Hi. I am doing Florence on my own. I want to get tickets in advance to the Galleria Dell Accademia to see the David. I hear there are long lines. Does anyone trust a website to get tickets in advance or somewhere off the ship with no lines? where are they picked up? I saw some tickets for 20 euros, is that fair?

Try english.firenze.net (the official florence web site.) I saw some links there.

Do not do the 20 euro advance booking sites. We are going to be in Florence in a couple of weeks. A member of our group of five called the museums direct, and made reservations. They will hold the tickets for you, and there is no additional charge as there is on the advance booking websites. Also, we did not pay yet; we will pay when we pick up the tickets. I believe we are paying $10.50 euros each for academia and the same for uffizi; we did this for both. Again, I am not the one who handled it. Another one in our group did. Just go to www.uffizi.com and you will see the info when you click on online tickets. The phone number you call for the reservations desk is 39 055 2654321 operating M-F 8:30 to 18:30 and Sat. from 8:30 to 12:30. For Accademia I think the number is 39-055-294883. Also check this out: www.firenzemusei.it . It looks like you can purchase the advance tickets for the $10.50 euro total price on this official site.

Hope this helps.
Ellie

Hi:

Speaking of Florence, I read someone who mentioned that the Trains are unreliable in Florence and so try and share a van/taxi to get there. Also heard that it takes a long time to get there, so better with a guide. Has anyone else heard these things or experienced getting there already?

Trains throughout Italy are generally quite reliable. There may be a quirk here or there but that is quite uncommon. The dreaded strike is not common and they are posted in advance on the www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html site. The strikes, when they do occur, generally are for one particular train on a particular route. Over 150+ trains in Italy and only 3 quirks along the way.

A very high percentage of the Italian population moves by train.

I went directly to the Academia website. Bought a private tour guide and tickets directtly from them. The tour was fabulous. The tickets bypassed all lines. You just showed them to the guard and waited in a waiting area for the group to assemble. Also, I did the same for the Ufizzi. I went directly to their website and bought private tour (small group) and tickets. Go VERY early for both as it gets hot later.
evelyn