TUSCANY

FLORENCE AND SURROUNDINGS…

FLORENCE, A visit to the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance to discover its magnificent art and architecture. It is said that, of the 1,000 most important European artists of the second millennium, 350 lived or worked in Florence. The city has also been called the Athens of the Middle Ages. The centre of Florence will be the spectacular frame of a tour dedicated to the city's glorious past and also to its stimulating present life. Ponte Vecchio, Piazza della Signoria, the elegant palaces and fashionable shops, the charming narrow medieval streets and the impressive Cathedral square with Brunelleschi's imposing dome will all be concentrated in a pleasant slowly paced tour.

EXPLORING TUSCANY…. Renowned for its art, history and evocate landscape, Tuscany is a region where the past and present merge in pleasant harmony. Hill towns gaze across the countryside from on high, many encircled by Etruscan walls and slender cypress trees. Handsome places testify to the region’s wealth while medieval town halls indicate a long standing tradition of democracy and self government. Tuscan cities such as Florence, Siena and Pisa, together with smaller towns, like Lucca, Cortona and Arezzo, contain some of Italy’s most famous artistic treasures. Medieval villages such as San Gimignano, with its famous towers, or Pienza, a tiny Renaissance jewel, sit at the heart of the glorious pastoral countryside for which the region is equally renowned. Elsewhere landscapes range from the spectacular mountains of the Alpi Apuane to the gentle hills of Chianti….