Museums & galleries
Vasari Corridor
The Vasari Corridor is a 16th-century elevated enclosed passageway in Florence, connecting the Palazzo Vecchio with the Palazzo Pitti. It was designed by, and named for, architect Giorgio Vasari to allow Duke Cosimo I de' Medici to move undisturbed between both palaces.
What it is
The Vasari Corridor is an enclosed elevated passageway built in 1565 to let the Medici family walk between the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of government, and their residence at the Palazzo Pitti, without setting foot on the street below. It runs above the Ponte Vecchio and through part of the Uffizi Gallery. Rather than a museum in the ordinary sense, it's an architectural curiosity: a private, secretive route through the historic centre that shows how the ruling family separated itself from the city it governed.
Getting there
It sits in the heart of central Florence, next to Piazza della Signoria, so most visitors simply walk in from wherever they're staying in the old town. Access to the corridor itself is via the Uffizi Gallery.
Time to allow
Walking the corridor itself takes well under an hour. If it's visited as part of an Uffizi Gallery ticket, plan for the museum visit to run considerably longer.
When to go
Because access is limited and tied to the Uffizi, and the route is narrow, it tends to fill up quickly whenever it's open to visitors. Going as early in the day as possible helps avoid the thickest crowds, especially in the busier spring and summer months.
What to combine it with
Its location makes it easy to pair with a cluster of central sights: Piazza della Signoria and the Uffizi Gallery are both about 0.1km away, as is the Museo Galileo, and the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo is a short 0.2km walk. A single outing on foot can easily take in all four alongside the corridor itself.
Sources: open data from Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap · Updated August 5, 2026 · Edited by the World by City editors
