Tours and Tickets to Experience Great Synagogue of Florence (Tempio Maggiore)

There are plenty of ways to experience the Great Synagogue of Florence (Tempio Maggiore). Looking at ratings and reviews previously given by customers, these are the best tours available right now:

• Florence Night Bike Tour with Wine and Aperitivo Picnic included
• Florence Hidden Sights Private Tour from Livorno
• Cooking class Pizza with a View of Florence Cathedral
• Photography Bike Tour of Florence
• Jewish traditions in Florence: private walking tour

Standard tickets to the Great Synagogue of Florence cost €9, while it’s €6 for students and children aged 6–14. Free entry is offered to kids aged 5 and under and travelers with disabilities. Sightseeing tours often pass by the synagogue and typically start at US$30, or you can tour it and other Jewish cultural attractions with a private guide for around US$200.

The Great Synagogue of Florence is located on Via Luigi Carlo Farini in the Sant’Ambrogio neighborhood, about a 10-minute walk north of the Santa Croce Basilica or east of the Florence Duomo (Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore). The synagogue is in a quieter, more residential area of the city, with the Piazza Massimo D’Azeglio park and Sant’Ambrogio Market nearby.

From June to September, the Great Synagogue of Florence is open daily from around 10am and closes about 6.30pm, with 5pm closing time on Fridays. From October to May, closing times are a little earlier: 5:30pm every day except Fridays at 3pm. Enter up to 45 minutes before closing, and avoid stopping by on Saturdays and Jewish holidays, when the site is closed to visitors.

The Great Synagogue of Florence was completed in 1882, a short time after Tuscany’s Jews gained the right to Italian citizenship. With a pink and white limestone facade and a gold-accented interior, it was—and still is—one of the best examples of Moorish, Byzantine, and Romanesque architecture in Florence. The synagogue was renovated after the Nazi occupation of Florence, and it remains at the center of the city’s Jewish life.

Besides the synagogue and its museum about Florence’s Jewish community and old Jewish ghetto, there is a Jewish Monumental Cemetery in the San Frediano neighborhood. Tours about Florence’s Jewish history may take you to see where the ghetto once stood in Piazza della Repubblica, as well as memorials dedicated to Jews who were deported during the Holocaust.