Firenze: Home to Great Art, Music and Cuisine!

Have you been following along on the map of Italy? Florence is the last stop in Italia and then the map changes. 

As much as "Firenze" is cradle to the Renaissance, it also is the heart of music and fine cuisine! I was inspired with so many ideas for the bakery here!! Best part of all is that the whole city is within a 15 to 20 minute walk, which beats Rome by a landslide victory!

Besides checking out some of the historical Cathedrals and Basilicas, I also wandered to Ponte Vecchio and took an afternoon soaking up the Uffizi (the “Offices”). Ponte Vecchio is the famous bridge you might have seen in common pictures of Florence. It was a busy area with shops, cafes, and tourists galore! The Uffizi boasts over 1.6 million visitors a year. The strategy is to get there early when they first open so you avoid the two hour wait to get it. Inside, the museum is arranged in chronological order. The Uffizi is home to wonderful works of art from pre-Renaissance, Renaissance, and post-Renaissance eras. Besides world famous paintings, it also has sculptures and wonderful frescos on the ceilings. Florence has been called home or is the birth place of famous people like Botticelli (The Birth of Venus), Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, Dante and hosts of others! One interesting note is that in the piazza of the Uffizi, many local artists and musician are displaying their work all trying to capture the tourist’s attention. These artists are surrounded by huge sculptures of past greats like Michelangelo. It’s a contrast of past and present and all of it worth a bit of your time. Enjoy the slide show of pictures!

Next stop is Innsbruck, Austria!