After arriving in Florence on Tuesday afternoon and settling into our hotel, we were straight out and around the Santa Maria Novella. This building has a stunning façade and inside is filled with frescoes my masters of the early Renaissance. Wednesday morning we explored the city and came across the Church of Oranmichele another incredible building that was covered in tabernacles around the outside of the building. The tabernacle of St George by Donatello was particularly impressive. Later that day we walked to the Piazza Della Signoria and admired the sculptures found under the arches of the Loggia dei Lanzi. From there we walked to the ponte vechio to take some pictures and to walk alongside the river. The next morning we were extremely excited as we were booked in to visit the Uffizi. Here we saw everything from early Renaissance pioneers through to the Mannerists. It was also good to see our current case studies from our specification in the flesh rather than on a computer screen. The Uffizi allowed us to stimulate further our growing interest in Medician patronage as they had a massive impact on art at the time and they are present everywhere in Florence. The following day we had booked tickets to get into gallerie dell’accademia. Here we got to see one of our case studies ‘David’ by Michelangelo, the scale of this sculpture was unbelievable and nothing that I could have imagined from a photograph. We spent the morning in there and then decided to find the Medici chapel. The ceiling inside the chapel was my favourite part of the chapel after not looking like an interesting building from the outside. On the fifth day we visited the museo de opera, which contains many great sculptures that use to outside the Cathedral but have been moved inside her to be saved from pollution. Next we queued up for the Baptistery, which was small but again had an amazing gold ceiling. Later that afternoon we went up the bell tower, which gave us the best view over the whole of Florence. On the penultimate day we visited the Boboli gardens that were beautiful and we ate lunch there with nice views. That afternoon we went to the Brancacci Chapel where there were astonishing frescoes by Masaccio and this was my favourite chapel that we visited. On our last day we finished off by visiting Florence Cathedral, which was huge and had a lovely calming feel to it. After this we had to sadly pack our bags and head back to the airport. I am extremely grateful to the Cheltonian Endowment Trust for their support, through an award, which enabled me to have this fantastic experience.