Daily Parking outside Florence Italy

We did this with our family and sorry I don’t have the exact details. We were in two cars. We drove toward Florence until we saw a prominent parking sign, pulled in, a bus arrived and that was all we did. Kids were free. Asked bus driver number of bus, name of parking lot for return. We were driving from Panzano so south side.

This is probably the easiest to reach from the A 1.
Tram into the city center.

https://parcheggiovillacostanza.it/en/

The parking lot at Villa Costanza is convenient from the freeway because it requires no driving in the city streets (it’s on the freeway and it has its own freeway exit), but it’s a long way from the city center, so you can’t walk to it. You need to take the light rail to the city center (central station). It’s a 25 min on the light rail plus another 10 min walk from the central station to the Duomo.

If you prefer to park walking distance from the city center, coming from Arezzo these are the easiest choices (in increasing order of walking distance from the Duomo). Getting to them will require driving about 10-15 min within city streets. If you don’t feel comfortable driving in city traffic, then Villa Costanza (plus the light rail) is the easiest and cheaper alternative.

Parcheggio Sant’Ambrogio Firenze
+39 055 5030 2209
https://goo.gl/maps/2YNRkyLW47u8n2Je6

Parcheggio Piazza Cesare Beccaria
https://goo.gl/maps/2X8UJsixReXExD446

Parcheggio Oltrarno
+39 055 5030 2209
https://goo.gl/maps/aF6Bj88XxHm9jd626

if you park at either of the first two places Roberto mentions, it is only a very nice and interesting 15 minute walk to the cathedral.

Piazza Beccaria is also the stop for the little electric buses that will take you to the center of town, the Oltrarno, and various other places. I was very fond of these buses and rode them almost every day for 5 weeks when we rented an apartment just west of Piazza Beccaria.

I had a bus pass, so I tried to find out for you where you could buy tickets besides at a tobacconist shop. Apparently, there is a new bus company in charge, Autolinee Toscane, and you can buy tickets "via SMS and with the Tabnet app." Here's what their website says:

For "Autolinee Toscane there is also the possibility to buy the SMS ticket for the urban bus and the tramway, at a cost of 1.80 euros, always sending a message to 4880105 , a single number for all of Tuscany. The difference is that you no longer have to write "ATAF", but the name of the city, for example "FLORENCE" if you want to buy the SMS ticket for Florentine urban transport....The service is available only for Tim, Vodafone and WindTre customers. The cost of the request via SMS is added to the ticket price, 29 cents for Tim and Vodafone, 0.299 euros for WindTre. "

You used to be able to buy tickets from the bus driver (slightly more expensive ones), but that disappeared with COVID and I don't know if you'll be able to do that or not by June.

I hope this helps! I believe that my very first post on this forum was asking about tickets vs a pass for the electric buses and Roberto very kindly helped me figure it out

Thank you everyone!

Why not just take the train?
It's only an hour or so and costs 8.70 euros each way, many trains all day long.
You will arrive right in the city center.

https://www.trenitalia.com/content/tcom/en.html