Excursion to Florence and Pisa | Tours

(duration of this tour: 12 hours)

with English Speaking Driver

This tour will start with us picking you up at your hotel and than having a lovely drive up from the region of Lazio into Tuscany passing many beautiful areas and countryside of Italy. Tuscany has some of the most stunning countryside with medieval towns popped in the middle. It is here that some of the best wines and oils are produced and you will be able to see where it is all grown.

FLORENCE

Florence is one of the most exciting cities being the birth place of the Italian Renaissance. It is here that most of the great artist were born, lived and worked. It is because of this that one can find the most remarkable architecture and collections of art concentrated in one place. It has also retained much of the way of life as when it was at its peak, so you can walk through the same streets as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Donatello and of course Michelangelo, and many many more. This city has a great number of churches as well as museums and squares. Some recommended places to visit while here are; Santa Maria del Fiore. This is Florence’s principal church, better known as The Duomo.

This has quite a typical Tuscan façade with its order of pink, white and green marble bands of color. Inside there are decorations and stained glass done by all of the greats of the time. Make sure to have a close look at the dome executed by Brunelleschi. This dome was the first of its kind since antiquities. From the outside, it dominates Florence’s landscape, but you can also have a closer look by climbing it, and at the top you will have a view that is unparalleled. Next to the Duomo is the unique but very graceful Campanile or bell tower, designed by Giotto in 1334. The decorations around the outside were all carved again by more of the greats, like Pisano and Donatello. You can also climb its stairs, if you still have the enthusiasm left to do so!! In the same area is the Baptistry which is one of Florence’s oldest buildings, built between the 5th and 12th centuries on the site of an ancient Roman temple. This building also has bands of red and green marble on its front. It was made famous when Ghiberti won a competition in 1401 to design the north door in bronze, done in bas-relief depicting The Gates of Paradise. It was here that so many of the Florentines great and small were baptized, including Dante. Also worth visiting are Florence’s two best and most famous museums, The Pitti Gallery and the Uffici. Here are housed some of the finest and well known Italian and Florentine artists such as;

• Cimabue,
• Giotto,
• Botticelli,
• Leonardo da Vinci,
• Raphael,
• Michelangelo,
• Titian,
• Caravaggio and course so many more.

If you would like to follow in the footsteps of Michelangelo, than places to see are Casa Buonarroti, which was owned by Michelangelo and holds portraits and his earliest known work, Palazzo del Bargello where several of his early works grace the ground floor, The Accademia that accommodates many of Michelangelo’s sculptures including David which you can’t miss.

He sculpted this when he was only 29 years old using a single block of damaged marble that was considered garbage to all other artists. This colossal statue possesses such grace and beauty that only Michelangelo could attain at this time, and last, the church of Santa Croce where not just Michelangelo but many other illustrious Italians were buried. And don’t forget to walk across Ponte Vecchio, which is the most ancient bridge in Florence, the only one saved during the Second World War.

The current construction belongs to the XIV century, but the first bridge was built by the Romans, it has some spectacular panoramic views of the Arno River. Florence is an unforgettable city that will give you the sense of its great Renaissance past and all of the master artists that is gave birth to and nurtured.

PISA

Lying a few kilometers from the sea, at the end of a long fertile plain of the river Arno, Pisa is in the center of an area characterized by an incomparable natural environment, composed of great woods along the shores dominated by the scent of pine and salty air, now enclosed in a Nature Park that protects them. Pisa, an ancient Roman port and great maritime republic, is no longer on the sea but its splendid past lives within its abundant historic and artistic monuments.

The Campo dei Miracoli (“Field of Miracles”) is a wide, walled area at the heart of the city, recognized as one of the main centers for medieval art in the world. Partly paved and partly grassed, it is dominated by three great religious edifices: the Duomo, the Leaning Tower, and the Baptistry. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is the campanile, or freestanding bell tower, of the main cathedral in Pisa. Although intended to stand vertically, the tower began leaning to the southeast soon after the onset of construction in 1173 due to a poorly laid foundation and shifting soil that has allowed the foundation to slant. It is so amazing to see and climb the world’s greatest cock-up.

At the heart of the Campo dei Miracoli is the Duomo, the medieval cathedral, entitled to St. Mary. PisaIt was begun in 1064 by the architect Buscheto and is the originator of the distinctive Pisan Romanesque style in architecture. The facade is of green and white marble bands of stone that is very typical of this style, and inside there are mosaics demonstrating a strong Byzantine influence, while the pointed arches point to Muslim influences.

The Baptistry is a great example of the transition from the Romanesque to the Gothic style; the lower levels are in the Romanesque style, with rounded arches, while the upper sections are in the Gothic style, with pointed arches and entirely constructed in marble. Within, a marble pulpit can be found, carved by Nicola Pisano in 1260. The interior is spacious and acoustically perfect. Constructed on the same unstable sand as the Tower, the Baptistry, (as well as the Cathedral) leans 0.6 degrees toward the cathedral.

Pisa for these reasons is unique and extraordinary to any other city in the world.