Florence - Day 1

Sunday, June 21, 2015
One might expect eleven hours of sleep enough to be rested (I think more would be better today) but I feel a bit tired. This morning we slowly rolled out of bed and find the hotel dining room with a gorgeous continental breakfast (gorgeous because it was food, still hungry).

Our hotel is within walking distance to most of the historical sites and museums. Our march this morning is to see the Meddici Cathederal, a beautiful cathederal built by and for the Meddici family, a very wealthy and influential family during 15th century Florence.

 

(the ceiling of the Chapel of Princes)

  

(some shots of the chapel)

The cathederal was truly awesome in size, to quote Brenda's words, "wow, wow".

A little break before our next stop, we load up on water from the Italian 99 cent store and rest before marching off to our next sight to see.

We had tickets to go to the Duomo ( actually the dome to the Santa Maria Cathederal) and the Cathedral so that was our next stop however once we arrived at the Cathedral we noticed that it didn't open till 130 (it is currently 11:30, two more hours) so instead of going into the Cathedral we went to the Baptistry.

The Baptistry is part of the whole Duomo complex. All the buildings are very old, huge and beautiful and have a very rich history.

After exiting the Baptistry we still had time before the Duomo opened, we took a stroll back towards our hotel to find a restaurant open for lunch and we found one, I' Grullo, a small sidewalk Cafe serving spaghetti. I had traditional spaghetti and Brenda had spaghetti with bacon and eggs (interesting mix).  We both decided that the pasta seemed a bit hard to eat or chewy, not soft like we used to at home.

While in line at the Dumo we met some folks who had been to the Dumo once before once and they assured us theclimb was not that bad.

  

By now it was go time to climb the 400+ stairs of the Duomo. Once they started letting people in the line moved pretty quick,  I estimate it took 30 minutes to reach the top. Once at the top the view was spectacular of Florence.

 (at the top of the dome)

(looking back down the street to our hotel)

Desending the Duomo was a lot quicker than ascending but for some reason it was more tiring. Moving straight from the Duomo, we shuffle into the line for entering the Cathederal. Once inside I had to take a rest and marvel at the sheer size of this church, we don't build churches like this any more.

 (the Duomo from inside the cathederal)

(the massive cathederal)

Moving on from the Cathedral we had just enough time to make it to the Gallery of Academia, the home of the David by Michelangelo. There were three lines waiting to get in; groups, people who had reservations, and everyone else. We fell into the group with reservations. After a 30 minute wait we were able to get into the Gallery de Academia and see the collection inside. Besides the David there was a great collection about Franciscan monks.  We eventually found the David statue, we just had to follow the tourists, other tourists.

(admittance into the Gallery of Accademia)

After exiting the Galleria de Academia, it was time for some Italian sweets; gelato and canolis, yum. Later in the evening we found a buffet for dinner at Grand Caffe San Marco, which had a very nice street side sitting in San Marco square, and the food wasn't too bad either.