T-Rex lovers will be in heaven at this exhibit in Florence’s Botanic Garden

Picture a garden, one of the oldest in the world, inhabited by about forty life-size prehistoric monsters. Monsters? Giants like Tyrannosaurus rex, Spinosaurus, and Gallimimus, for example. The names may not mean much to you, but some of your tots know them like they know their ABC’s. Between movies, cartoons, books, and elementary school science class, most kids know more about dinosaurs than the average adult—the Brontosaurus? They would probably tell you it’s actually an Apatosaurus. So that they can learn even more, take them to Dinosauri in Carne e Ossa (“Dinosaurs in the Flesh”) in Florence. Open until September second, the exhibition is housed in the city’s botanic garden and Natural History Museum, which houses Italy’s most important paleontological collection. It includes information panels, fossils, a backstage video chronicling how the replicas of these extinct beasts were built, workshops, and guided tours. Not enough? Take a small detour and check out the Museum of Mineralogy’s collection of minerals, which features a 151kg topaz and a real meteorite.