YellowSquare Florence
Rooftop pool, free-pasta nights, and live music — Florence's most consistent party-hostel at 9.0
9.0-rated party-grade hostel on the edge of Santa Maria Novella, famous for a rooftop pool with Duomo-ridge views, nightly events, and a free-pasta dinner that regulars build the evening around. The Florence branch of the Italian YellowSquare chain, 15 minutes on foot to the train station.
YellowSquare Florence sits on Viale Redi in the northwest corner of Santa Maria Novella, a 15-minute walk or 5 minutes on the bus to the main station. The building is purpose-built hostel: big reception-bar-restaurant combo downstairs, dorms in the upper floors, and the selling point — a rooftop deck with a small swimming pool, sun loungers, and the kind of late-afternoon crowd that turns into the first round of cocktails without anyone quite deciding to.
The restaurant-bar does a proper Italian dinner for 10-12 EUR and runs a nightly free-pasta event around 20:00 that pulls every backpacker in the building into the same room. After that, the programme runs: pub crawl Mondays and Fridays, live music Wednesdays, quiz Thursdays, DJ set Saturdays. It is not a quiet hostel.
Dorms themselves are solid: privacy curtains, reading lights, USB sockets at the head of each bed, lockable under-bed steel locker (bring a padlock or rent one at reception), en-suite private bathrooms on the 6, 8 and 10-bed rooms. The common kitchen upstairs is large enough to cook dinner without elbowing people, which is a rare feature at this scale of hostel.
The location trade-off is real: you're not in the historic centre. Walking to the Duomo takes 20-25 minutes, and the route via the station is not the most atmospheric. If your Florence is photos-of-the-centre and quiet wine bars, stay in Oltrarno. If your Florence is other backpackers, pool beers, pasta nights and a bus crawl through the city, YellowSquare is the default.
- 01Rooftop pool + sun deck with ridge-line views over Florence — the only hostel pool in the centre walking zone
- 02Free-pasta dinner nightly around 20:00 — easy icebreaker, cheap base for the evening
- 03Live events 5-6 nights a week (pub crawl, quiz, live music, DJs)
- 04Proper guest kitchen upstairs, large enough to actually cook
- 056, 8 and 10-bed dorms with en-suite bathrooms — rare at this price point
- 15 min walk to Santa Maria Novella station
- 20-25 min walk to the Duomo, 30 to Piazza della Signoria
- Rooftop pool open May to October
- Free pasta dinner nightly around 20:00
“Organised events, reasonably priced drinks and food, good location, free pasta in the evening, rooftop terrace with a pool. The events schedule is what separates this from a regular hostel.”
“About 15 min walking to the main train station. Nice people and great staff, good food and nice events. Every bed has a safe and a locker (padlocks are necessary).”
“Clean room and friendly staff. Common kitchen is very useful to make your own breakfast. Very organised.”
- Santa Maria Novella station15 min on foot
- Fortezza da Basso (fairground + expos)8 min on foot
- Mercato Centrale (food hall, open till midnight)18 min on foot
- Duomo di Firenze22 min on foot
- Airport Peretola15 min on T2 tram + 5 min walk
- Conad supermarket3 min on foot
