Stazione di Santa Maria Novella (SMN) is a railway station in Florence, Italy, sometimes referred to as the SMN station. It is one of the busiest stations in Italy, with 160,000 people passing every day. The name of the station comes from the church of Santa Maria Novella, opposite the entrance to the square. The station is the southern end of the Bologna-Florence Railway and the northern end of the Florence-Roman Railway.
The station is centrally located, just a short walk from the cathedral and other major attractions. The entrance hall has a railway ticket office and some shops and restaurants. This floor is also home to the Florence Tourist Office, the passenger lounge, the currency exchange office, the luggage storage (near station 16), the post office and the station toilet (near station 5). The mezzanine floor of the station has restaurants, pharmacies and banks. Other floors, basement and upstairs, are mainly used for storage and office space. The station is a fascist building and one of the masterpieces of Italian modernist architecture. The station is a harbor-style platform structure.
The street outside the train station is the main hub of the bus line in Florence. So while you can easily walk from Santa Maria Novella to most central destinations, you can return to the station for buses to Piazzale Michelangelo or Fiesole, San Gimignano or Siena. .
The high-speed rail line to Bologna opened in 2009. The station is also used by regional trains: Pisa, Livorno (Leopolda Railway); Lucca, Bologna (Bologna – Florence Railway) and Faenza (Faentina Railway). The station also offers high-speed trains (Frecciarossa, Frecciargento) to several cities in the country, including Rome and Milan.