Today we visited Florence and checked out the duomo and other nearby grand buildings. We also ascended the duomo tower and got great views of the city from above!
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- A copy of the David is erected in the Palazzo della Signoria of Florence where the original David once stood. The original is in the Accademia Gallery (which we did not visit).
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- In the same plaza as the David replica is a large fountain dedicated to Neptune.
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- A picture of the marble festooned cathedral in Florence.
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- After walking around the Florence cathedral, we entered the duomo museum. The museum was under renovation, so the only viewable pieces were Michelangelo’s Pieta (also known as The Deposition) and one of the restored golden doors to the duomo baptistery.
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- These are the East doors from the Baptistery also known as the Gates of Paradise by Lorenzo Ghiberti.
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- French name, small restaurant, great Italian food.
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- This is the spaghetti carbonara I got at La Petit in Florence, Italy. Looks pretty good doesn’t it?
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- After lunch, we climbed the duomo tower, all 400+ giant steps up the narrow spiral staircases. This is one of the Florence cathedrals we spied from halfway up the tower.
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- A panorama of the baptistery and Florence as seen from halfway up the duomo tower.
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- I took a panorama from the other side of the tower where we can see the duomo as well as the cityscape.
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- Halfway up the tower was a bell, so we got a nice Scotsman to take our picture with it.
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- We are one set of steps from the top of the tower now. There is a grate where you can see all the way to the first tier. It’s a long way down…
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- I poked my camera through the grate and got a clearer picture of the inside of the tower. Anyone afraid of heights?
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- We finally made it all the way to the top. What an exhausting climb! Selfie time!
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- The stairway to the top of the tower was very narrow. We had to flatten against the wall whenever we encountered people going in the other direction.
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- After climbing down out of the tower, we finally went into the cathedral itself. It was pouring rain, so it was nice to get inside out of the weather. Here is a picture of the artwork on the dome itself.
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- And here’s a picture of the altar. We had to wait in a winding line that went by the altar and then down some steps. We weren’t sure what the line was for, but it was dry inside so we figured we might as well find out. It was a bookstore/gift shop (sigh).
Today we got on the bus to Florence. When we arrived, we were greeted by our local guide who took us around the duomo square and through the duomo museum. She was knowledgeable, but boring. I prefer guides with animated hands, vocal inflections, and multiple anecdotes. This one was a dry wine.
We walked over the old bridge and we also saw the David replica. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to visit the Uffizi museum or the museum where the actual David is housed. All the more reason to come back to Florence I suppose. We did have time to climb the duomo tower and get a great bunch of pictures that way. We had a nice lunch in a local trendy restaurant and spent some time wandering the streets of Florence.
The downside of Florence was gypsies everywhere and they were aggressive. It was humorous to watch them ply their trade from afar and scoop up their goods whenever a local policeman wandered by. Of course, if nobody bought their wares, they wouldn’t be here trying to sell them. So shame on us tourists for enabling them.
After Florence, we rode our bus back to Montecatini for the night. We had a decent dinner in the neighboring restaurant. The waitress was funny because she took her time to carefully explain every dish to us in broken English even though most of the dishes were staples in most American Italian restaurants (spaghetti, ravioli, manicotti, etc) and we also spoke good enough broken Italian to understand the not-so-normal dishes anyway. The lesson we learned is that despite our attempts to learn a good amount of Italian, we still look very much like Americans to the locals. Oh well…