone know why this is?

ps - if you look at the official website, you can now book to visit the Vasari corridor which runs between the uffizi and the Pitti palace [i think].

sadly this was not available when we visited Florence 3 or so years ago as I'd loved to have seen it. it's only open in May and June in 2010, and it isn't mentioned at all unless you go to the "hours" section of the website.

http://www.polomuseale.firenze.it/en...rari/orari.asp

Our hotel was able to get early tickets for us - around 8:15 or 8:30 if I remember correctly. The hotels seem to have their connections.

Our first time in Florence we made reservations and purchased tickets before we left home. But it is easy for the hotels to make reservations if it isn't a crowded time of year.

Awesome: thanks for all the help. I'll probably telephone the museum directly, as I'm actually staying in a hostel. If any of the museums look empty as I'm walking home, I wouldn't mind paying twice to see some of the great art in peace.