25 days until italia!

"Gonzaga chose Florence because the city is central to the past of Italy and to European civilization itself. Capital of the region of Tuscany, Florence inherits the culture of the Etruscans, the mysterious forgotten people who were heirs to the glory of Greece long before there was a Rome. The city was founded by Roman veterans returning from the wars. More than any other city of Italy, Florence was the stalwart defender of civic liberty during the Renaissance. Her intensely loyal citizenry produced the people and ideas that served as models for a Europe in transition from the medieval to the modern."

"Florentine museums are crowded with the paintings that transformed European taste in the fifteenth century; her streets are lined with buildings that initiated modern architecture. Yet, the city is more than a museum piece. It is intensely alive - a center of modern art, fashion, and refinement."

"Florence is also central to Italy’s present. It is three hours by train to the region of Lombardy, the humming center of Italy’s economic miracle and a stepping-off place for the ski slopes and lakes of the Alps. It is also three hours to Venice, a city which no photograph can do justice. It is two hours to Rome, capital of Italy and of the Church, where ancient, medieval, and modern culture mingle in every street. It is four hours to Naples, Pompeii, and Mount Vesuvius, the southern region no traveler would want to miss."