Florence/San Gimignano, Italy

We decided to take the scenic backroads to Florence and drove through the slow and winding Muraglione Pass. On arrival, we booked into Michaelangelo Camping which is easily within walking distance of the city centre and just a few metres from the Piazzale Michaelangelo - an excellent hilltop viewing platform from which you can see the city and the huge landmarks which punctuate the low-rise skyline.

It also features one of the city's three Michaelangelo statues of David, with another replica in the city centre and the original on display in the Accademia Gallery.

The path from here leads down to the river where there are a few stone bridges crossing the water. The pick of these is the Ponte Vecchio a street lined with shops which seem to hang over the edge and make the whole thing look a bit off balance.

The street used to be full of butchers but they were deemed not grand enough so now the whole place is an endless line of jewellers. 

In true tourist fashion, our first stop was the gothic Cathedral Of St. Maria Del Fiore - more commonly known as the "Duomo". It really is something special and it dominates the city centre with it's green and white bands of marble, incricate carved figures and huge red cupola (a gigantic one-of-a-kind dome).

Inside, it is grand and cavernous with detailed frescoes on the underside of the central dome. Right beside the cathedral are the 82m tall Campanile Belltower and the ancient Roman Baptistry and both are impressive in their matching green and white stripes.
 

Just south of the Duomo is the big square Palazzo Vecchio with it's tower extending another 12m higher than the Campanile and the fortified stone walls lined with shields. Next door is the vast Uffizi Gallery, the world's greatest collection of Renaissance art, housed in long corridors. Among the countless classic marble busts and religious iconography are a few works by the likes of Da Vinci, Caravaggio and Michaelangelo among many many others.
 

Elsewhere in the city, the buildings are still in the old stone design and often resemble parts of the old fortress or scale models of the stripey Duomo. Once we had taken our fill of the architecture, we were once again on the move south towards Rome.
 

On the way south, I promised my Dad that I would treat him to the best ice cream in the world from San Gimignano - where I had stayed on holiday a few years ago. On arriving at the fortified little hilltop town though, we found the ice cream place was shut for the winter.

That didn't stop us wandering the little stone alleyways and sampling the views of the rolling hills of Tuscany. What the town is most famous for though is the collection of tall stone towers rising out of the surroundings which give the place a real identity and floods the place with summer visitors.
 

After a little while though we were back on the road and motoring to Rome in the glorious winter sunshine.