What you see in the Vasari Corridor, in order
Official ticket firstUffizi plus corridor costs €47 on the museum’s own site. The options below sell a guide for the paintings, or a slot when the official ones are gone.
Compare all sixHow long the route is
Call it about a kilometre. If you want the precise figures, the Uffizi gives two. Its access rules say about 1 km, plus 100 m from the Buontalenti Grotto exit to the Pitti courtyard. Its history page says 760 m from the Uffizi start to the Buontalenti Grotto. The gap is about where you start counting: the corridor as Vasari built it begins at Palazzo Vecchio, while the visit begins inside the Uffizi.
Room D19, the meeting point
The group gathers in Room D19, the “Venetian small chapel” or Cappellina Veneziana, on the first floor of the Uffizi. Be there five minutes before your slot. Your ticket is checked again at the corridor entrance, Uffizi audio-guides have to be handed back first, and the group of 25 sets off with two members of museum staff. Nobody joins late.
Down from the Uffizi and along the Arno
The corridor leaves the gallery and follows the river. This is the end that the Via dei Georgofili car bomb damaged on 27 May 1993; it reopened in 1998. The walls are bare, and the interest is in the windows, 73 of them over the whole route.
Over the Ponte Vecchio
The corridor is the upper storey running along the east side of the bridge, above the goldsmiths’ shops. Here the windows widen into panoramic openings, the ones widely reported to have been opened for Hitler’s visit with Mussolini in May 1938. It is a good story; I treat it as one. Since July 2025 this stretch has been lined with more than fifty Roman portrait busts, including Cicero, Augustus, Antoninus Pius, Faustina and Sabina, which had been in storage since 1993. The museum’s announcement of the busts lists them.
Round the Mannelli Tower
At the far end of the bridge the corridor swerves. The Mannelli family refused to let their tower be demolished, so the passage goes round it on stone brackets. It is the clearest sign on the whole walk that even a Medici duke had neighbours.
The balcony into Santa Felicita
Next the corridor passes over the portico of Santa Felicita, with a balcony that looks into the church so the ducal family could hear Mass without being seen. I grew up a few streets away and had stood in that church many times before I looked down into it from above. It is the stop I would pay for on its own, and you get only a moment at it.
Over the Oltrarno, and out at the grotto
The last stretch runs over the houses of the Oltrarno to a door beside the Buontalenti Grotto in the Boboli Gardens. There are toilets at the end of the corridor. Staff then walk the group, without stopping, to the Ammannati Courtyard of Palazzo Pitti, where there is a café and more toilets. To go on into Boboli or Pitti you need a ticket for them; the corridor ticket does not include them. Friday evenings use a different exit, set out on where it ends.
What you will not see
Paintings. The self-portrait collection begun by Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici hung in the corridor from the 1970s until 2016 and has not come back. The restoration took the passage back to bare walls on purpose. You can take photos for personal use but not video; details are on can you take photos. Why the passage exists at all is on the history page.
Read this page the night before. Nobody will explain the route on the day, and on most tours the guide is not allowed to.
Best ratedGuide walks the corridorFlorence: Uffizi Gallery with Optional Vasari Corridor Tour
PrivateCorridor includedFlorence: Vasari Corridor and Uffizi Gallery Exclusive Tour
Max 9 peopleCorridor costs extraFlorence: Uffizi Small-Group Tour (Max 9) + Vasari Option
Frequently asked questions
Where does the Vasari Corridor start and end?
The visit starts at Room D19 on the first floor of the Uffizi and ends at a door beside the Buontalenti Grotto in the Boboli Gardens. By day, staff then walk the group to the Ammannati Courtyard of Palazzo Pitti. The corridor as built starts at Palazzo Vecchio.
How long is the Vasari Corridor?
About a kilometre. The Uffizi’s access rules say about 1 km plus 100 m to the Pitti courtyard; its history page says 760 m from the Uffizi start to the Buontalenti Grotto. The difference is where the measurement starts.
What is inside the Vasari Corridor now?
Bare walls, 73 windows, and since July 2025 more than fifty Roman portrait busts above the Ponte Vecchio. The self-portraits that hung there until 2016 are not back.
Does the escorted tour include the corridor?
Only if you book its corridor option, and it is non-refundable once you do. Diana, from the United States, thought it was included and had to buy it separately. The escorted tour reviewed.