FLORENCE

Every first-time visitor gravitates to the Piazza del Duomo, where Brunelleschi's ingenious self-supporting dome commands attention. Below stands the baptistery with Ghiberti's bronze doors, a masterpiece of humanist art that revolutionised sculpture. Not far away, Michelangelo's David keeps watch at the Galleria dell'Accademia, embodying this period of renewal. Just around the corner, the Medici chapels in San Lorenzo tell tales of a family who invested in art as others did armies.

Florence is a museum of Renaissance that spans an entire city. Wander through the Uffizi and you'll see it in Piero della Francesca's penetrating gazes, Botticelli's graceful lines and the luminous quality emerging in Leonardo's work. Each gallery reveals a world rethinking the role of humankind within the greater scheme. This creative spirit flows through the Boboli Gardens, the modern art collections of Palazzo Pitti and today's artisan workshops across the Arno in Oltrarno, where leather, wood and marbled paper traditions continue. The Tuscan capital thinks in forms and proportions – just as Dante crafted verses and Galileo formulated equations. Even at San Lorenzo market, amid truffle sellers and Chianti merchants, that unmistakable creative energy pulses. Florence doesn't just honour the Renaissance – it lives it daily.