Florence is such a beautiful city, absolutely busting at the seams with history. Art, architecture, museums and cathedrals… this place has it all. At the time we had booked to be in Florence, it had even more than we expected. When we arrived, we soon realised that we had checked in at the start of a long weekend. As such, the city was crammed with tens of thousands of extra bodies, making it almost impossible to visit many of the sites, without having to wait hours in queues.

We spent our first evening in Florence and then decided to get out of the city and spend a little extra time in Tuscany. The open road, small villages and smaller crowds are definitely more our scene. This cityscape was shot on the one evening we did spend in Florence.

I arrived at Piazzale Michelangelo almost two hours before dusk, with the intention of spending some time wandering the surrounding parklands before setting up for the sunset shoot. With the swollen number of crowds in the city and skies set to deliver a gorgeous show of colour, it soon became obvious that if I wanted to capture the city at sunset, I would need to grab a spot soon or I would miss out. So at about ninety minutes before the light would be right for the optimal shot, I staked my claim along the crowded guardrail and waited.

The masses continued to build as nightfall approached and looking back over my shoulder, the scenes were reminiscent of historical images of crowds during Beatlemania in the 60s. It was quite a sight.

The end of the day came, the skies lit up, as did the city of Florence and all onlookers were rewarded with a beautiful vista of the city under gorgeous colour.