Firenze

So Tuesday morning we got up and had some cereal we got at the grocery store and headed out to see as much of Florence as we could. We bought a €10 ticket to see some of the duomo (cathedral) attractions even though we had already been inside the cathedral itself. It's a pretty good deal because it lets you in to 5 different things for one price. Not bad. 

The first thing we did was climb the bell tower. 414 steps through very tiny, crowded corridors to the top. 

The tower

The views

Forgive my gross appearance after 414 steps in about 80 degrees with long pants on....

Next we went to the Baptistery. This is an octagonal building in front of the cathedral in the same piazza (shown above), that's even older than the cathedral, where many famous Florentines were baptized including Dante Alighieri (The Divine Comedy) and many members of the Medici family. 

It's a neat building from the outside... 

...but the real attraction is on the inside. We had heard that its impossible to walk into the Baptistery and not look up at the ceiling. We found this to be 100% true. 

My iPhone can't capture how it shimmers gold, so you'll have to go see it yourself. :)

There isn't a lot of other stuff to see inside. Just an alter and a few statues. 

The outside of the Baptistery is the home of the famous "Gates of Paradise" (name coined by Michelangelo)- doors carved in bronze by Ghiberti. They are fun to see here on the east side of the building...

But those are just replicas. The real ones are in the duomo museum, the third attraction we saw with our ticket. 

These doors are well protected in their own room behind glass. They tell the story of the Old Testament in 10 panels, from Adam and Eve (top left) to Noah, to Cain and Abel, etc. they are beautiful to look at up close. 

The museum also housed some pieces of the church in its various stages. 

And a Michelangelo sculpture, "Pieta". 

This sculpture has a pretty cool history. Michelangelo was sculpting it when he was about 80 years old- for his own tomb. It was meant to be placed on his tomb in Rome after he died. Well that didn't happen. Actually he got mad because of an imperfection in the stone and purposefully destroyed part of Christ's left elbow and part of Mary. So other artists had to come back and finish the work after Michelangelo's death. The great sculptor left his own signature, however. The face of Nicodemus above Christ is actually a self portrait of Michelangelo himself. Apparently he went through a religious transformation in his later years and really identified with this person, so he made it look like him. Kinda cool. 

At this point we stopped touring for lunch and got some kebabs- our first of the whole Europe trip. I don't know how we've gone this long without them. There are kebab stands everywhere, in every city, and they are cheap. And surprisingly delicious! Kinda like a burger in the US as far as frequency and price. So that was a good break from bread, cheese, and tomatoes, although then I wanted Italian food for dinner. 

I must be at least part Italian because I could eat this food 3 meals a day NO PROBLEM!

Our fourth and final stop on this duomo tour was below the cathedral itself, where they have exposed pieces of the church in its various stages. The oldest parts that I saw were from around the year 300 AD. So yea, that's pretty cool!

They also have a few cool relics, like the palios and rosaries of old popes and the sword and tomb of one of the Medicis (family that ruled Florence, if I didn't mention that yet). 

We didn't do the fifth attraction- walking to the top of the dome- because the line was super long and we had been just as high on the bell tower. You can see the people in this picture at the base of the white point if you squint...

By this time it was about 3 so we got some gelato and tried to find something we could do in only 2-3 hours before all the big attractions closed. 

We decided to visit Santa Croce, another church in Florence famous for its tombs. Remember how I was reading "Inferno" by Dan Brown? Well it's got me on a bit of a Dante kick, and we read that his tomb was there. It was a little pricey for a church (€6), but we decided to check it out. 

The first thing we saw in the piazza made me happy. 

Dante! This was a good sign. 

We got inside and first just walked around a bit. 

There were several beautiful chapels off the main cathedral. 

And this statue is said to be the inspiration for the U.S. Statue of Liberty. This one is prettier, honestly, and more feminine. She represents freedom of art and creativity, which is kinda cool. We both liked her a lot. 

The church itself was a cemetery in a way, which was cool. The faces of the stone had been worn away. 

But the main attractions were the tombs. 

Galileo Galilei. Wow! He was originally buried in the Medici Chapel, the second one above, but was moved here later after the church stopped thinking he was a lunatic. The figure on the left represents astronomy, and the one on the right represents mathematics. It was so cool to see this. 

Michelangelo. Yep, Michelangelo. 

Machiavelli

Rossini 

Dante Alighieri. Interesting thing though... None of his remains are here. 

I've learned a lot about Dante recently so here's the short version. When he was 9 years old, he met and fell in love with Beatrice Portinari. He claimed later it was love at first sight. However, she married another man and died at only 24 years old. Dante married as well and had children, but always loved Beatrice. He loved her almost as much as he loved his hometown, Florence, but when different families were fighting for power he ended up on the wrong side and got himself exiled. During exile he conceived of and wrote "The Divine Comedy" documenting his own journey  through hell, purgatory, and heaven ("Inferno", "Purgatorio", "Paradiso") guided by Virgil and his beloved Beatrice. He died in exile and was buried in Ravenna, where his tomb remains to this day. When Florence realized that they had exiled arguably the greatest poet of all time, they fought Ravenna to get his remains back and tried to put them in the tomb in Santa Croce. It never happened, and to this day the tomb remains empty with a quote from Inferno: "honor the most exalted poet " which Virgil says to Dante when he enters purgatory in the story. It omits the next line of the poem: "his spirit, which had left us, returns." Fitting. 

But we still got to see the tomb and learn all of this cool history! Plus the other amazing tombs. It was awesome. 

It was nearly closing time after we saw all that, so we had a quick look around the grounds before departing. 

By this time it was about 5:30. We stepped back out into the afternoon sun to find one of the neatest bands we've heard playing in the piazza. I can't post videos here, but ask to see it when I see you. It was a bass, violin, and guitar. Jeremy even bought a cd! 

We decided to take the long way back along the river. 

We stopped on the Ponte Vecchio for a quick picture. 

When we got back to the hostel we both really needed showers (long pants all day cuz my leggings are still dirty=sweaty). We cooked ravioli- super cheap and easy- and started planning our Siena day trip for Wednesday (today). We went to bed around midnight to get up around 8:30 for the train. 

Florence is special because of it's history, art, and general feeling. I love the ambiance. I love the colors- the dark red terra cotta roofs and the pale yellow buildings make it look so warm. The Tuscan hills watch over the city and domes and towers stand guard. It is magical. 

I was a little sad to leave Florence this morning for Siena, but I am so excited to see this Tuscan hill town. I'm writing this on the train there. I'll probably be too tired to write about Siena tonight, so I guess I'll be a day behind for one more day. 

Ciao

<3