Florence - Itineraries

Trip ideas

Dante's Florence

Just as Virgil guided the author of the Divine Comedy in his imagined journey through the realms of the afterlife, thus the spirit of the great Dante Alighieri accompanies visitors on this tour of his city of birth, Florence. The presence of Dante, father of the Italian language, is an important one, and can be felt in much of the Tuscan capital which, in Dante's lifetime, was animated by the conflict raging between the Guelphs and...

The parks and gardens of Florence

Having visited the galleries, the museums, the cathedrals and churches of Florence, there can be no better way to spend a day than by sauntering through the gardens of the Tuscan capital, many of which were created by the very same family who filled the city with the majority of its artworks: the Medici. It was this all-powerful dynasty who commissioned the construction of the Giardino di Boboli, annexed to the Palazzo Pitti, thus...

Santa Croce, heart of Florence

We start our tour of Florence's Santa Croce district on the city's Ponte Vecchio, the famous bridge lined with jewellers shops which traverses the river Arno. In 1565 Cosimo I commissioned Giorgio Vasari to find a way of uniting the Palazzo Vecchio with Palazzo Pitti, buildings situated on opposite sides of the river. Thus, the Corridorio Vasariano was created: an elevated covered walkway which starts from the west corridor of the...

Tuscan trendsetter

Nobody spending a few days in Florence should miss the opportunity to see all the city's most famous artistic masterpieces, but once they have done the classic tourist tour of the Tuscan capital, they might like to dedicate a couple of hours to visiting one of the smaller museums, perhaps even timing their holiday to coincide with one of the city's renowned cultural events. In Florence, the weeks leading up to the arrival of summer...

Beyond the gates of Florence

A treasure hunt in the lands around Florence might easily start with a trip to the splendid villas which the Medici family built in numerous strategic sites in the countryside immediately beyond the city walls. Although the nearest to the Tuscan capital is Villa di Careggi, Villa La Petraia and Villa di Castello are both only a few kilometers away. Nearly all the Medici villas were constructed with the aim of controlling the...

San Giovanni and the magic of Florence

A tour of Florence, a city home to a quite incredible number of the world's most important works of art and architecture, is the prefect introduction to the cultural and artistic foundations of modern day Italy. Our tour of the Tuscan capital commences at the city's S.Maria Novella railway station, from where we head to the nearby Piazza San Govanni and Florence Cathedral, past renaissance palazzi, historic caffè, century old...