It's got handsome parks packed with pine forests and duck ponds.

It's got gritty nightlife districts that offer up beating boat bars on the Danube. It's enough to keep the camera a-clicking for several days.īut Vienna isn't only about 18th-centry grandeur. There are opera houses and theatre rooms and the elegant façades of the Schönbrunn. There's the Belvedere, a patchwork of orangeries and old court rooms. The Hofburg palace spreads is vast Baroque wings in the heart of the town, framing manicured gardens topped with equestrian statues. The erstwhile epicentre of the great Habsburg empire, Vienna, is just as grand and glorious as you might expect. Locals devour lampredotto sarnies while glugging Chianti reds in hidden trattoria.įlorence’s allure is as classical as the city itself, but be warned you will be sharing the experience with many others, as there will be crowds! Nestled into the rolling Arezzo hills in the northern part of Tuscany, this is the very birthplace of the European Renaissance.įlorence flows in its 15th-century brilliance there’s the Uffizi Gallery - home to works by Michelangelo and Sandro Botticelli - and the handsome Ponte Vecchio bridge.ĭelve beneath the famed sights and Florence is a lived-in Italian metropolis. Florence comes at you in a flurry of priceless art, pastel-painted jewellers, romantic piazzas, marble-gilded basilicas, and saffron-scented risotto.

Vienna italy