Who is ready for a ton of Florence content? I took about a million photos and saw about a million pieces of art. Here are few highlights from our tour of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, the San Lorenzo Church and San Marco Monastery.

All of the tours we did in Florence were booked through Freya’s Florence Tours. A few months before our trip we contacted them and told them the dates we’d be in town and the tours we wanted to do. They came back with a proposed schedule of tours. A week or so before we arrived they sent us our full itinerary, including the name of the tour, description, meeting place, name of guide, cost of admission, etc. They did need to re-arrange a few of the tours, but communicated with us via email and text. They were extremely organized and we loved all three tour guides.

San Marco Monastery

We started this tour at the San Marco Monastery, about a 10 minute walk from our Airbnb. All the churches start to blur together to be honest. What I do recall about this place was sitting in the sanctuary and getting a 100,000-foot level history lesson with our tour guide Nicholas. He is very educated and passionate about his Italian history, but also well-versed in present cultural and political environments.

Next, we looked at the dormitory. The individual monk’s living quarters are called cells. San Marco is no longer an active monastery, so we got to look into many of the cells. They were small, basic, but all had at least one fresco. Almost always including Mary and Jesus in some way. We also checked out the room that was previously a library, the first ever – back when you couldn’t check out books, because there was literally only one copy, but when you went to the library to read.

Palazzo Medici-Riccardi

Next up was the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. It was a short walk from the San Marco Monastery, which allowed Nicholas to give us a lesson on how Italians drink coffee. (10 minutes. Standing at the coffee bar. Not in a paper cup. Not while walking around.) See all his photos in his hand? As he was explaining people, he’d pull out their photo to help us remember.

It’s named Medici-Riccardi because the Medici family built it, but the Riccardi family eventually took it over and added on. Inside the chapel area is a beautiful fresco that goes around the entire room. It includes members of the Medici family and other important people. Unfortunately, it has cut into sections. There were also some beautiful gardens as well. Crazy to think that someone built the entire building for their home!

San Lorenzo Church

The last stop on this day’s tour was San Lorenzo Church. This church has a very plain facade, but a gorgeous interior. I didn’t take a photo of the front since it was so uninspiring. On the side, there was a modern installment of a guy pushing up against the wall.

Inside there was a beautiful chapel, with the Florence gray stone used to mark that “something is happening.” Like a window (looking inside/outside), stairs (going up or down a floor) or a doorframe (entering or leaving a room). In the smaller chapel there was also an astrology painting, which we found interesting to find in a church.

There is so much more to these buildings than these few photos and words. I think I retained about 10% of what we learned on each tour, but it did spark my curiosity! Nicholas gave us a great list of books to read to learn more.