We finally arrived at the southernmost point of our journey – the city of Florence.

Although we had two full days here our travels were limited a little by the heat and the crowds – I hate to think how busy it gets in Summer! The city is absolutely packed with amazing sights and places to visit, we aimed for just a few of the main ones. Top of the list was the Uffizi Gallery, home to the finest collection of Renaissance art in the world. The building dates back to the 16th century and was built by for the Medici family.

Here are a couple of the better known works we passed: Primavera by Botticelli,Birth of Venus also by Botticelli, Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci and Venus of Urbino by Titian. There were also works by Rembrandt, Caravaggio and Rubens (and many,many others!).

Through the gallery windows you can get a good view of the Ponte Vecchio bridge. You can see the private corridor built for the Medicis that runs from the gallery (bottom right) across the bridge and off to their Palazzo Pitti royal palace the other side of the river. The bridge itself is one of the the city’s major attractions – the entire length of the structure is lined with jewellery stores !

The Cathedral was very impressive from the outside, the queues to get in were very long so we didn’t bother.

Lunch on the first day included some excellent pasta dishes in a well recommended restaurant ‘Trattoria Sergio Gozzi’. On the second day we visited the Mercato Centrale housed in a huge iron framed structure. It has a massive food market on the ground floor with a really big food court upstairs, all very good but very busy! If you zoom in on the menu in final picture you’ll spot the main ingredient of the local speciality Lampredotto – we gave it a miss!