Firenze Primo Giorno

The next stop on our "All Roads Lead to Rome" tour was Firenze. We know it as Florence and I cannot find a definitive answer as to how we got Florence out of Firenze. In Latin, it's Florentia so I'll go with that being the reason.

Florence (aka Firenze) is the capital of the Tuscany (aka Toscano) region of Italy with a population of 370,000.

It takes just over an hour by train to go from Pisa to Florence and a bargain at about €10 per ticket.

Our hotel was in a good location just down the street from the most famous landmark in Florence - the Piazza del Duomo. I just loved walking down this narrow street that opened up on the huge square with the Basilica.

This Piazza held the Baptistry of San Giovanni (in the foreground), Giotto's Campanile (bell tower on the right) and the Basilica di Santa Maria del Flore - commonly known as the Duomo.

This is the domed ceiling of the Baptistry with 13th century mosaics.

The Baptistry is the oldest building in the square built between 1059 and 1128.

These doors are called "Gates of Paradise" by Lorenzo Ghiberti with scenes from the Old Testament: Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Esau & Jacob . . .

I stood for some time trying to take a photo without an Asian girl in it and finally gave up and took pictures of them. If you travel much at all, it's unavoidable, really. I find it interesting that it's always the girl or woman and they are almost always striking a pose similar to photo 1 and 2 above. One arm extended holding onto something, knee bent and foot with toe pointed. It's universal. I cannot imagine the server that's storing all the photos these people take.

Anyway, construction on the Basilica began in 1296 with completion in 1436 - 140 years. Too bad nobody thinks of doing that anymore.

When you look at the church from a distance, it looks like it's painted, but it's actually Prato's green, Siena's red, and Carrara's white marble (Prato, Siena, and Carrara are Italian cities).

Jim convinced me to climb to the top - 463 steps (167 more than the leaning tower in Pisa).

The total height of the dome is 380 ft (equivalent to ~ 38 stories).

That little fenced area is where we stood so I'd say we were pretty near the top.

It isn't for the faint of heart and there really should be warnings (we never saw any) as I wouldn't have wanted to be any older or any more out of shape than I am.

As you can see, this is a pretty steep climb when getting close to the top. We made it, and of course, the view was beautiful.

By climbing to the top, we got to stop at the level of the dome to get a good view of it.

This is looking down from that level. It's hard to appreciate the size of this place, the 4th largest in Europe, but those are chairs lined up in rows to give you some perspective. On the distant wall is a clock.

It's a one-handed liturgical clock ending with sunset at 24 hours. This timetable was used until the 18th century. This is one of the few still in existence and in working order.

And the views from the top were worth the climb.

I liked the shadow of the dome over the city.

And then the descent. Sadly, graffiti is everywhere and even beautiful churches are not immune.

There was so much to see in Florence. Hope you will come back for Primo Secondo. In the meantime . . .