5
Reviewed by BARBARA E. from
Seeing the major sites of Florence with Sylvia, our knowledgable, joyful, enthusiastic guide was wonderful!
We were picked up at our hotel on time and driven to the main tour gathering place. We boarded a bus to Piazzale Michelangelo, high above Florence. We disembarked to enjoy the bronze copy of David and the spectacular views. From there we were driven to Accademia Galleria to meet the real David and many other wonderful works of art. We walked to the Duomo and learned (from the outside) about its history and construction from Sylvia, our delightful, knowledgeable guide. Since we were on the full day tour, lunch was included at Gianninos, a cozy, lovely restaurant near the Duomo, with excellent food. We were served bruschetta to start, followed by pasta with pesto and pasta with meat sauce. a choice of white or red wine was offered and a chocolate cookie biscuit was served for dessert. We walked back to the main meeting place for our afternoon tour. We boarded a bus which took us first to Fiesole, another beautiful Tuscan area high above the city and home to many wealthy people with gorgeous villas. Again we disembarked to enjoy the views. Our next stop was the Piazza della Signoria where we saw the marble copy of David as well as the original Rape of the Sabine Women sculptures. We walked to the Basilica di Santa Croce and the lovely square with all its shops. Our last walk was to the renown Uffizi Gallery. Despite having skip the line tickets, our tour group did in fact have to wait in line, just as other groups did. It was a long wait, but certainly well worth it to have the opportunity to see such beautiful works of art by Da Vinci, Rafael, Botticelli, Michelangelo, and so many more. It was a long, but very worthwhile day!
5
Reviewed by duncan m. from
Our 1st visit to Florence and we were not disappointed - all of our hopes were surpassed and our Italy XP experience contributed
For our day trip we had 2 guides - one lady for the morning and a different lady for the afternoon session. Both were 1st class but the one who did the afternoon session was absolutely outstanding in terms of enthusiasm, product knowledge and preparedness to answer all questions in a manner that held her audience spellbound.
5
Reviewed by Roman S. from
in one day we were able to see most of the important sites of the city
well organized in each segment of the tour
4
Reviewed by Lynda L. from
The amazing statue of David was the highlight for sure.
We were very happy with this tour from start to finish. Our morning guide for the Galleria dell'Accademia and walk through historic Florence was excellent and she was well spoken and informative throughout. She was so excited to show us David. The Tuscan lunch was good and a nice break. The afternoon started with a bus ride to Fiesole and I did take away a star for this because we were not able to get off the bus. There was commentary throughout the ride which was good. We had a different guide for the afternoon portion who was equally great throughout with a wonderful sense of humour. She pointed out the most important paintings and why. The day was a long one, a little over 9 hours, but well worth it. We would definitely recommend this tour.
