Seven Dog-Friendly Museums to Visit in and Around Florence

People who love art, museums, and culture are very often the same people who love animals and the outdoors. And they’re probably the same ones who, on every trip, wish they could bring along their loyal four-legged companion. Yet many, when they set off to explore an art city, rule out taking the dog before they’ve even left. We’d like to suggest an alternative. More and more cities, Florence among them, can be visited with your dog. It takes a little planning, of course, and if you want to step inside a museum, you’ll need to choose the right place for a proper visit while keeping your friend in mind.

Uffizi, Duomo, and the Accademia Gallery

The city’s most iconic spots are, naturally, the ones everyone wants to visit in peace. Wondering whether you can see the Uffizi, the Duomo, and the Accademia Gallery with your companion along? Here’s an idea that can keep everyone happy: the owner tours the museum while the dog stays outside, playing with a dog sitter.

That’s the private service offered by the agency TripForDog.com, which specializes in tours built around a four-legged guest. You buy your tickets for the Uffizi, the Accademia, and the Duomo on the site, and the dog sitter takes care of entertaining your pet for the whole visit. Marco Fabris, the founder of TripForDog.com, points out that all the dog sitters looking after the dogs are experts who know how to keep them safely occupied and well rested.

They make sure the dogs stay in shady spots, always with their well-being in mind. TripForDog.com takes a very family-minded view: dogs are full members of the family, with the same rights and responsibilities as anyone else. They’ll be waiting, tails wagging, at the museum exit. Just imagine arriving in a city like Florence and taking in its beauty without leaving your four-legged friend behind.

Centro Pecci in Prato

In a slightly more out-of-the-way spot, we reach Prato. The Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art is the first Italian institution designed from the ground up to present, collect, document, and support artistic research across the visual and performing arts, film, music, architecture, design, fashion, and literature.

All of these contemporary expressions bring people closer to the big questions of life and of our society. The Centro Pecci is another place to add to your list for a relaxed stroll with a small or medium-sized dog.

The Botanical Garden “Giardino dei Semplici”

Then there are open-air museums, where strolling with our companions is far easier. That’s the case at the botanical garden known as the Giardino dei Semplici (“Garden of the Simples,” the medicinal herbs). Founded by Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1545 as a garden of medicinal plants, it’s the third-oldest botanical garden in the world.

Its present layout dates to the 18th century, as do the oldest trees still admired today, classified as “monumental”: Micheli’s yew, planted in 1720, an imposing cork oak from 1810, two enormous Zelkova trees, and a Montezuma cypress.

The botanical garden is part of the Natural History Museum System of the University of Florence; through the university museum system’s educational services, you can periodically join guided tours, workshops, and family activities. It’s an experience amid majestic nature that your cheerful companions are sure to enjoy too.

The Medici Park of Pratolino

Continuing along the thread opened by the botanical garden, why not plan a stroll through the Medici Park of Pratolino as well? In the second half of the 16th century, Francesco I de’ Medici commissioned Bernardo Buontalenti to design a villa, later demolished, surrounded by a park. It captured the imagination of his contemporaries from the start. Its artificial grottoes, water features, and statues have long earned it the nickname “the garden of wonders.”

After Francesco’s death, the estate passed through various hands until, in the 19th century, the Russian prince Paul Demidoff bought the complex and promoted the restoration of the surviving Renaissance elements. Among them is the colossal statue of the Apennine, sculpted by Giambologna and overlooking a small lake, which once held grottoes decorated with ornaments, frescoes, and water features inside; almost all of that decoration has been lost, as has that of the Grotto of Cupid, while some sculptures, basins, and grottoes remain scattered through the park.

The only building to reach our day without major changes is the Chapel, built by Buontalenti in 1580. Along with other Medici villas, the Park of Pratolino is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But above all, it’s a place where you can bring your pet along.

The Museum of Cutting Tools (Museo dei Ferri Taglienti)

We move a few kilometers out of Florence and reach a place that, if you don’t know it, is absolutely worth a visit. Not least because, of course, you can do it with your dog.

We’re in Scarperia, at a museum housed inside the magnificent 14th-century Palazzo dei Vicari, whose beautiful facade is decorated with a multitude of coats of arms recalling the vicars who governed the town one after another.

The Museum of Cutting Tools, opened in 1999, documents the centuries-old work of Scarperia’s knife-makers, and more. Scarperia can rightly call itself a town of knives: ever since its founding in 1306, it has consistently shown its calling for this branch of craftsmanship.

The museum’s activities are curated by the Research and Documentation Center on Cutting Tools, whose members are scholars and experts in the field, with a particular focus on the material culture of cutting tools, museum practice, history, and anthropological and cultural study.

The museum is part of the “Museo Diffuso,” the museum network of the Mugello and the Florentine mountains.

These are just some of the wonderful places you can enjoy in and around Florence with your dog. Your pet will surely be happy to live a little piece of history right alongside you.