Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
Ash and the team pulled out all the stops once again. Flights and hotel recommendations were perfect and ticked all the boxes for us and our friends from the US who booked the same hotels
I highly recommend you to family and friends.
Car Hire was Off Airport not on airport as requested. More careful checking is needed
As always, Julie tailor-made our trip to Italy and it was perfect
Perfect flight. Thanks to our wonderful Travel Manager and the personal care he gives us when we book a flight or holiday.
Excellent service as usual
Brilliantly organised trip, everything went smoothly and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!
What’s this new charge for hand luggage? Not made clear enough before travelling
As ever Matthew and team delivered
Great service as usual - thank you
Robert was extremely helpful. Everything went very smoothly and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
Aer Lingus is far superior to Ryanair and definately worth the extra cost! Thank you DialAFlight for once again looking after me.
Always happy with the service. Booked a few holidays now and support has been excellent
Staff very friendly and helpful. Definitely recommend
Very many thanks to Ash for organising our trip to Malta which was excellent in every way.
Jeff has been more than helpful. Great to know that he is around in the background should anything go wrong!
Just keep doing what you are doing!
Fabulous hotel
Fantastic trip, all went very smoothly, great transfers as always. Karl is a great asset to DialAFlight.
Oscar is fantastic! I have total confidence in his guidance in overseeing all my travel arrangements
Always great personal and brilliant experience from DialAFlight. Thank you Kylie for taking the stress out of travelling abroad
Hassle-free, no issues. Had a great trip
Great service from Kylie as always
Rebecca was was professional, friendly and efficient. The flights, transfers and hotel were just what we wanted. We will be back.
We had to pay for food in the bar and the lunch was replaced with an evening meal. Overall not good
Robert booked exactly what I asked for - a perfect hotel in a lovely location. Really lovely holiday. Excellent.
A great hotel and resort. We thought we'd only booked B & B but in fact we were 'half board.'
A variety of food but disappointingly it was bland and tasteless. Not much choice for minority customers not even local Maltese food
The return BA flight from Billund was 35 minutes late arriving but got us to LHR 20 minutes ahead of schedule!
Travel by air is an increasingly overcrowded and unpleasant experience.
Florence is a feast for the eyes, with art and wonders at every turn. And when your brain is full of amazing images, you can find dozens of brilliant places to fill your stomach...
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Opening a new gallery in Florence is a bit like adding an extra dish to a banquet. But the Museum of the Opera del Duomo (it opened in October) contains a real wonder. It's the actual-size reconstruction of the original facade of Florence Cathedral. They put back its original statues, in storage for centuries, following details on a 16th Century drawing. The facade was part of architect Arnolfo di Cambio's first, 1294, vision for the cathedral. Never properly finished, it was removed in 1587.
SUPER HUMAN
Michelangelo sculpted the 14ft-high statue of biblical hero David between 1501 and 1504, while in his 20s. It is a supreme creation of the human mind, and hand. The plan had been to set the white marble statue high on the roofline of the cathedral, alongside other figures. Too massive to be lifted there, the colossus stood in Piazza della Signoria for 300 years, before being moved into the Galleria dell'Accademia in 1873 (a copy replaced it). It was restored in 2004.
MARKET LEADER
Mercato Centrale, on the first floor of the iron and glass market built in 1874, is the city's liveliest place to eat. Walk there through the stalls of leather goods traders (Via dell'Ariento), and head to the first floor. Mercato Centrale opened in 2014 to revive this ancient quarter, as one big dining space. There are 12 sections, each serving a speciality Tuscan dish made with ingredients sourced from the market stalls below.
ART BEAT
It's almost worth walking around the Uffizi at random, for that extra shiver of thrill when you unexpectedly come across Botticelli's Birth Of Venus and Leonardo's Annunciation. The other, equally majestic collection is in the vast Pitti Palace, on the south side of the Arno. There are many sublime paintings by Raphael, Titian, Lippi, Caravaggio and Rubens. You could spend a day in each.
PHEW VIEW
We crossed the Arno over the Ponte Vecchio, for the quietest walk in the city. Heading up the Via di San Leonardo, we saw no other pedestrians. After a coffee at the top of the hill, we circled back, down Viale Galileo, to a famous viewpoint of the city that we had all to ourselves. We curled around the Abbazia di San Miniato and the Chiesa di San Salvatore. Only then did we meet other people, puffing up the hill to the Piazzale Michelangelo, with its bronze replica of David.
WHEN TO GO
Florence can be crowded, although new pedestrianisation schemes make walking the central squares much easier. (To avoid the crowds, October to March is a great time to visit.) Fancy a coffee to start the day in Piazza di Santa Maria Novella? Order at a cafe's counter for the lowest prices - pay when you leave.
First published in the Mail on Sunday - April 2016
More articles below...
Not quite what you're looking for?
We can easily customise an offer to suit your exact requirements