Florence & Venice - The finest and best-known art and architecture in the Western world

Fly at c. 7.30am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Pisa. Transfer to Florence in time for a late afternoon visit to the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi chapel, which has exquisite frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli. First of four nights in Florence.

Avoid much of the daily crowd by heading early to the Uffizi, Italy’s most important art gallery, which has masterpieces by every major Florentine painter as well as international Old Masters. Piazza della Signoria was the civic centre of Florence and has masterpieces of public sculpture. Continue to the Palazzo Pitti which houses several museums; the Galleria Palatina is particularly outstanding for High Renaissance and Baroque paintings.

A Medici morning includes S. Lorenzo, the family parish church designed by Brunelleschi, and their burial chapel in the contiguous New Sacristy with Michelangelo’s largest sculptural ensemble, as well as the Cappelle Medicee and the Laurentian Library. In the afternoon see also his David and the ‘Slaves’ in the Accademia, and Sta. Maria Novella, the Dominican church with many works of art (Masaccio’s Trinità, Ghirlandaio’s frescoed sanctuary).

The cluster of cathedral buildings occupies the morning; the baptistry with its Byzantine mosaics and Renaissance sculpture; the polychromatic marble Duomo itself, capped by Brunelleschi’s massive dome; and the collections in the superbly renovated cathedral museum. The afternoon is devoted to the Bargello, a medieval palazzo housing Florence’s finest sculpture collection with works by Donatello, Verrocchio and Michelangelo, and the vast Franciscan church of Sta. Croce, favoured burial place for leading Florentines and abundantly furnished with sculpted tombs, altarpieces and frescoes.

Travel by rail to Venice (business class) for the first of three nights there. Take an introductory walk in the Piazza S. Marco and visit the incomparably beautiful Doge’s Palace with pink Gothic revetment and rich Renaissance interiors.

The Accademia is Venice’s major art gallery, where all the Venetian painters are represented. Some free time in the afternoon. In the evening there is a private after-hours visit to the Basilica of S. Marco, an 11th-century Byzantine church enriched over the centuries with mosaics, sculpture and precious objects.

In the morning cross the bacino to Palladio’s beautiful island church of S. Giorgio Maggiore and then to the tranquil Giudecca to see his best church, Il Redentore. The afternoon is on the other side of the Grand Canal, in the San Polo district, location of the great Franciscan church of Sta. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, which has outstanding artworks including Titian’s Assumption, and the Scuola Grande di S. Rocco, with dramatic paintings by Tintoretto.

Visit the vast Gothic church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo and the early Renaissance Sta. Maria dei Miracoli with its multicoloured stone veneer. Cross the lagoon by motoscafo (water-taxi) to the airport. Fly from Venice to London Heathrow, arriving c. 7.15pm.