If you travel to Florence, be sure to see the Botecelli paintings in the Uffizi Gallery, and the Michelangelo sculptures including the David in the Academia. After that, your next stop, in my opinion, should be the Palazzo Vecchio. Originally this was a Medici Palace. When the new palace was built across the river (The Pitti Palace), the old palace became the Palazzo Vecchio ... literally "old palace" in Italian ... and was turned to administrative purposes. It remains full of Medici art work ... frescos, mosaics, paintings, sculpture. Of all the sites in Florence, this is the one I come back to over and over again. Highly recommended!!

After the Medicis moved, they needed a way to go from the Pitti Palace to the Palazzo Vecchio without mixing with the riff raff. They built a covered walkway from the Palazzo Vecchio, through the Uffizi, across the Ponte Vecchio, and down the street to the Pitti Palace ... probably a half mile ... at least 10 minutes walking. Today for an extra fee, you can tour the walkway including the art hung on its walls. And you can tour the Palazzo Vecchio itself, including an extra price "back stage" tour which I recommend.

According to Unesco, 60% of the world's most important art is in Italy, and half of that is in Florence ... most bought and paid for with Medici money. And it's a good thing, too. The last heir to the Medici fortune married an Austrian prince. When she died, she willed the entire fortune to the City of Florence on one condition ... Nothing could be removed from Florence. Had she not done this, most of what you'd travel to Florence to see ... would be in Vienna.