Join Art in Context’s Annalee Andres  in a culturally rich tour of Italy’s most beautiful city.  We will spend our days looking at the key sites of the Italian Renaissance from the famed Duomo to the artisanal shops of the Oltrarno.   We will visit Fra Angelico’s stunning San Marco Monastery, see the monastic cell of Savonarola, as well as the exquisite frescos and cloister of the magnificent Santa Maria Novella.  We will take a guided tour of the world class Uffizi Museum to view Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, masterpieces by Giotto, and famed works by Leonardo da Vinci, as well as visit Michelangelo’s David at the Accademia, and the studio of local artists.

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 On this trip, we will be based in central Florence at the well-located Hotel Centrale Relais https://www.hotelcentralefirenze.it    This European four star hotel is a lovely, low key, hospital abode in the center of Florence close to our sight seeing stops with a warm and friendly staff, a cheery daily breakfast, and open lobby. There are many wonderful restaurants and eateries nearby.  Throughout our tour, we will be joined by state-licensed, Florentine guide, Veronica Blomquist, who will lead us through key museums and sites, as required by Italian law.    

 

As part of our tour, we will take daytrips to the surrounding region of Tuscany.  We will visit Badia a Coltibuono https://www.coltibuono.com/en/,  a wine producing abbey dating to 1021 which has been transformed into a wine resort and cooking school by Lorenza de’ Medici in the 1980s.  There, we will take an Italian cooking class, taste chianti and spend a wonderful day in the Italian countryside.

 

We will also visit Bologna for the day.  There we will learn about the unique history of this city: an intellectual hub in the middle ages with the establishment of the first University, and later a Papal city.  We will visit the magnificent Piazzo Maggiore and the splendid San Petronio, the original University, as well as sample the delicious food of the Emilia-Romagna.

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Florence is a modern tourist hub with a medieval layout.  Our group will be walking from site to site within the city.  It is highly recommended that travelers be able to walk three to four miles a day to enjoy this trip. There is limited transportation within the city core.   Like most European cities, there are many stairs, steps, cobblestone streets, and other irregularities in the terrain of the city. 

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