Italian language and other courses in Florence, Europe

A colleague of mine has just thrown in her senior job and is making her way to South America to pursue her Spanish studies and also for a taste of the South American lifestyle.  How I envy her as I would very much love to do just that as well. However, my language of choice would be Italian and Florence seems like a good place to head for as it offers more than just language courses. 

Florence is a city which is associated with the birth of renaissance art and it has the Uffizi Gallery to provide live examples of the works of the grand masters like Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.  Then, there is Dante Alighieri, “the Supreme Poet” (il Sommo Poeta), whose masterpiece, Divina Commedia, is considered the greatest piece of work in Italian literature.  What a magnificent city to base oneself to study the history of art, literature, architecture, and much more.

A quick search on the net resulted in numerous schools offering courses in art history, music, fashion history, cooking classes and many others. Courses range in duration from as little as one week to 32 weeks and even the one week course is structured to give you an overall experience of Florence.  I had a look at one of these one week courses and it covered language studies, guided walk of the streets of Florence which follows along the footsteps of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, a guided tour of the Uffizi Gallery, lectures on Tuscan cuisine and also a wine tasting session.  Wow, what a way to spend a week and the cost didn’t seem too extravagant either. The problem is after the week, you’ll probably want to stay longer and really, one week is sufficient to explore the Uffizi alone.

For those not interested in learning Italian, you can still enjoy much of what Florence has to offer by joining special interest tours, like photography or Tuscan cooking.  The links on this page takes you to samples of such tours.  If you have limited time in the city, it is best to book these tours ahead of time so that you can be guaranteed of a place and it also means that you’re not wasting precious time looking for suitable tours when you’re there.

Helen