My name is Guido. I’m an Italian native, travel enthusiast and founder of Ciao Italy & Carrani Tours. I regularly travel back to Italy testing out the Italian tours and Italian vacations we offer to our guests. And as you can see from my blog, I also like to share some of the information I pick up on my travels as it might help my readers get the best possible experience from an Italian vacation.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Florence over the years. Some of my time there has been for business, some of it for leisure. However, I have to admit that it has been a while since I visited the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. However, I made it back last year and it made me wish I had been back sooner. It really brought it home to me that it should be on everyone’s itinerary when they visit Florence. Here’s why you should visit the Uffizi Gallery Florence:

It is one of the oldest and most important galleries in the world.

The Uffizi Gallery is one of the oldest and most prominent galleries in the world. It is home to some of the world’s most famous masterpieces, which represent our evolution in art. There are around 45 museum halls filled with works of art and I am sure it is one of the finest collections in the world. Top tip from me – there’s so much to see that you should visit with a tour guide who will also have skip the line tickets, (lines can be lengthy). Alternatively, make sure you at least have a plan of what you want to see before you visit. It can be overwhelming without one.

The Uffizi is home to Botticelli’s La Primavera.

Dating from between 1477 and 1482, experts still haven’t interpreted all of the meanings within La Primavera, but it still left me speechless. There is so much detail in the work and the figures appear so refined that it is marvellous when you consider it came from the stroke of a brush.

Botticelli’s La Primavera at The Uffizi Gallery credit: www.uffizi.org

Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus is also at the Uffizi Gallery.

The Uffizi is also home to Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus – one of the world’s most famous pieces of art, which is said to represent the birth of love. You’ll find this and La Primavera in rooms 10-14 in the Uffizi Gallery.

Raphael’s Madonna of the Goldfinch is also on display at the Uffizi.

This is perhaps Raphael’s most loved piece of work. There have been many restorations, and the most recent one, completed in 2008, was successful in bringing it back to its former glory. It looks amazing when you consider it was once very badly damaged in the 16^th Century.

You’ll also find Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo at The Uffizi Gallery – a masterpiece of Italian art.

This is Florence’s only painting by Michelangelo. It was created around the same time he sculpted David. In fact it is one of the few examples of Michelangelo’s paintings – together with those in the Sistine Chapel, Rome.

There’s a room full of Leonardo da Vinci too.

Room 15 is given over to Leonardo Da Vinci. The one I find most interesting in this room is the work that is said to mark his coming of age. It is the Baptism of Christ, which was created by his teacher (Verrocchio). Apparently, his teacher was to be out of town for a few days and he left Leonardo with a task to finish one of the angels in the painting. When he returned, Verrocchio was stunned because he felt this far surpassed his own skill and therefore his work as Leonardo’s teacher was done. Soon after, Leonardo began to work by himself – on work that you will see in this room.

A room full of Leonardo da Vinci. Credit: www.uffizi.org

A visit to the Uffizi is where history can come alive through the art.

I strongly recommend that you do visit with a guide – because a guide that will tell you stories like the one above about Leonardo Da Vinci, and it will really improve your experience of the Uffizi Gallery.

At Ciao Italy and Carrani ours we do cover the Uffizi Gallery in our various tours of Florence, and in our Italian vacations, generally. We work with local guides, who because of their local expertise will give you the best experience – like they did to our guests Patti and Stephen Murray, who toured with us back in August 2016. They said: “I will be honest when I say that I did not hear of Ciao Italy and Carrani Tours before we booked with you. We booked with you because we wanted to see all the cities in that particular tour. Well, I have to tell you that we had a WONDERFUL time. We loved that when we went each city we had a local guide that gave us all the information for that city – wonderful!”

For more Italian travel inspiration – check out my twitter page and visit our testimonials page to find out what our guests thought of their time in Italy with us at Ciao Italy and Caranni Tours. In the meantime you can find out more about our tours of the Uffizi Gallery Florence including the guided visit of the Accademia and Uffizi Galleries, or the Afternoon Visit of Florence, or Breakfast at the Uffizi Gallery.

Ciao,

Guido.