Italy: Day 6, Part 1

Finally, our first full day in Florence. After getting a warm, but good night's sleep, we were set for a day of adventure. A full day of adventure, I might add.

We started the day with breakfast - dense bread, cheese, hams, juice cocktail, nutella. Italians just don't know how to do breakfast. Or fruits and vegetables. (Spoiler: wait until VENICE!) Oh well.

About 8, we joined part of our group and went to a local leather shop for a leather-shaping demonstration and a little leather buying. I really wanted a little Florentine box, but a 3 inch by 4 inch by 1 inch box was about 60 bucks. I may be married to a doctor, but we ain't rolling in the euros. In the end, we ended up getting a leather bound journal for Matt's dad and a little gold charm of the Florence coat of arms - a beautiful fleur de lis.

About 9, we met up with the whole group for a "walking" tour of Florence. We actually just sat outside the Uffizi Museum while our local guide talked about Florence. About 9:30, Matt and I decided that we'd heard about enough and struck out on our own. We walked around a bit seeing the city until about 11. At that point, we stopped at a deli counter and ordered a couple paninis and walked back to our hotel to freshen up.

I changed my shoes. As I mentioned in my earlier post, it rained a lot while we were in Florence and my go-to black satin flats were still soaking wet. Plus, I had blisters like nobody's business. I didn't take a picture of them. I'm a nice person like that. Luckily, my dear sister let me borrow her toms. I'm not a Toms kind of girl, but I was especially glad that they covered my blisters instead of rubbing them.

Thanks Marla!

And then. We climbed. Wait, that's not true. I should say, and then. We waited in line.

Amusing ourselves. And eating gelato.

Oh but wait. Tara, you haven't told us WHAT you climbed.  I know, the suspense is killing you.

We climbed THE DUOMO. What?  We climbed the dome of the Florence Cathedral. More specially, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. Remember how I told you in San G. that a big thing to do in these Italian cities is to go to the highest point? Well, Florence is no different. The highest point in Florence is the top of the Florence Cathedral. To get to the top of the dome, there's an elevator.

The Cathedral by night.

I'm lying. The only elevator I saw in Florence was inside Zara. Instead, there are stairs. Four hundred sixty-three stairs. To get to the top. And then, shockingly, 463 stairs to get back down. We knew this, yet we waited in line for an hour.  Until we saw this:

And then we waited about another hour. We had an appointment at 2:45 to go through the Uffizi, so we knew that we'd have to book it.  The time to get up, look around, and get back down is estimated at about an hour. Plus, we still had to make the walk back to the museum. At about 1:45, we finally got to start our ascent.

As you can see, we were pretty excited. Not sweating yet, but excited. And my cardigan was still on. We were in a church after all and my offensive shoulders had to be covered.  You better believe I took that cardigan off when no one was looking.

On our path to the top, we got to see several statues and vignettes. [Look, I used a fancy decorating term!]

 

More stunning than the statues, I mean, I feel like I've seen a million statues by this point, were the paintings and frescos in the cathedral itself. Don't tell security that we stopped to look.  Because of our devious ways, you get to see some of what we saw too! 

 

This is the fresco lining the dome. It was finished in 1579. Seriously.

Here are some close-ups.

And then, about twenty minutes later, we made it to the top.  Look:

Makes you want to hop on a plane to Florence, doesn't it? I know, me too. Especially considering the current state of my inbox.

After we enjoyed the breeze from the top of the world for a few minutes, we started the trek back down. Then we skirted off to the Uffizi and fought the millions of other tourists inside. Pictures weren't allowed inside the museum. I'm sure you can google to find some of the things we saw.  Matt got in trouble for standing too close to a painting. I pretended that we weren't together.

By that point, it was about 6:00. We did other things, but you'll have to wait to read about them in the next post. Which may or may not be published before I turn 80.