Art of Northern Italy

Please meet your Tour Director, Timothée at the Milan Airport

A transfer is included from Milan's Malpensa Airport to your Hotel on the shore of Lake Como. Enjoy a relaxing afternoon. Join us this evening for a welcome cocktail followed by dinner.

Overnight : Hotel Lake Como

Meals : B,D

Full day excursion to Lake Como with private boat to visit Villa del Balbianello; set on a wooded peninsula that juts into the lake, it was built in the late 18th century on the site of a Franciscan monastery. Noted for its exquisite landscaping and sculpture, the villa features spectacular terraced gardens ablaze with magnolias, cypresses, azaleas and more against dramatic views of the distant Alps and the famous shore of Lake Como, and appeared as a location in the James Bond film Casino Royale and in Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones. Enjoy some free time for painting and sketching at the Villa. lunch will be served on Isola Comacina. Return to your hotel early afternoon for some free time in the lovely town where your hotel is.

Overnight : Lake Como
Meals : B,L

Morning visit to Santa Maria Delle Grazie to see The Last supper painted by Leonardo da Vinci. Your guide will then take you on a short tour of the Duomo and the Gallery Vittorio Emanuele, a very famous shopping arcade.

Lunch is at leisure.

This afternoon we will drive to Parma
Overnight : Country Inn near Parma

Meals B,D

Enjoy a comprehensive visit of Parma, famous for its Ham and its Parmesan, your guide will take you to a local place where you will taste these local specialities before visiting the Beautiful Lombard-Romanesque Duomo and its painted ceiling by Antonio Da Corregio (1526). Visit also the Baptistry (1196) whose reliefs are among the most important of their age in Italy.  You will have free time in the afternoon to enjoy this city at your leisure.

Overnight : Country Inn near Parma – Meals B,D

Morning Drive to Modena where you will discover the Torre Ghirlandina and the Galleria Estense, a private art collection that includes works by Emilian and Ferrarese artists but also by Veronese, Velazquez and Tintoretto
Lunch free

This afternoon we will drive to Florence

Join us for dinner tonight at a local restaurant

Overnight Florence - Meals B,D

Discover the San Marco neighborhood of Florence that used to be the area where the Medici family kept its stables for its menagerie of lions, giraffe and Elephants. It is now a student quarter busy with young people attending University or The Academia di Belle Arte (The world's oldest art school, founded in 1563). Your visit will include the Galleria Dell'Accademia, where you will find the original Michelangelo's David as well as other masterpieces. The Academia also contains an important collection of paintings by 15th and 16th century Florentine artists, among them Lippi, Bartolomeo and Bronzino. Discover today as well the Cappelle Medicee, an impressive chapel that houses tombs of the Medici family, whose ceiling's frescoes are beautiful and the walls layered in Pietre Dure (inlaid stone), there you will see 3 groups of statues carved by Michelangelo between 1520 and 1534. the rest not the day is at your leisure, when you may want to visit  the Convento Di San Marco or the Giardino Dei Semplici..

Overnight : Florence- Meals B