FLORENCE BUS HUB
Florence runs a two-door coach system: FlixBus boards at Piazzale Montelungo beside Santa Maria Novella station, while the big intercity fleet pulls out of Villa Costanza at the end of tram line T2.
Piazzale Montelungo is the city-side stop: a strip of bays a kilometre from the SMN platforms, with city buses 12, 13 and 17 outside, a ticket office open 06:00–21:00 and FlixBus’s green coaches cycling through from before dawn. Villa Costanza, at the western edge of town on tram T2, is the motorway-side terminal with drive-in parking — operators use it to skip the centre’s ZTL traffic. Check your ticket carefully: the same company can sell departures from either, and the two are thirty minutes apart by tram.
Rome is the workhorse — around three hours fifteen, with advance seats from about thirteen euros against triple that on the Frecciarossa bought on the day. Northbound, Bologna runs under an hour and a half, Venice about three and a half, Milan four; international overnights reach Paris, Munich, Vienna and Barcelona. Inside Tuscany the bus still rules the hill towns the railways miss: Siena by Rapida in seventy-five minutes from the SITA-style bays, San Gimignano via Poggibonsi, and Chianti villages on regional lines. The Pisa Airport shuttle also boards at Montelungo — about an hour for around €14.
THE TIO READ
Use Montelungo for everything Rome-ward: the coach lands at Tiburtina with the metro attached, and the €13 advance fare beats the train unless you book Frecciarossa weeks out. For Siena and the hill towns, the bus is not the budget option — it is the only direct one.
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