At the peak of the Duomo in FirenzeFebruary 26, 2012 -- 9:38PM
Next stop on our Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) was Firenze (Florence). Florence (as well as Rome) have a lot of exchange/international education so pretty much everyone I met in Florence spoke at least a little bit of English, which was kind of disappointing. I was finally starting to feel somewhat comfortable with attempting to speak italian. The city is absolutely beautiful and is filled with some amazing history. We kicked off the trip with a visit to the Duomo, aka the tallest dome/church in the city. The dome was built by Brunelleschi. I couldn't believe the mass of the building. The dome and bell tower are really tall but the basilica in general is just massive. It looks so out of place when looking at the full city's landscape. We climbed up through the skinny and narrow corridors to arrive at the peak of the dome. I'm not the biggest fan of heights but it was pretty incredible, not to mention how old the structure is and it is sturdier than anything else in that city.
The second day in Florence we went to a bunch of former Medici owned buildings. The library we visited had a dome built by Michelangelo. We had lunch at Za-Za's a pizza place picked out by Jess, since she formerly studied in Florence. It was delicious. We went to Santa Croce which was by far one of my favorite churches to enter. Many famous people were buried there such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Donatello, and Dante. That night a couple of us, lead by Jess, climbed a near by hill/mountain to get an awesome view over Florence at night. It also brought us to one of Michelangelo's "David" sculptures.
Michelangelo's dome
Michelangelo's tomb in Santa Croce
Santa Croce (alter was under-construction unfortunately)
We left Florence the next morning and made a pit stop by the Chisea dell'Autostrada del Sole, a less traditional church with a very free form and interesting structural system. On our way to Rome we stopped for a couple hours in Siena to see the Campo, basically a city center plaza, and then the Duomo di Siena, which was littered with statues and sculptures on its facade and interior.
Chisea dell'Autostrada del Sole
Duomo di Siena
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