the top of Florence...

We left the beautiful countryside, returned our car, and started our journey to Florence. We thought a great way to get an overview of Florence would be to actually get a view over Florence. We walked the short distance to the Duomo from our hotel. It is a beautiful exterior.
Again, I remind myself when this was built and how difficult it must have been for them with the tools (and lack of power equipment) they had.


I loved the little 3-D statues that come out of the facade of the church. They are all over the place!

The interior of the church was not quite as fancy as the exterior. The many stained glass windows were gorgeous, though.

The main visual feature of the interior is the dome. It was designed by Brunelleschi and for a long time, it was the largest dome in the world.

You can climb the 436? (we counted, but got different results) steps to the top of the dome. Matthew and Andrew led the pack as we climbed up the winding staircase. Most was in the cement halls of the dome, but twice the path leads you to the inside of the actual dome. It is really cool to be so close to those paintings on the ceiling!

When you reach the top of the dome, there is a large landing where you can see a 360 degree view of Florence. What a beautiful city! This is the view from all around:

It is very high up there! Although Ali would have preferred to be closer to the ground, she was very brave!

On the way down from the dome, we were so very close to the paintings on the ceiling! It was very interesting to me to see how those magnificent paintings look so very simple up close!

If you look at the top of the dome, you will see teeny, tiny people. That is where we were!