On a budget, Uffizi Gallery still earns its price.
€25 (peak), reservation fee ~€4
Stripped to the rooms that justify the fit, it's three or four spaces: the Botticelli room (Birth of Venus and Primavera together is the genuine pinch-yourself moment), the Leonardo room, the Tribuna's jewel-box octagon, and the Arno-facing corridor itself. Everything else is connective tissue you can walk briskly. The honest read on the crowd: by mid-morning the Botticelli room is a phone-camera scrum that flattens the awe, and two-plus hours of dense looking fries anyone not already invested. Who should skip it outright — anyone who doesn't actively love painting; the Bargello or the Opera del Duomo gives them more pleasure for a tenth of the strain.