Florence

Few visitors can fail to be moved by Florence's outstanding beauty; it's impossible to turn a corner here without being confronted by some spectacular building or landmark. Tuscany's most populous city, Italy's short-lived former capital and the birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence nestles in a valley surrounded by hills and is neatly in to north and south by the River Arno.

From visiting any of the city's eighty-plus museums to admiring its breath-taking architecture and exquisite artworks, and from strolling in beautiful Boboli Gardens to witnessing a Tuscany sunset from the Piazzale Michelangelo, Florence presents an endless succession of truly pleasurable and unforgettable experiences.

In a city blessed with so many outstanding highlights, here is a selection of those which the majority of Florence's visitors deem genuinely unmissable:

Although this art museum contains many notable artworks from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it is the presence of Michelangelo's original marble statue of the biblical hero, David, that truly justifies a visit.

The largest Franciscan church in the world, the beautiful Basilica di Santa Croce was consecrated in the fifteenth century and is notable both for its superb artworks and for housing funerary monuments to Italian luminaries including Dante, Galileo, Rossini, Michelangelo and Machiavelli.

This world-famous art museum contains many original Renaissance masterpieces by artists including Botticelli, Giotto, Titian, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, da Vinci and Raffaello,

The public square in front of Florence's spectacular cathedral is surrounded by unforgettable architecture and is the perfect place to relax with an Italian coffee and become immersed in the beauty of the location as the bustling world passes by.

This thirteenth-century Romanesque building resembles a fortress and although once a Ducal palace is now a museum. Extensively restored the palace features elaborately detailed-painted ceilings, many fine sculptures and a tower which may be climbed for further superb views of the city.